Brian Alvey

StubHub Hubbub

25 days ago

We had a great night last night. Niki said she wanted to get tickets for Rob Thomas at the Beacon Theatre in New York City months ago. We didn't get them when they went on sale and figured we'd either skip the show or buy some on the ticket reselling service StubHub. We've had a great experience with StubHub in the past, so a few weeks back we bought 5th row seats. We were excited.
The show started at 7PM and there were two opening acts we wanted to see but we hadn't eaten, so we had a quick dinner at the diner on the corner. At 8:10PM we walked to the show. As we passed an independent ticket salesperson (i.e., scalper) who was offering us a seat "upgrade" to the 13th row, I happily thought to myself "well for us that would be a downgrade." How cool.
Niki and I have seen Rob with Matchbox 20 at Jones Beach and at Madison Square Garden. I saw a solo Rob Thomas show at Live8 in Philly. Niki and I also saw a solo Rob Thomas show with Jewel at Jones Beach and we saw Santana at Jones Beach when Rob came out to sing his monster hit "Smooth." It's safe to say we were both looking forward to this show.
The Beacon scanned our tickets and told us our tickets had already been used once and we couldn't go in. We immediately realized that the person who printed these tickets at home made two copies: one for his friends and one to sell on StubHub. Or maybe he sold the other pair on Ebay.
We remained calm.

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Going open

41 days ago

In September at TechCrunch50 Craig and I got up on stage and told a couple thousand of our closest friends -- and tens of thousands of our closest friends who couldn't make it to SF so they watched on ustream -- that our Crowd Fusion platform is being released as an open source project. Unlike the hour-and-a-half episode of This Week in Startups that I was on, this was a six minute presentation (video here) with two minutes of questions from the panel of expert judges. It was a blast being on stage and having people come up to us afterwards with feedback and questions. I definitely need to go to more events and do more speaking!

After a whirlwind tour of Crowd Fusion's features, we gave out the URL for registering for our beta program. We had 500 signups in the first week and we've got about 700 total now. We are managing the beta applicants using our own CMS as a CRM system.
The first round of developers has had access for a few weeks now. The second round is getting access later today, now that most of our documentation has been written. We are going slowly, taking our time with each new user, answering questions about the platform and helping get sites built. "Concierge" is a pretty accurate description of this process. We'll do a few more rounds of access and then release Crowd Fusion publicly some time in early 2010.
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Bands of color

56 days ago

On the way to school this morning, "Under the Bridge" came on the radio and I asked my boys to tell me who the band was. Usually, they pass these music tests on the first or second attempt. They both love the song "Snow," so I figured they had a good chance of getting the right band for this one.
My 6-year-old's first guess was Green Day. I said that was close and this is a band with a color in the name. I figured with that clue they'd nail it on the second try.
My 4-year-old: "Pink?"
"Nope. This is a guy singing."
My 6-year-old: "Maroon 5?"
Wow. I wasn't expecting that one. "No."
My 4-year-old: "Black-eyed Peas?"
Again, I was stunned. "No."
I didn't realize they knew so many bands with colors in the name. Now I was getting worried they'd start rattling off bands they couldn't possibly know like Deep Purple, James Brown, Pink Floyd, Whitesnake and the Indigo Girls and completely blow my mind, but my 6-year-old saved the day with "Red Hot Chili Peppers!"
I love taking those boys to school.
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Law and Awe

66 days ago

My 6-year-old came into my basement office and was fascinated by what I was doing. At first I thought he was amazed by my giant monitor, but it turned out he was digging my wireless mouse. He picked it up and tried using it sideways on the wall by my desk, which was close enough to work. Then he tried the desk across the room with no luck. At this point I freaked out a little because I had open a Gmail reply to a bunch of lawyers about a contract -- I didn't want him to send it by mistake before I finished writing my message.
When I explained to him that I was writing lawyers and needed the mouse back immediately he asked me what lawyers are. I told him that police make sure people follow the laws, but lawyers actually create the laws. They decide what you can and can't do and these people I'm writing are lawyers who write contracts. I also explained that contracts are agreements, like written promises.
Then I asked him if he knew anyone who used to be a lawyer. He said he didn't. I told him that my father used to be a lawyer. He said, "Wow!" and then ran off and immediately told his brother that their grandfather used to be a lawyer. He could only have been more excited if I had told him his grandfather was a retired jedi.
What I didn't tell him was that my dad told me repeatedly that "lawyering sucks" and that I could pick any other career but that one. I'll hold onto that one. Hopefully this marveling at lawyers thing is just a phase.
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A Whole New World

