Amanda Hesser, food critic at the New York Times, has been a hot new talent for several years, and now she’s got plans to truly embrace new media and become, you guessed it, a new media tastemakers. At least, that’s what we’re hearing from an article in New York Magazine, who initially seemed to be a bit skeptical, but eventually published a “part 2” to the following:

Amanda Hesser is putting the best face on her buyout from the New York Times, spinning the event, 1998-style, as a bold new leap into the electronic frontier, in the form of a digital-life aggregator. (A digital-life aggregator is an application that gathers all the content you produce — photos, blog posts, YouTube videos, etc. — and puts it all on one Web page.) The only problems are that (a) her background and reputation is based entirely on food and cookery, and this project is, by her own admission, unrelated to either; and that (b) there are already a number of digital-life aggregators out there, and they’re not exactly taking America by storm. We would still feel bad for Amanda Hesser even if she were going to move to a beach house on Martinique — no one likes to lose a job at the Times — but this new-media venture has a grimness to it we wouldn’t wish on Judith Miller

TasteTV Events include:

• The San Francisco International Chocolate Salon
• The Los Angeles Luxury Chocolate Salon, Oct. 5, 2008
  
• The Chicago Luxury Chocolate Salon, Sept. 7, 2008
  
• The Seattle Luxury Chocolate Salon, July 13, 2008
• The New Media Tastemakers Summit

This blog from the contributors, producers and correspondents at TasteTV at TasteTV.com. technorati tags:TasteTV, restaurants, video, content, food, Chocolate, wine, recipes, cooking, Restaurant Reviews, Chef, ITV, fashion, seafood

Kara Walsh, Metromix.com

Kara Walsh is Chief Executive Officer of Metromix LLC, a joint venture between Tribune Interactive (TI) and Gannett Company created to form a national network of local entertainment websites under the Metromix brand. Walsh served as General Manager of Metromix for Tribune Interactive in 2006-07.

Prior to joining TI and Metromix, Walsh was VP of online at Village Voice Media (VVM) where she served as general manager of villagevoice.com and led strategy and business planning for VVM’s network of 17 alternative news and entertainment websites.

Entertainment listings play a central role in the products that Walsh has worked with over the last ten years. Before joining VVM, she served as director of new business marketing at TV Guide and head of customer loyalty marketing at British Sky Broadcasting.

Walsh’s earlier experience includes brand management at The Coca-Cola Company as well as strategy and technology consulting. She has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a B.S. in Mathematical Sciences from Clemson University. She lives in Chicago, where Metromix LLC is based.