Nick Matzorkis, Media and Technology Entrepreneur  Nick Matzorkis Biography

ZabaSearch founder Nick Matzorkis is best known as the founder of US SEARCH, the first easy and affordable service to help people locate long lost friends and family members. Founded in 1994 as a home business, US SEARCH grew to 400 employees by 1999, when the company's IPO, valued at $160 million, landed US SEARCH on the NASDAQ and on the world stage as the #1 people locator service in the world.

As the first company to access and sell public record information directly to the public, US SEARCH enjoyed spectacular success under Mr. Matzorkis's leadership. In 2001, Mr. Matzorkis and fellow board member Nicholas Rockefeller left US SEARCH to start GlobalAgora-China. Considered the first U.S.-based technology company to launch operations in the People's Republic of China, GlobalAgora was first to bring wireless shopping in mainland China.

After his success in China, Mr. Matzorkis's interest turned once more to the public information industry, and in 2002 he sold GlobalAgora to an international syndicate of investors. That same year Mr. Matzorkis co-founded PeopleData with longtime business partner Robert Zakari, and in 2005 they teamed again to launch ZabaSearch, the first company to provide the same kind of easily accessible friends and relative locator services to ordinary people that Matzorkis invented at US Search, but with one very important difference: It's free.

In addition to his widely recognized (and at times controversial) reputation as the leading innovator of direct-to-consumer public records information for a fee and for free, Mr. Matzorkis has founded, managed and been involved in an eclectic variety of additional businesses, including web development, television and music production and distribution, musical and theatrical artist management, and telecommunications technologies.

Less known to the public Mr. Matzorkis serves so widely are his generous philanthropic contributions, and his creation of and participation as a guitarist in the band ClipBandits, generally regarded as the world's first web band.

And that's not all: Mr. Matzorkis was executive producer of a song collection written and performed by Madonna. His company Web Sites Now helped Hollywood studios, and production and management companies learn about and get on the web when they had no idea what the fuss was all about. And in 1997 appeared on numerous news programs to describe his involvement in being alerted to and then, with an employee, discovering the deceased members of the Heaven's Gate cult, which committed mass-suicide.

For the fuller story on Nick Matzorkis ‹ his invention of and involvement in the generally misunderstood (and often misrepresented) public record search industry, as well as his many other widely varied and interesting, entertaining and at times controversial activities and accomplishments ‹ please continue on to the sections below.

INFORMING A PUBLIC

It was a memorable line heard many times a day throughout much of the 90s, the voice of Nick Matzorkis inviting TV viewers to "Find anyone! Call Nick and Rob - 1-800-US-SEARCH."

The US SEARCH ad became so familiar it earned a mention in Tonight Show host Jay Leno's opening monologue.

Nick Matzorkis invited people to call, and call they did. Millions of ordinary people, in search of long lost friends and family members. A nation which, until US SEARCH, had no simple, affordable way to find people with whom they wished to reunite.

The number of successful reunions were many, and it was not uncommon to witness the results of US SEARCH's most touching and "against-all-odds" success stories on news and talk shows such as CNN, Good Morning America, and The View. More recently, 60 Minutes featured US SEARCH thirteen years after it reunited two long lost friends who were the company's very first customers.

Inspired by a childhood experience 20 years prior, Nick Matzorkis founded US SEARCH as a Beverly Hills home-based business, growing the company to 200 employees in just two years. Double in size by 1999, the company had an IPO valued at $160 million on the NASDAQ, earning the rank as the #1 people locator service in the world.

In 2002 First American Title acquired control of US SEARCH and, merging various subsidiaries, is now traded as First Advantage, which enjoys a market capitalization of over $1.3 billion.

Yet despite so much success as an affordable, accessible means for people to find one another, Mr. Matzorkis had yet to achieve his ultimate dream: To put the power of finding long lost loved ones and friends via public records searches into the hands of the very public it serves for free.

In 2005 Mr. Matzorkis's dream came true when, partnering once more with longtime friend and business associate Robert Zachari, the duo founded ZabaSearch.

For the first time, people long-lost and in search of one another had a free and powerful tool to meet again.

