along with many of the employees at Rose's mobile app incubator called Milk. Former personalities Peter Barnes, Fox Business Channel Erica Hill, CNN journalist Leo Laporte, Leo Laporte's This Week in Tech, founder of TWiT.tv Kris Kosach, Host Audiofile Scott Herriot, Anchor of Internet Tonight and Sasquatch Hunter Michaela Pereira, anchor of KTTV's "Good Morning LA" Chris Pirillo, created own website Victoria Recaño, formerly at KTLA Becky Worley, tech contributor for ABC TV's Good Morning America Liam Mayclem, Formerly Correspondent Internet Tonight Host Audiofile NOW KCBS FOODIE CHAP KCBS RADIO Tammy Cavadias, Community Production Manager Virtual characters Many of the founding staff of ZDTV had previously worked on MSNBC's The Site, which featured Dev Null, a virtual animated character voiced by Leo Laporte who interacted with host Soledad O'Brien. Improving on the technology used for Dev Null, ZDTV created two animated virtual characters who appeared as hosts for the network. Dash (voiced first by Paul McKinney and later by Patrick Flick and Chris Manners, with body performance by Jessa Brie Moreno and Slater Penney) and Tilde (voiced by Kate Botello and later by Laura LeBleu, with body performance by Jessa Brie Moreno and Slater Penney, in some support chat appearances Tilde was played by Theresa Quinn, Asst Production Manager) appeared in on-air and online promos for the network. Dash also appeared as a virtual correspondent on the show Internet Tonight in a segment called "The Homepage Hall of Fame" and briefly as the host of "Dash's Animation House." History ZDTV The channel originally launched on Monday May 11, 1998, on cable systems in Las Vegas, Detroit, parts of Georgia near Atlanta and parts of Maine. Vulcan Ventures first invested in ZDTV, a network that supplemented content from Ziff-Davis' computer and technology based print publications (at the time including PC Magazine, MacWEEK, and eWEEK), in November 1998, acquiring a one-third interest from Ziff-Davis. In November 1999, Vulcan purchased the remaining two-thirds in a transaction that was completed on January 21, 2000. The deal (which permitted Vulcan to temporarily continue using the "ZD" initials and "red diamond" logo) was worth approximately $204.8 million. An early adopter of ZDTV was Charter Communications (also owned by Paul Allen at the time), which began carrying the channel in Newnan, Georgia in July 1998. Beginning on Saturday August 1, 1998, ZDTV was broadcast in its native San Francisco, when the channel struck a deal with DirecTV