General Dees and decorated Ranger Nate Self were guests on the Huckabee Show Saturday night. Great Faith based ministry for combat vets
http://www.faithdeployed.com/2010/07/military-ministry-to-be-featured-on-fox-news/
http://www.militaryministry.org/families/bthm-2/ptsd/
Mon, Aug 23rd 2010 3:58 pm EDT
By Alfred Branch Jr.
Presale Today
This story was updated at 10:32 a.m. EDT on Thursday, August 26, 2010, to reflect that the Ticket Evolution launch video was placed back on the company’s Web site.
Feeling some pressure over the decision not to refund money if the company fell short of its $4 million investment goal, broker-owned ticket exchange Ticket Evolution recently sought to clarify its stance on its financial situation.
In a statement released late last week on the company’s Web site, President Ram Silverman deflected criticism over the financing and stressed that all investors were given the choice to have their money returned to them.
No investors have expressed a desire to have their money returned, he stated, but the move is an unofficial acknowledgement that the company fell short of its $4 million fundraising goal, which the company had extended through Friday, August 13.
Company co-founder Steve Parry said in July that investors would receive their money back if they company did not reach the $4 million mark.
When contacted by TicketNews on August 13, Silverman declined to disclose how much the company raised, and he also would not offer details on how many investors had committed to the initiative, which officially launched in mid-July with a splashy presentation in Las Vegas.
“We have noticed quite a bit of chatter in the blogosphere about us not returning checks to investors and I can tell you for a fact that this is completely untrue,” Silverman wrote in his recent statement. “We have reached out to all those who chose to invest, with a modified offering. These investors had a choice to have their checks sent back or to leave it with us during the completion of the modified offering and so far not one investor requested their money back. I hope that clears this topic up.”
In the same letter, Silverman also announced a two-months-free promotion to lure brokers to list their tickets on the exchange.
Silverman was on vacation this week and could not be reached for comment. Fellow principals Parry and Drew Gainor did not reply to a message seeking comment.
Surprisingly, and with no explanation, the company also removed the three-hour launch presentation video from its Web site for a few days around August 23. In the video, the principals explained aspects of the company and its technology.
The video was back on the site by the morning of August 26. In an email to TicketNews, Gainor said the video was down because the company’s free Brightcove video trial had expired, and he needed a couple of days to find an alternative.
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Links Referenced in this Article (hide)
* http://www.ticketnews.com/news/Ticket-Evolution-has-not-said-whether-it-reached-its-goal-but-vows-to-move-forward081013825
* http://www.ticketnews.com/news/Ticket-Evolution-seeks-millions-for-new-broker-owned-ticket-exchange071019444
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View this article online: http://www.ticketnews.com/news/Proposed-Chicago-based-ticket-exchange-NewCo-holds-launch-meeting081025427
Wed, Aug 25th 2010 5:06 pm EDT
By Alfred Branch Jr.
Presale Today
The ticketing executives who are spearheading an initiative to create a new ticket exchange, which they’re temporarily calling “NewCo,” are continuing their efforts to round up backers for the venture, following a closed-door launch meeting yesterday, August 24, in Chicago.
Details of the meeting, held at the offices of SeatExchange, were not disclosed, but according to SeatExchange President and CEO Chris Brennan, representatives from several companies attended the meeting in person or by conference call, including fellow Chicago-based brokerage GoldCoastTickets.com. Brennan declined to give an exact number of attendees, and the principals with Gold Coast also declined to comment and referred questions back to SeatExchange.
“We’re not going to discuss the specifics at this time, but I can say that it was a very constructive meeting,” Brennan told TicketNews today, August 25. All of the participants in the meeting were asked to sign non-disclosure agreements prior to attending. “This is the beginning of a process which will take time, but we’re moving forward.”
SeatExchange Vice President Bill Peterson, also declined to elaborate on the meeting, but he wanted to make it clear that NewCo is not like Ticket Evolution, a competing broker-based ticket exchange that was launched last month by the principals of GoldenTickets.com in Texas.