But not everyone shared Mr. Matzorkis's and ZabaSearch's well-intentioned approach to empowering the public with a way to search itself.

Privacy advocates cried foul, citing ZabaSearch's ability to display the address and phone number of people found using the service's search tool was an invasion of privacy. The mainstream press reacted in kind, frequently stating that ZabaSearch was not only invading the rights of citizens, it was also potentially dangerous because it makes it possible to find people who may not want to be located.

Both perceptions of ZabaSearch are false for one very critical reason: All information found using ZabaSearch is public record. Contrary to the frequent accusation by privacy advocates and the press, ZabaSearch does not own and maintain a database of citizens. What ZabaSearch does own is an innovative, powerful and extremely thorough search technology that scours existing public record databases to help people find long-lost family, friends and acquaintances.

In one story, a journalist misrepresented ZabaSearch, and when the company contacted the writer to clarify certain points, the journalist professed he was unable to reach ZabaSearch founder Nick Matzorkis for a comment. Ironically, the journalist could have simply found Mr. Matzorkis by using ZabaSearch; as a testament to his belief in the service he helped to found, Mr. Matzorkis and other ZabaSearch principals make no effort to block their own public information from view.

To learn more about ZabaSearch and how it conducts business, click here to read ZabaSearch: Frequently Asked Questions.

ENTERTAINING BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGIES

In addition to US Search and ZabaSearch, Nick Matzorkis in the 1990s founded and operated several other companies under the banner "InterAct Entertainment Group." InterAct businesses included web development, television and music productions and distribution, musical and theatrical artist management, and telecommunications, making the company perhaps the first to successfully converge these formerly disparate enterprises into working business models in the heart of the entertainment industry.

InterAct Entertainment's "Harmony Music and Video" produced and distributed music and video titles, many of which were produced by Mr. Matzorkis, who also presided as the company's chairman. As executive producer of "Pre-Madonna," a collection of songs written and performed by Madonna, Mr. Matzorkis created and released the only Madonna CD ever that is not own and controlled by Warner Bros or Madonna.

Mr. Matzorkis also executive produced the critically acclaimed CD "Music, Peace and Harmony," by artist Viveka Davis. Harmony also released a successful five-volume video series starring #1 New York Times best-selling author Sylvia Browne, as well as produced specialized videos that included "Beauty Pageant," written by former Miss America and hosted by former Miss USA.

In the technology arena, Mr. Matzorkis founded US BELL, Web Sites Now!, and InterAct on the Internet, a trio of ventures specializing in web development and telecommunications services for outside companies and consumers. These enterprises also provided the technology backbone for their sister companies, including Harmony Music and Video, InterAct Talent Management, Kushner-Locke, and US SEARCH.

Launched in 1991, US BELL provided long distances services, developed high-volume call capture technologies, and maintained a call center in the InterAct headquarters that operated 24/7/365, handling millions of callers per month. Besides supporting its sister companies, US BELL also provided high-volume toll-free calls capture services to outside companies such as Miss Universe, Inc., which broadcast toll-free numbers on network television. In addition, the company also provided live operator support and order capturing and credit card processing services for toll-free numbers leased to clients and sister companies, enabling US BELL to take the thousands of simultaneous calls that resulted when the toll-free numbers were broadcast.

In 1994, Web Sites Now! was ahead of the web curve as a builder of customized websites for studios, production and management companies, and entertainers a time when most clients didn't even know what a website was or why they would matter so much in the not-too-distant future. With frequent ads on the back covers of entertainment trade magazines Daily Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, and on CNN, MSNBC and CNBC, Web Sites Now! succinctly educated readers and viewers about what websites are and why everyone serious about the future of their business needed one. The advertisements began with a quote by Mr. Matzorkis's: "If you don't have a web site, you don't exist in the new global marketplace." A decade and a half later, and those foretelling words remain truer than ever.

In 1995, InterAct on the Internet specialized in building more complex custom web development applications for clients, including audio and video streaming and high-volume data storage. These innovations made it possible for the first time for many record labels, entertainers and production company clients to directly publish music and movie trailer types of content on their websites.

