It was a childhood experience which 20 years later prompted Nicholas Matzorkis to appreciate the need for an affordable, accessible people locate service. While US SEARCH was the first to provide such a service at an affordable price in early 1994, it was not until Mr. Matzorkis went on to launch ZabaSearch in 2005 that finally made the service of searching public records to locate people free to the public. [More reunion videos]

ZabaSearch has received extensive media coverage (NPR - FOX News - Wired) and unfortunately has become a target of many privacy related activists which ZabaSearch often maintains misrepresent its capabilities and intentions. ZabaSearch points out that the information it displays is all available elsewhere on the web and is all public information. ZabaSearch represents an inevitable evolutionary phase in Internet technologies and the democratization of public information.

US SEARCH was one of six companies Mr. Matzorkis founded and operated out of Beverly Hills during the 1990's under the banner, "InterAct Entertainment Group". The other InterAct companies were in the business of web development, television and music production and distribution, musical and theatrical artist management, and telecommunications technologies. InterAct Entertainment Group was perhaps the first to successfully converge entertainment, telecommunications and fledgling Internet related technologies into working business models in the heart of the entertainment industry in the early 1990's.

InterAct Entertainment's "Harmony Music and Video" specialized in production and distribution of music and video titles. In addition to his role as chairman of InterAct, Nick Matzorkis would frequently play the role of producer in many of its projects. Matzorkis was executive producer of "Pre-Madonna", a collection of songs written and performed by Madonna that to this day remains the only Madonna CD ever released that is not owned and controlled by Warner Bros and Madonna. Matzorkis was also executive producer of the critically acclaimed "Music, Peace and Harmony" CD by artist Viveka Davis. Harmony also released a successful five volume video series starring #1 New York Times best-selling author Sylvia Browne and produced a series of specialized videos including, "Beauty Pageant", written by a former Miss America and hosted by a former Miss USA.

‘US BELL’, ‘Web Sites Now!’, and ‘InterAct on the Internet’ were all founded by Matzorkis in the early 1990’s which provided various web development and telecommunications services to outside companies and consumers. Additionally, they provided technology backbone for their sister companies, ‘Harmony Music and Video’, InterAct Talent Management, Kushner-Locke and US SEARCH.

Launched in 1991, ‘US BELL’ provided long distance services, developed high volume voice capture technologies, and maintained a 24/7/365 call center in the InterAct headquarters in Beverly Hills capable of handling millions of callers per month. In addition to supporting its sister companies such as US SEARCH, US BELL also provided high volume toll-free call capture services to outside companies such as Miss Universe inc who broadcast toll-free numbers on network television. US BELL provided toll-free numbers, long distance services, high volume voice capture technologies, live operator support, order capturing and credit card processing services and was capable of taking thousands of simultaneous phone calls resulting from the national broadcast of the toll free numbers it leased to its clients and sister companies.

‘Web Sites Now!’ began building customized web sites in 1994 for studios, production companies, management companies and entertainers at a time when most of the clients didn’t know what a web site was. ‘Web Sites Now!’ regularly advertised on the back covers of entertainment trade magazines Daily Variety and The Hollywood Reporter and on CNN, MSNBC and CNBC, having to explain in their advertisements what a web site was and why everyone needed one. ‘Web Sites Now!’ advertisements began with the quote by Matzorkis, “If you don’t have a web site you don’t exist in the new global marketplace”. ‘Web Sites Now!’ started with the first T-3 Internet connection in Beverly Hills and a web server farm in the InterAct headquarters which supported its sister companies and outside clients.

In 1995, ‘InterAct on the Internet’ built more complex customized web development applications for clients including early stages of audio / video streaming and “high volume” data storage, enabling many record labels, entertainers and production company clients for the first time to directly publish to the public music and movie trailer type content on their web sites.

Prior to the InterAct Entertainment Group of companies, Nick Matzorkis and Ziggy cartoon creator Tom Wilson launched Ziggy & Friends Productions in 1990. They developed Ziggy print, animation, and character licensing projects. Nick Matzorkis and Tom Wilson were Executive Producers with celebrities such as Academy Award winners Jon Voight and Louis Gossett Jr. and others such as David Crosby, Olivia Newton John, and Stevie Wonder to develop entertainment projects intended to draw attention to environmental concerns of our time.