144 days ago

We had a great codejam in Allentown this week and next week I'm on the road with my family for our 11th anniversary trip. There is so much going on. So many changes ahead.
Instead of embedding Aladdin's A Whole New World video, I thought I'd share this awesome Microsoft Windows commercial:

Continue reading A Whole New World ›
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Flu Fighters

169 days ago

A few weeks ago my year-old daughter had a 104-degree fever that Tylenol and Motrin wouldn't touch -- only baths. She was miserable. Niki took her to the doctor thinking she had an ear infection. They tested her for the flu and the results came back negative.
Days later another doctor at the same office told us she had swine flu. At that point she had been sick for so long they decided Tamiflu wouldn't help. Fortunately they explained that swine flu is often only fatal if you have another underlying condition like asthma or diabetes. They also explained that 30% of the flu tests that come back negative are wrong.
Last week I woke up with a bad cold and aching muscles all over. Niki was worried since I don't handle the flu very well so she immediately made a doctor appointment for me. I was at his office passing my flu test before my first fever kicked in. I took Tamiflu and Advil for five days. My pharma-conspiracy friends were thrilled to hear that even with a good insurance plan my out-of-pocket Tamiflu bill for ten pills was $86.
I only did two conference calls last week. I skipped the Twitter conference in NYC. I drank plenty of Gatorade, read a lot and rested. I watched some great Law & Order episodes from last season Niki had saved on TiVo.
I feel really lucky that it didn't knock me out as badly as previous flus have and that I finally felt normal again in time for Father's Day yesterday.
Swine flu beaten -- now to conquer my overflowing inbox.
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What is Crowd Fusion?

207 days ago

Two weeks ago, I was on Jason's new This Week In Startups show -- you can watch that episode here. We spent a lot of time talking about my career, but we did get to dive into the Crowd Fusion model and some of the platform's features. That same morning we pushed the expanded version of our Crowd Fusion site live. Until then it had been a one-page website with a contact form and four two-line bios.
So now you can learn more about the Crowd Fusion platform, see Crowd Fusion news as we post it, get more information on some of our team members and see how Crowd Fusion works in our showcase sites.
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Kindle DX fever

216 days ago

CK, who is a certifiable Kindle freak, attended Amazon's huge Kindle event at Pace this morning.
He scored some video of the Kindle DX in action and did his own hands on Kindle DX review.

Not sure if I'd go for the large Kindle DX or if I'd want the more portable Kindle 2, but Amazon's making the decision easy for me since the DX isn't available for a while.
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This Week in Startups

221 days ago

What better way to wrap up a massively productive L.A. trip than to spend the day at Mahalo and be Jason's first guest on This Week in Startups?
I had a great time doing it. The show was streaming live in the box below, but now it's off the air. The show page is here on Ustream.tv, but the first episode isn't available yet. I've heard you'll be able to find it on iTunes. Ustream's search is really bad.
TechCrunch's headline for it was great: For The First Episode Of “This Week In Startups,” Jason Calacanis Interviews His Best Friend. I have long suspected that since we haven't worked together or lived near each other in years, Jason has found a new best friend. But according to TechCrunch, I'm still the one. Awesome.

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How to save journalism

228 days ago

I have been reading a ton of stories about the AP vs. Google and how journalism costs too much to support online-only newspapers and about how to make better local news sites. With every story I've been trying to find a solution or an angle. Is there something our publishing platform can do to help traditional news organizations? Is there something we can invent to give audiences a valuable enough resource AND be able to pay for the creation of content?
And then I saw the future: auto-tune. Auto-tune is that magical audio processor that corrects notes as they're being sung. If you're a little off, auto-tune will cover up your mistakes. It was first heard widely in Cher's Believe ("Do you bel-ie-eeve in life after lo-ove?") and it's heard all the time these days.
This is how the news industry will be saved: journalism + auto-tune = viral.
Here's the second video they made, which is guaranteed to breathe new life into Katie Couric's career:

Continue reading How to save journalism ›
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Brian Alvey

StubHub Hubbub

Going open

Bands of color

Law and Awe

A Whole New World

Flu Fighters

What is Crowd Fusion?

Kindle DX fever

This Week in Startups

How to save journalism

Who is Brian Alvey?

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