J. D. Lasica

Who is J. D. Lasica?

J. D. Lasica is the byline of Joseph Daniel Lasica, a social media consultant, online journalist and blogger. He is the author of Darknet: Hollywood's War Against the Digital Generation, a book about the copyright wars and the future of media.

Lasica was born in Passaic, New Jersey and graduated from Rutgers University, where he holds a BA in communication.

He began working in journalism as a reporter for the Passaic Herald News, then held several editing positions at the Sacramento Union and Sacramento Bee in California. He left newspapers in 1997 when he joined Microsoft's Sidewalk.com city guide as copy chief and managing editor. In 1999 he joined BabyCenter.com, a site for new and expectant parents in San Francisco, as managing editor and then editorial director. He worked briefly as Director of Content and Production for iVendor in Sunnyvale, California, before the Silicon Valley startup folded in late 2000.

From 1997 to 2005, Lasica wrote dozens of free-lance articles for publications such as the American Journalism Review, where he was its first new media columnist; the Online Journalism Review, where he was its chief columnist; and the now-defunct Industry Standard magazine. In 2003 Lasica was editor of the white paper We Media: How Audiences Are Shaping the Future of News and Information, published by the Media Center at the American Press Institute. From 2004 to 2005 he was a columnist for Engadget, a technology blog. His book "Darknet" came out in May 2005.