“The premise of what we’re trying to do is very different than Ticket Evolution,” Peterson said, but he declined to elaborate. TicketNews posed several questions to Brennan and Peterson, such as what was discussed at the meeting; how many people attended the meeting; how much money are they hoping to raise for the venture; and what type of technology platform are they planning to use.
In an email sent to prospective attendees earlier this month, Peterson and Brennan laid out some of the plans for the exchange. “The ‘NewCo’ Exchange is a technology platform delivering brokers a strategic approach to manage and market content online based on an SEO ‘first’ model. The ‘NewCo’ management team is confident this solution will address the many issues and challenges facing the broker community today, while creating value in the future.”
Brennan and Peterson have experience in the secondary ticket market, having worked at sports marketing, package tour and ticket brokerage Premiere Global Sports, where Brennan served as CEO for four years until late 2008.
After parting ways with Premiere, Brennan joined SeatExchange in 2009, and was soon joined by Peterson. SeatExchange has ticketing and travel package deals with the athletic departments of several major U.S. universities, and also has deals with British soccer and rugby teams.
But, according to Crain’s Manchester Business, SeatExchange was dropped as the secondary ticket company for English Premiere League soccer club Manchester City following an undisclosed contractual dispute. At the time, Brennan called the dispute an “isolated incident” over “contractual issues that couldn’t be resolved,” he told Crain’s.
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Links Referenced in this Article (hide)
* http://www.ticketnews.com/news/New-broker-owned-ticket-exchange-emerges-to-challenge-Ticket-Evolution081009583
* http://www.ticketnews.com/news/Ticket-Evolution-has-not-said-whether-it-reached-its-goal-but-vows-to-move-forward081013825
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Hi,
If you are a ticketbroker processing with PayPal your Amex rate is going up to 3.50% on 10/25/2010. Matrix is the only processor able to offer you a group rate for ticketbrokers only of 2.80%
Any brokers that went with the PAY Pal Processing please see below.
* Amendment to the PayPal Website Payments Pro and Virtual Terminal Agreement
Fees: After October 25, 2010 for merchants that wish to continue to accept American Express and have agreed to the Agreement for American Express Card Acceptance (American Express-PayPal Service Agent Program), the following new fee will be charged by us on behalf of American Express and will apply to American Express Card transactions:
American Express Payments Fee
Direct Payments3.5%
Virtual Terminal Payments3.5%
View this article online: http://www.ticketnews.com/news/Ticket-Evolution-has-not-said-whether-it-reached-its-goal-but-vows-to-move-forward081013825
Fri, Aug 13th 2010 5:17 pm EDT
By Alfred Branch Jr.
Insomniac
Broker-owned ticket exchange Ticket Evolution, which set today, August 13, as its deadline to raise $4 million in seed money, is vowing to move ahead without revealing how much was raised.
In a blog posting this afternoon on the company’s Web site, chief technology officer Drew Gainor wrote that Ticket Evolution was still accepting last-minute investments and had received several today. How many broker investors the company has attracted, however, was not disclosed.
“We want to thank everyone who has already sent in their checks and signed offerings,” Gainor wrote. “We had over 50 packages show up today and can assure those brokers you have made the right decision and you will not regret it. If anyone had any concern as to whether Ticket Evolution is going to be moving forward, I can tell you that it is 100% moving forward.”
At the time of the company’s launch meeting in Las Vegas in mid-July, co-founder Steve Parry said that if the $4 million was not raised, the company would return the investments to brokers. However, earlier this week, co-founder and President Ram Silverman told TicketNews that the company may not publicly disclose how much it raised, but may eventually tell investors. He made no mention of returning the investments in light of not reaching the $4 million goal.
When reached today, Silverman said that for “confidentiality reasons I can’t share [specific figures] with you,” because the company is a private enterprise.
“I feel we’ve been very transparent throughout this, but there are times when, as a private company, things have to be held close to the vest,” he said.
