Brian Alvey
Brian Alvey | |
|---|---|
| Born | March 6, 1970 Falls Church, Virginia, U.S. |
| Occupation(s) | Entrepreneur, coder, designer, blogger |
| Known for | Co-founder of Weblogs, Inc., CTO for WordPress VIP at Automattic |
Brian Alvey (born March 6, 1970, in Falls Church, Virginia) is an American serial entrepreneur, coder, designer, and blogger. Raised in Brooklyn, he currently holds the position of CTO for the WordPress VIP Platform at Automattic in San Francisco. He is widely recognized for co-founding the blog publishing firm Weblogs, Inc. alongside Jason Calacanis.
Early years
In 1995, Alvey created the inaugural TV Guide website and acted as senior technical lead for the launch of the first BusinessWeek website that same year. He built database-driven web applications for clients such as BusinessWeek, Intel, JD Edwards, Deloitte & Touche, and The McGraw-Hill Companies. His Tech-Engine career center software powered more than 200 online career portals including XML.com, Computer User, and DevShed. Additionally, he worked as art director for three print magazines and served as CTO at Rising Tide Studios, where he developed The Venture Reporter Network.
Alvey constructed publishing platforms for websites designed by Jeffrey Zeldman, including A List Apart (1998) and the official site of the Kansas City Chiefs. He also engineered the architecture behind the revamped international network of websites for Capgemini.
In 2002, Alvey partnered with Jason Calacanis to create and host the Meet The Makers conference. The following year, he introduced Blogstakes, a sweepstakes application tailored for bloggers. He was an early investor and chairman at comic book publisher ComicMix, where he continues to provide advisory support.
Weblogs, Inc./Blogsmith
On September 23, 2003, Alvey co-established the publishing company Weblogs, Inc. with Jason Calacanis and angel investor Mark Cuban. Weblogs, Inc. oversaw prominent blogs such as Engadget, Autoblog, and Joystiq. In October 2005, Time Warner's America Online acquired Weblogs, Inc. for an estimated $25–30 million. Following the acquisition, Alvey became chief architect at AOL's Netscape, guiding its evolution into a social news aggregator. In November 2006, AOL purchased Blogsmith—the blogging platform Alvey created to power Weblogs, Inc.—for roughly $5 million. Blogsmith eventually supported 14 of the top 100 blogs.
Crowd Fusion/Ceros
After his tenure at AOL, Alvey launched Crowd Fusion, a cloud-native content management system (CMS) provider. In July 2008, Crowd Fusion secured $3 million in funding from Velocity Interactive Group, Greycroft Partners, along with investors Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. Its CMS platform served notable clients including TMZ, The Daily, MySpace, Essence, Tecca, and Extra.
In June 2012, Crowd Fusion acquired London-based Ceros—a spin-off from Group FMG—and rebranded under the Ceros name while appointing Ceros CEO Simon Berg to lead the company. Alvey continues his involvement as Chief Scientist and board advisor at Ceros.
Recurrency/Clipisode
Alvey’s startup Recurrency was selected as one of seven companies in the Winter 2014/2015 cohort of the LAUNCH Incubator. It launched at the 2015 LAUNCH Conference where it earned Best Incubator Company honors. In 2016, Recurrency reentered the LAUNCH Incubator to develop Clipisode—an application designed for producing five-minute daily talk shows featuring friends and fans. Clipisode was unveiled at the 2016 LAUNCH Conference.
See also
External links
- Pages with script errors
- Articles with short description
- Articles with hCards
- No local image but image on Wikidata
- American male bloggers
- American bloggers
- Weblogs, Inc.
- 1970 births
- Living people
- People from Falls Church, Virginia
- American technology company founders
- Xaverian High School alumni
- Journalists from Virginia
- 21st-century American non-fiction writers