Prior to founding the InterAct Entertainment Group of companies, Nick Matzorkis teamed with Ziggy cartoon creator Tom Wilson in 1990 to Ziggy & Friends Productions, which developed Ziggy print, animation and character licensing projects. Together, Nick Matzorkis and Tom Wilson acted as executive producers to develop entertainment projects to draw attention to environmental concerns of our time, working with celebrities that included Academy Award winners John Voight and Louis Gossett, Jr., as well as David Crosby, Olivia Newton John, and Stevie Wonder.

Before Ziggy & Friends, Nick Matzorkis and legendary promoter Hank LaConti in 1986 opened and operated the Cleveland Agora Theater and Ballroom concert venue, where Matzorkis produced hundreds of concerts in the 1800 seat theater. During the same period Matzorkis produced larger festival shows in outdoor venues, and also launched a management company that later became InterAct Talent Management of Beverly Hills.

During his four years operating the Cleveland Agora Theater, Nick Matzorkis produced hundreds of shows with veritable "Who's-Who" list of rock starts that included Neil Young, Keith Richards, Ron Wood, Bob Dylan and David Crosby. Band and tour management clients included Humble Pie, Dave Mason and Fleetwood Mac, and theatrical talent clients later included Academy Award winner Maximilian Schell, Viveka Davis ("Seinfeld," Judds NBC miniseries, Ed TV with Mathew McConaughey, Message in a Bottle with Kevin Costner, Curley Sue with Jim Belushi, Ricochet with Denzel Washington, Castaway with Tom Hanks, Man Trouble with Jack Nicholson), Kim Wayans ("In Living Color"), Diana Scanwid (Mommy Dearest, and Emmy nomination for her role as Bess Truman in Truman). In 1995 and 1996, InterAct Management represented clients in two consecutive Cannes Film Festivals, and also an Emmy nominee in 1996.

In 2001, Nick Matzorkis and Nicholas Rockefeller resigned from US SEARCH and went on to launch GlobalAgora-China in partnership with Chinese government controlled Wuhan Department Store Group. GlobalAgora is believe to be the first U.S.-based technology company to launch operations in the People's Republic of China, as well as the first to enable wireless shopping in mainland China. In 2002 Mr. Matzorkis sold GlobalAgora to an international syndicate of investors.

MAJOR MEDIA EXPOSURE

While operating the Agora, a 1988 dispute over a car lease lead to auto theft charges against Mr. Matzorkis. This incident, coupled with an extraordinary happenstance nearly ten years later, have lead to speculation, gossip and intrigue about Nick Matzorkis on numerous web sites, blogs, discussion boards, more often than not drawing Mr. Matzorkis into various conspiracy theories. A Google search on "Nick Matzorkis" turns up hundreds of hits, and while he finds such an abundance of misrepresentations about his background and his life excessive, he more than most understands how the web operates on its own set of rules. Typifying the way Mr. Matzorkis's association with unrelated high-profile media events that contribute to and fuel the speculation and interest him are the circumstances surrounding a tragic event that occurred in March of 1997, when 15 website designer and programmer contract employees thrust InterAct Entertainment Group into one of the 90's biggest media circuses: The Heaven's Gate cult mass suicide. Reacting to the tragedy, Mr. Matzorkis believes "once you've been involved with an extreme circumstance like that, there's no escaping being the fodder of Internet chat for the rest of your life.

Mr. Matzorkis currently resides in Austin, TX with his wife Susan and their three children. His primary hobby is dabbling in new technologies, and he recently created and played guitar for the ClipBandits, which performed on the Tyra Banks show in TKTK, and is generally regarded as the "world's first web band." More recently, Mr. Matzorkis drew a large following by accurately predicting the voting outcome of American Idol each of the last six weeks of the 2006 ad 2007 seasons, posting the correct voting results ten hours before the shows aired on television.

CURRENTLY

Nick Matzorkis continues to develop cutting edge uses of technologies as he oversees his ventures and interests, and manages pet philanthropic projects. He divides his family time between the Matzorkis's primary residence in Austin, Malibu, Aspen, and the Greek Isles, homeland of all four of his grandparents.