Within the broker community, estimates on how much Ticket Evolution may have raised range from $1.5 million to $2.5 million, but TicketNews has no way of verifying those predictions, and Silverman said he would not discuss any numbers. The company claims it attracted more than 350 brokers to the launch meeting, in-person and via webcast, so if more than 250 brokers invested the minimum amount of $10,000, the company could have raised more money. In addition, investors were not tied to only putting up $10,000 and could have given the company more for an increased number of shares.
Silverman said he has been “very pleased by the response” of brokers, but declined to offer a number of how many invested. He said the company’s eventual board of directors – 10 brokers and two non-brokers – may decide to release those figures in the future.
Regardless of whether a broker invested or not, the company will make its products available to anyone in the secondary ticket market, but broker investors will pay better rates than non-investors.
“I’d be pleased to have 500 quality brokers on our system, and ultimately, that could make us more competitive than other exchanges,” Silverman said.
The company said it plans to launch “some of our applications” within the next few weeks, but the specific apps were not disclosed. On Thursday, August 12, Gainor wrote, “If you are not ready to become investors we are still incredibly excited to work with you. We know that our applications will help you add profit to your bottom line and make your life simpler and more efficient.”
He added, “We do not know what the future will bring with respect to a second offering but we will certainly keep you posted as we move forward and progress. Ram, Steve, Paul [Harris] and I will work non stop to make sure that we achieve what we have set out to accomplish, which is a more unified industry with the tools that it deserves.”
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Links Referenced in this Article (hide)
* http://www.ticketnews.com/news/Ticket-Evolution-seeks-millions-for-new-broker-owned-ticket-exchange071019444
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I am asking for you help. My friend Bryan Ryndak would like to win a scholarship to a business leadership conference for my he and his wife. He needs the most votes to win. You can vote one time every day for the next month and he needs many, many votes to win. Please click and vote for his story! http://www.daveramsey.com/entreleadership/contest-entry/entryId/177/
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Ticket Evolution hires former TicketNetwork staffer as deadline for funding raising nears
View this article online: http://www.ticketnews.com/news/Ticket-Evolution-hires-former-TicketNetwork-staffer-as-deadline-for-funding-raising-nears081006729
Fri, Aug 6th 2010 5:23 pm EDT
By Alfred Branch Jr.
Insomniac
Broker-owned ticket exchange Ticket Evolution this week announced the hiring of its first employee with the company’s self-imposed deadline for raising $4 million only one week away.
Paul Harris, formerly a senior sales representative for TicketNetwork, was hired to be Ticket Evolution’s director of broker relationships, and he told TicketNews that he has also invested $10,000 in the new company to be one of its stakeholders.
“It would have been hard to try to talk brokers into making a commitment to this venture without having made one myself,” he said. Harris has more than 15 years of experience in the ticketing industry, building relationships along the way. “I think brokers feel they can trust me, and I hope to be able to build on that trust.”
His hiring, however, comes as questions swirl around the company as it relates to its financing and its chosen technology.
In a three-page letter posted on the company’s Web site yesterday, August 5, co-founder and President Ram Silverman reached out to an unidentified number of brokers who are “teetering on the fence” about whether to invest in the company. Speculation has spread through the secondary ticket industry that the company has not yet raised its total, which the letter would appear to confirm. TicketNews asked the founders how much the company has raised, but they did not respond.
“I have talked to a couple hundred brokers the past 2 weeks and for those of you who are waiting to see what the next broker is doing; I encourage you to take a small leap of faith and jump on our side of the fence. Please take a hard look at what your downside is and if you truly do not see the benefit or need for this exchange then don’t join. Change is going to happen with or without you!” Silverman wrote.
The company initially set a deadline of today, August 6, to raise the $4 million but extended that by a week to August 13. If the $4 million is not raised, the founders vowed to return all of the money to the investors.
On the technology front, the company is planning to use Amazon’s cloud computing option and the open-source Ruby on Rails platform, which it displayed to potential investors during a splashy presentation last month in Las Vegas. Yet, the company’s choice of technology is rife with questions about its security and other issues.
