Andy Baio

Andy Baio (born April 22, 1977) is an American technologist and blogger. He is the co-founder of the XOXO Festival, founder of Upcoming.org, a former CTO of Kickstarter and the author of the Waxy.org blog. In 2018, Baio was named a Kickstarter Fellow.[1]

Andy Baio
Andy Baio in 2012
Born (1977-04-22) April 22, 1977
OccupationTechnologist and blogger
EmployerUpcoming.org, Waxy.org

Internet Entrepreneur

In 2003, Baio launched Upcoming, a collaborative event calendar.[2] The site was acquired by Yahoo for an undisclosed sum in 2005 and Baio joined the company as the site's Technical Director.[3] In 2007, Baio announced his departure from Yahoo.[4][5]

In September 2008, Baio joined the board of directors of Kickstarter, a crowdfunding website that helps people with project ideas (often artistic works) to connect with an audience of potential funders.[6] Baio later joined the staff as Chief Technical Officer in July 2009,[7] stepping down in November 2010 to join Expert Labs.[8] In June 2017, Baio joined Fuzzco as Technology Director.[9]

After Yahoo offered to sell the Upcoming domain back to Baio, he launched a Kickstarter campaign that hit its $30,000 goal in May 2014 to revive the site.[10] Baio explained on the Kickstarter page, "Like many of the people that used it, I miss Upcoming. Nothing's come to replace it in the years since, and I have the same problems that motivated me to build it a decade ago -- I'm missing interesting events in my city and struggling to discover interesting events when I travel."[11]

Media

Baio writes mostly about technology and media on Waxy.org, and publishes a sideblog known as Waxy Links.

Baio often takes a stand against censorship on the Internet by hosting or linking to controversial content which some parties wish to suppress. This ranges from unauthorized mashups and other artwork where parody or fair-use claims are disputed[12][13][14] to newsworthy video, such as that of 2008 United States vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin competing in a beauty pageant.[15]

Baio was one of the first bloggers to draw attention to the Star Wars Kid video, which depicted a teenager clumsily emulating martial arts moves for the camera.[16][17] He was the first to identify the youth and interview him.[18] In response to the negative attention the boy received, Baio later organized a fundraiser for him, raising $4,300 in a week.[16][19]

When the parody cartoon House of Cosbys was taken down from its original site due to a cease and desist letter from Bill Cosby's attorney, Baio placed the videos on his own website.[20] Baio later received a similar cease and desist letter but refused to comply, citing fair use and decrying what he termed "a special kind of discrimination against amateur creators on the Internet", since Cosby had often been parodied in the mainstream media.[21]

In 2009, he produced Kind of Bloop, a chiptune tribute album commemorating the 50th anniversary of Miles Davis' Kind of Blue. The album's cover was a pixel art version of the original album's cover, which consisted of a photograph taken by Jay Maisel. Attorneys representing Maisel demanded damages and that the resulting image be removed from the chiptune album, resulting in a settlement of $32,500 from Baio.[22]

Baio has also written for Wired magazine[23] and The New York Times,[24] and was a staffer on R. U. Sirius' online magazine GettingIt.com.[25]

Baio coined the term supercut in 2008, which in 2017 became known through the song "Supercut" by singer Lorde.[26]

XOXO Festival
Main article: XOXO Festival

In early 2012, Baio and Andy McMillan co-founded the XOXO Festival, celebrating independent artists and technologists. The conference has been held in Portland, Oregon each September since 2012, except 2017 (2020's XOXO was cancelled as of March 2020). The conferences have been largely funded via prepaid tickets and other contributions, including via Kickstarter.[27]

The conferences have had an enthusiastic reception. Prominent bloggers and traditional media praised the "impressive list of speakers",[28] and described it as a "crucible of trailblazing artists and developers".[29]

References
  1. Chen, Perry (January 9, 2018). "Welcoming Back Andy Baio as a Kickstarter Fellow". Kickstarter.
  2. "Online Diary". The New York Times. 6 November 2003.
  3. Yahoo acquires Upcoming.org | CNET News.com
  4. "Upcoming.org creator leaving Yahoo". 12 November 2007.
  5. Russell, Terrence (12 November 2007). "Upcoming's Founder on Going From Giants to Startups (and Back Again)". Wired.
  6. Kickstarter | waxy.org
  7. Kickstarter's New CTO, Andy Baio Archived July 24, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
  8. "Joining Expert Labs". Archived from the original on 15 November 2010. Retrieved 17 November 2010.
  9. "Fuzzco and Me". Waxy.org. 2017-08-15. Retrieved 2017-08-16.
  10. "Andy Baio crowdfunds $30,000 in 90 minutes to relaunch community event site Upcoming". The Next Web. May 7, 2014.
  11. "The Return of Upcoming.org". Retrieved May 7, 2014.
  12. House of Cosbys, You See | waxy.org
  13. "Danger Mouse's The Grey Album MP3s | waxy.org". Archived from the original on 2008-11-19. Retrieved 2008-10-26.
  14. Disney Suppressing the Kleptones | waxy.org
  15. Found Footage: Sarah Palin's 1984 Miss Alaska Pageant Video, Swimsuit Competition | waxy.org
  16. "'Star Wars Kid' Gets Bucks From Blogs". Wired. 19 May 2003. Archived from the original on July 23, 2008.
  17. under the iron Archived October 9, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  18. Finding the Star Wars Kid Archived February 22, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
  19. "'Star Wars Kid' becomes unwilling Internet star". USA Today. 22 August 2003.
  20. Waxy.org: House of Cosbys, Mirrored Archived June 29, 2006, at the Wayback Machine
  21. Miller, Lia (6 March 2006). "Cosby's Lawyers See No Flattery in an Imitation". The New York Times.
  22. Chalk, Andy (June 24, 2011). "Chiptune Cover Album Leads to Huge Legal Bill". The Escapist.
  23. "Wired 15.04: START". Wired.
  24. Volunteers Put the Economist Into Chinese
  25. Gettingit.com: Andrew Baio Archived October 16, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  26. Tiffany, Kaitlyn (June 16, 2017). "Andy Baio on sort of, kind of inspiring a Lorde song". The Verge.
  27. Wortham, Jenna (May 25, 2012). "XOXO aims to be an alternative to South by Southwest". New York Times Bits Blog.
  28. Wortham, Jenna (September 14, 2012). "XOXO Fest, An Experimental Tech Conference, Gets Underway". New York Times Bits Blog.
  29. Edidin, Rachel (September 9, 2013). "XOXO and the High Costs of Not Selling Out". Wired.
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