Gawker: valleywag, brian alvey

Jason Calacanis Manages to Annoy Angels Stadium Security Guards

Ryan Tate — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 13:29:19 EDT

After making millions selling his company to AOL, you might think Jason Calacanis would be done making a public spectacle of himself. Not so. Just ask the security guards at Angel Stadium.

The Weblogs Inc. and Mahalo founder held up a series of signs at last night's Yankee-Angels game, including "Yanks in 5 Games" and "Jeter for MVP." Assisting him were two other Web entrepreneurs: Josh Harris (founder of dot-com webcasting company Psuedo.com, star of the documentary We Live in Public, and current boarder in Calacanis' pool house) and Brian Alvey (founder of publishing technology company Crowd Fusion).

Calacanis and Harris managed to get their picture in the Daily News, but not to fight off the guards in Anaheim. Harris tells us:

We had a sign that said "Jeter for MVP" but it got ripped out of our hands by pissed off stadium security guards after Calacanis got under their skin. I am still a huge fan even after Jeter got my space at 600 Broadway.

Psuedo.com used to be headquartered on the top floors of 600 Broadway; Jeter subsequently built a gym on the top three floors. We're not sure if Calacanis will be at Game 5 of the Yankees' American League Championship Series against the Angels on Thursday night, but it's entirely possible he'll learn something about evictions of his own if he attends and keeps up his antics. And that's one public spectacle we'd love to see.

(Pic: Calacanis by Joi Ito)

Weblogs Inc. cofounder to check out Jason Calacanis's package

Owen Thomas — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 17:40:00 EST

Jason Calacanis, the professional email sender and part-time CEO of Mahalo, is a busy man. Fresh from executing layoffs at his fewer-humans-than-before-powered search engine, he's jetting off to Japan. This, mind you, despite promising to cut down on travel as an austerity measure. Brian Alvey, Calacanis's cofounder at Weblogs Inc., the blog network they sold to AOL for $25 million, is keeping house for him. "Heading to L.A. so I can house sit for @jasoncalacanis and help with any packages that arrive while he's in Japan," he writes on Facebook, according to a screenshot sent in by a tipster. Alvey later admits the "package" that's arriving: Calacanis's $109,000 all-electric Tesla Roadster. Here's the Facebook discussion this prompted:

AOL makes Jason Calacanis makes AOL look like geniuses

Alaska Miller — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 09:20:00 EDT

AOL has released numbers detailing the success of Weblogs Inc., its blog network for a reported $25 million. Since taking the company off of Jason Calacanis's and Brian Alvey's hands in 2005, AOL has seen visitor traffic climb 122 percent a year on average, from 1.4 million visitors to 13 million. Revenue went from $6 million to $30 million off of 13 million visitors. You'd think AOL could afford to pay their bloggers to blog.

Techcest: Why Brian Alvey owned JohnBattelle.com

ndouglas — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 18:42:05 EDT

~~This year, as every year, Brian Alvey of the Weblogs, Inc. Network renewed JohnBattelle.com.~~ UPDATE: Brian Alvey of Weblogs Inc. doesn't still own JohnBattelle.com, but because his WIN partner Jason Calacanis sold it along with the Silicon Alley Reporter, he's been listed as owning the domain ever since the first boom.

Back then, Battelle was at the tech news outlet Industry Standard, claiming that he'd take over Calacanis's competing Silicon Alley Reporter. Calacanis threatened to use JohnBattelle.com to cover conflicts of interest when Battelle wrote about his investors' companies.

The two are still rivals, with members of Battelle's blog ad network FM Publishing competing with Calacanis's blog network. But that's not all the bad blood between the two media mini-moguls. Here's a guide to just one cluster of the thick web of techcest:

Diagram by Dan Lurie
JohnBattelle.com registration [Whois]