BricaBox Blog

Hi everyone,

We just wanted to say “Happy Easter” from your friends at BricaBox. Whether or not this is a holiday you observe, we hope you can be around family and friends today.

Also, enjoy this video from our friend iJustine. It’s great! (The BricaBox egg is at minute 1:37)

We’re launching Tuesday morning, as you know, so until then, we’re putting the site in maintenance mode.

We’ll be back in 24 hours with a wonderfully fresh coat of paint!

Hi, Kyle here. I wanted to write a brief post explaining some of the visual changes BricaBox is undergoing as we speak. You may have noticed the brand new homepage we’ve got up at www.bricabox.com; it’s just one of the many redesigned aspects of the app we’ll be rolling out in the next few weeks. We’re taking an in-depth look at each page and identifying what we do well, as well as what we could be doing better. It’s our hope that the upcoming design changes will make BricaBox the killer publishing platform you’ve been looking for. So, if you see a page that looks funny, slightly out of whack, or just plain screwed up, our apologies, but rest assured something great is coming very soon. Cheers!

There weren’t any door signs in the incubator space we’re running in, so Kyle designed one for us and we went to Kinkos at lunch to print it off and laminate it (the whole thing cost less than $5).

We can’t wait to add names to the bottom of this.

So things are kicking along nicely for BricaBox. With what good news shall I begin?!

• Winning 2nd Place in Sun Microsystem’s Startup Challenge at Startup Camp?
• BricaBox Launch at Blog World Expo?
• New BricaBox Headquarters?
• Next week’s Feedback Forum and a first peek at BricaBox?
• Interview with John Havens of Blog Talk Radio?

Here it goes:

News Item #1
We’re proud to say that BricaBox won 2nd place (after a double tiebreaker) at Sun Mircosystems’ “Best Startup” Contest at Startup Camp NYC. There were over 25 companies who entered and they were all awesome. Congrats go to our friends at UpNext for their 1st place finish. Also, a big thank you to Sun and the Startup Camp folks (David Berlind & Co). Also, big thanks to our friends Charlie and Alex of Path101 and Michael of A.viary for their help in the competition. It was a swell event and we had fun (by the way, I hosted a fun session called the “Business of APIs” inspired by the Mashery Conference I went to, and will post about it on my blog later this week).

News item #2:
We now have a phase 1 launch date! On November 8th, we’ll be down in Las Vegas for the Blog World Expo and from that location we’ll set some of the first sites “powered by BricaBox” live on the world. We’re really excited and will have more info about that launch soon. (Also, if you plan on being there (Las Vegas, Nov 8 - 9th), drop us a line on the contact page and or just come find us at booth 502.)

News item #3:
Next we should tell you about our new home on 23rd Street. Actually, we can’t really tell you much about it yet. That will also be its own post in the coming future. But let’s just say that we’re super happy to be in a very cool incubator space for the next few months as we transition into some longer-term startup space we’re actually helping build!

News item #4:
Next Monday, the 29th, BricaBox will be presenting at NYCE’s Feedback Forum. Spaces are limited, so if you’re interested in stopping by, checking out BricaBox and giving us some constructive criticism, please do!

News item #5:
While at Startup Camp, I had the good fortune of getting interviewed by Blog Talk Radio’s own Director of Biz Dev John Havens (most of you know him for his contributions in organizing PodCamp). Anyway, I had a great time — despite the fact that it was so early in the morning — and you can check out the interview here (or embedded below).

Even more news soon, but thats it for now.

I have some exciting news.

As of today, I can announce that Kyle Bragger has been made a permanent member of the BricaBox family. He enters the company as our Chief Technology Officer and will continue to bring his expertise in programming, design and system administration to our coffee, pizza, and beer strewn table.

Some of you might remember when Kyle came along back in March. Well, now he’s here for good, and we’re darn happy about it. For you blog readers, there’s an added bonus here: Kyle will begin writing for the BricaBox Blog, and if he’s half as good at writing as he is with everything else he does, it will bring a lot of interesting material to this space.

Lastly, it also brings me great pleasure to announce the date of our first private alpha invites going out: August 1st. Save the date, set your alarm, or just use this form to get on the list, and we’ll send along invites as soon as capacity allows.

Thanks to all. We’re super excited about everything.

Thanks to a nextNY member who sent this our way…

||Job Openings: Twitter-clone Application Development (like ventbox.com) - PHP/MySQL||

Looks like someone using the outsourcing platform oDesk is looking to make a “VentBox.com clone.” Wow. We never felt more special

We tried applying for the job, but we’re not set up as developers on the site (we are setup as buyers, of course, considering our first design was done by an oDesker). Heck, we could probably make a VentBox clone pretty fast! After all, we are coming out with GossBox…

Anyway, if you’re out there Anonymous French Media Company Wanting a VentBox Clone, give us a holler… we’d love to help you out