Brian Alvey

Just add drama

623 days ago

When Weblogs became part of AOL Jason and I had been equal partners, but someone had the bright idea to have me report to him. So my reporting structure at AOL looked like this:

Brian Alvey > Jason Calacanis > Tina Sharkey > Jim Bankoff > Ted Leonsis > Jon Miller.

Earlier this week, that chain looked like:

Brian Alvey > gone > gone > Jim Bankoff > gone > gone.

Today, Jim Bankoff and three other top AOL execs resigned.

Brian Alvey > gone > gone > gone > gone > gone.

Comments (15)

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Reply
Michael Martine 622 days ago

Well, I guess you're the man now, dog.
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Kevin C. Tofel 622 days ago

Congrats Brian! I hope you enjoy and run AOL very well in this new reporting scheme that has you at the top. If you need someone a few rungs down on the ladder, I'm for hire. I would be happy with Kevin C. Tofel > Gone > Gone > Gone > Gone > Brian Alvey. Just have your people call my people and it's a done deal. ;)
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Randy Charles Morin 622 days ago

I would claim the CEO position. Quickly!
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Dossy Shiobara 622 days ago

Brian, just remember to turn off the lights when you leave.

(There's always Blogsmith, right?)
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pereiradasilva 621 days ago

Superb blog. Thanks for sharing and creating such a wonderful piece.
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Michael Jones 621 days ago

Funny - my post is simliar:

http://www.mjones.la
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Tanner Godarzi 621 days ago

I would gladly take one of the gone positions to add some company.
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Shane 620 days ago

So AOL buys Weblogs Inc and 12 months later its all over :)

Rats... ship... hows it go?

Just kidding.
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Shawn Honnick 620 days ago

Funny. Great post. Does this mean AOL dies and is gone from the web forever? If so, really great post.
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Daniel GranstrÃ¶m 620 days ago

Maybe they'll be back at AOL after the next IT Bubble 2.0? Because AOL still have some capital, I believe. Right now, though, I think there's money and thus opportunity to make it in better, more exciting palces. Less old corporate structure, more creative areas.

This is what happens when you sell out to old media / advertising companies, anyway. Just look at Google's owning of Blogger the last 3½ years, or Flickr's integration with Yahoo. No real progress since. Just capitalization and cashing-in philosophy. Selling advertising [Blogger..] and maximizing making money off other people's content (through pro accounts [Flickr..], selling user stats [Google Analytics..], and making money off selling mugs, t-shirts and posters designed by other people [deviantART..]).

But I see many here are, in the end, only in it for the money, so it makes total sense what becomes of it. A pity to me though.
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Tom Royce 620 days ago

It sounds like an old sixties doo wop song.

Brian Alvey reports to the gone,gone,gone,gone,gone.
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Stefan Juhl 619 days ago

Well, enjoy your freedom while it lasts..
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zeldman 593 days ago

Dude, writing a post like this could get you so fired!

... if you still reported to anybody.
Reply
Tercume 281 days ago

nice article.

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