TicketNews posed several questions to the founders about their choice of technology, but those inquiries have gone unanswered. Drew Gainor, the former chief marketing officer at National Events Company who is now chief technology officer for Ticket Evolution, said he intended to respond to questions about the technology, but had yet to after several days.
Among the questions posed by TicketNews included:
-How will [Ticket Evolution] handle [Payment Card Industry] PCI compliance, and how will broker data be secured? Will you have access to their data and where/how they obtain tickets?
-Based on [TicketNews] research, [we] found that Twitter is only using Ruby on Rails (ROR) for its front end, but it has abandoned it for back end operations because of its limitations, slowness and lack of scalability. Does this alter [Ticket Evolution’s] perception of the platform, and/or what is [Ticket Evolution’s] opinion of Twitter’s decision?
-Which version of ROR will [Ticket Evolution] be using? 2.0 or 3.0?
-[Ticket Evolution] mentioned that the technology used by other [ticket] exchanges is dead or dying. Could you elaborate on that, and why ROR is better considering its limitations?
-Continuing with that line of questioning, what other high-transaction, e-commerce sites can [Ticket Evolution] point to that are using ROR for all of their operations, not just front end interface?
Earlier in the week, Steve Parry, one of Ticket Evolution’s founders, forwarded TicketNews a copy of a press release from the University of Texas Dallas about a research team from the university who are working on software applications to secure cloud computing operations. But, when asked whether Ticket Evolution had contacted the team about possibly using the applications, or whether those efforts met PCI compliance standards, neither Parry nor Gainor responded.
TicketNetwork is the parent company of TicketNews.
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Links Referenced in this Article (hide)
* http://www.ticketnews.com/news/Ticket-Evolution-launches-a-private-online-community-and-considers-a-broker-rating-program071030275
* http://www.ticketnews.com/news/Ticket-Evolution-seeks-millions-for-new-broker-owned-ticket-exchange071019444
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—
Bill Hoidas
Consultant Manager Larger B2B/MOTO/Internet Accounts
Product Development Manager
Matrix Payment Systems
(847) 381-3482 office
(847) 381-4289 fax
http://paymentconsulting.net
http://chicago.citysearch.com/review/44659273
http://paymentconsulting.net/funding.html
John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten
Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting
life.
These days we are facing an economic crisis and need to prepare ourselves
more effectively for the recovery – to discover opportunities, identify
potential partners looking for opportunities, looking for a reason to hope.
Now it’s a good idea to ask: how could my product/service provide
opportunities in today’s economic climate?
This copy is for your personal, noncommercial use only.
New broker-owned ticket exchange emerges to challenge Ticket Evolution
View this article online: http://www.ticketnews.com/news/New-broker-owned-ticket-exchange-emerges-to-challenge-Ticket-Evolution081009583
Mon, Aug 9th 2010 5:52 pm EDT
By Alfred Branch Jr.
Presale Today
This story was updated at 8:12 p.m. EDT on Monday, August 9, 2010, to add a comment from Bill Peterson.
Just days before the self-imposed deadline Ticket Evolution set to raise $4 million, another broker-owned ticket exchange has emerged to challenge it.
Temporarily called “NewCo,” the new exchange is being developed by Chicago-based SeatExchange.com, and the founders have begun sending out invitations to select brokers to attend a launch meeting later this month. GoldCoastTickets.com is listed as one of the brokers expected to attend the meeting.
“On behalf of the new management team at Seat Exchange and our technology partner, we want to invite you to attend a meeting in Chicago, on August 24th to discuss a new entity under development – ‘NewCo’, and our vision for a broker owned exchange,” the invitation states. “The ‘NewCo’ Exchange is a technology platform delivering brokers a strategic approach to manage and market content online based on an SEO ‘first’ model. The “NewCo” management team is confident this solution will address the many issues and challenges facing the broker community today, while creating value in the future.”