Before Ziggy & Friends, Matzorkis opened and operated the ‘Cleveland Agora Theater and Ballroom’ concert venue in 1986 with legendary promoter Hank LoConti. Matzorkis produced and promoted hundreds of concerts in the Agora 1800 seat theater as well as larger festival shows in outside venues. He also started a successful management company during this time which later turned into InterAct Talent Management of Beverly Hills, expanding beyond musical talent to theatrical talent and production.

During his four years operating the Cleveland Agora Theater, Matzorkis promoted hundreds of shows with such legendary rock artists as Neil Young (Live at the Cleveland Agora), Keith Richards, Ron Wood, Bob Dylan and David Crosby. Band and tour management clients have included Humble Pie, Dave Mason and Fleetwood Mac. Theatrical talent clients later included Academy Award winner Maximilian Schell, Viveka Davis (Seinfeld, Judds NBC Mini-series, Edtv w/Mathew McConaughy, Message in a Bottle w/Kevin Costner, Curley Sue w/Jim Belushi, Ricochet w/Denzel Washington, Castaway w/Tom Hanks, Man Trouble w/Jack Nicholson), Kim Wayans (In Living Color), Diana Scarwid (Mommy Dearest and Emmy nomination for her role as Bess Truman in Truman) etc. InterAct Management had clients in two consecutive Cannes Film Festivals in 1995 and 1996 and an Emmy nomination in 1996.

During his years at the Agora, a 1988 dispute over a car lease lead to auto theft charges being filed against Matzorkis. This incident, coupled with an extraordinary happenstance almost 10 years later in 1997 has lead to quite a bit of speculation, gossip and intrigue about Matzorkis in many web sites, blogs and discussion boards, resulting in Matzorkis being drawn into numerous conspiracy theories which have propagated the net. A simple Google search on Nick Matzorkis yields hundreds of such entries.  While he doesn’t like to see such abundant misrepresentations about him on the web, he understands the web operates on its own set of rules and that his association with unrelated high profile media events has contributed to and fueled such coverage. In March 1997, 15 web site designer and programmer contract employees thrust InterAct Entertainment Group into one of the biggest media circuses of the 1990's.  Matzorkis points out, “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”.

During the 1990's InterAct companies employed thousands of people in its Beverly Hills offices. ZabaSearch co-founder and long-time Matzorkis business partner, Robert Zakari, became general counsel of all the InterAct Entertainment Group companies in 1996, including US SEARCH through its IPO.  Nicholas Rockefeller joined the Board of Directors of US SEARCH in 1998. US SEARCH had its IPO the following year.

Nicholas Matzorkis and Nicholas Rockefeller both resigned from US SEARCH in 2001 and went on to launch GlobalAgora-China in partnership with Chinese government controlled Wuhan Department Store Group, publicly traded on the Shanghai Exchange. GlobalAgora is believed to be the first U.S. based technology company to launch operations in the People's Republic of China and the first to enable wireless shopping in mainland China. An international syndicate of investors with interests in Chinese retail operations purchased GlobalAgora-China operations, proprietary wireless software technology and hardware in 2002.

In 2000, Mr. Zakari resigned from US SEARCH to become part of the founding management team of X-Drive Technologies of Santa Monica, CA, later purchased by AOL. Robert Zakari rejoined with Nick Matzorkis as General Counsel of GlobalAgora in 2001, to co-found PeopleData in 2002 and to co-found ZabaSearch in 2005.

Nick Matzorkis currently resides in Austin, TX with his wife Susan and their three children. In 2003, the Matzorkis' relocated from Bel Air, CA to Susan's hometown of Austin, TX, viewing it as the ideal place for them to raise their children. Mr. Matzorkis spends as much time as he can with his family while splitting his remaining time playing various roles in his companies/properties around the world.

His primary hobby is dabbling in new technologies. He recently created and played guitar for the ClipBandits, generally regarded as the "worlds first web band". They recently performed on the Tyra Banks Show. And, he recently drew a large following by accurately predicting the voting outcome of American Idol each of the last six weeks of the 2006 and 2007 seasons, posting the correct voting results 10 hours before the voting results shows aired on television.

Nick plans on continuing to develop cutting edge uses of technologies, oversee his ventures and interests, and manage pet philanthropic projects, while spending family time between the primary residence in Austin and favorite locations of Malibu, Aspen and (homeland of all four of his grandparents) the Greek Islands.