The new venture is being spearheaded by SeatExchange principals Chris Brennan and Bill Peterson, who also said in the letter, dated today, August 9, they are requiring attendees to sign non-disclosure agreements before they will be allowed to participate.
“While we are all aware there are several individual or small groups of brokers attempting to create their interpretation of a broker owned exchange, our platform and strategy offers some key points of differentiation. Our meeting and discussion will focus on the following key areas: Technology; Broker Ownership & Participation; Value Creation,” the letter states.
Additional details about NewCo were not available. When reached by TicketNews, Peterson said he could not offer more information. “At this time, I can’t provide anymore details,” he said, but added that he and Brennan had spent several months developing the initiative and have talked to several brokers about it.
The announcement appears to have been timed to steal some thunder from competing broker-owned ticket exchange Ticket Evolution, which set a deadline of Friday, August 13, to raise $4 million from brokers – minimum investments are $10,000 each. Ram Silverman, president of Ticket Evolution, declined to disclose how much they have raised, or how many brokers have invested, but he said that “everything is going well” on the financial front.
But, whether Ticket Evolution reaches its goal, Silverman told TicketNews that will not matter.
“We’re moving forward regardless of the amount we raise,” Silverman said. “This company is moving forward.”
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Links Referenced in this Article (hide)
* http://www.ticketnews.com/news/Ticket-Evolution-hires-former-TicketNetwork-staffer-as-deadline-for-funding-raising-nears081006729
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—
Bill Hoidas
Consultant Manager Larger B2B/MOTO/Internet Accounts
Product Development Manager
Matrix Payment Systems
(847) 381-3482 office
(847) 381-4289 fax
http://paymentconsulting.net
http://chicago.citysearch.com/review/44659273
http://paymentconsulting.net/funding.html
John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten
Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting
life.
These days we are facing an economic crisis and need to prepare ourselves
more effectively for the recovery – to discover opportunities, identify
potential partners looking for opportunities, looking for a reason to hope.
Now it’s a good idea to ask: how could my product/service provide
opportunities in today’s economic climate?
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Bill –
The Left are planning to subvert the will of the American people. You have the power to stop them.
Leading Congressional Democrats are dead set on passing controversial and unpopular legislation in a special Lame Duck session of Congress after the November 2nd Election. It’s the only way Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi can succeed in advancing their unpopular agenda because they know they don’t have the support of the American people. Some will say we’re just trying to scare people, but look at what they’re saying:
Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV): “We’re going to have to have a lame duck session, so we’re not giving up.”
Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA): ‘A lot of things can happen in a lame-duck session, too.”
Sen. John Kerry (D-MA): “I have to tell you, [cap and trade] is not dead…if it is after the election, it may well be that some members are free and liberated and feeling that they can take a risk or do something.”
We know the Left are already planning dirty tricks. We saw it during debate of health care reform. We know they are willing to ignore the will of the people. They ignored the town hall meetings and the clear signal the voters of Massachusetts sent by electing Scott Brown and passed the health care bill anyway. And, just this week, 71% of Missourians rejected ObamaCare through a statewide voter referendum.
Given the Left’s track record during this current session of Congress, the American people have the right to know where their elected representatives stand.
At American Solutions, we’ve developed the No Lame Duck Pledge, and we’re trying to get as many citizens as possible to sign our letter urging members of Congress to pledge the following:
I, undersigned Member of the 111th Congress, pledge to the citizens of the State of ___________ I will not participate in a Lame Duck session of Congress. I believe reconvening the Congress after the November 2nd election and prior to the seating of the new 112th Congress, smacks of the worst kind of political corruption. Attempting to pass unpopular legislation subverts the will of the American people and is an abusive power grab.
I’ve signed the letter, and was hoping you’d sign your name as well so we can send it to your members of Congress. You can do that now by going here.
Sign-Your-Name
We believe this pledge will help stop the Left’s machine from passing the unfinished and unpopular items on their agenda.
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Newt Signature
Newt Gingrich
General Chairman
American Solutions
http://www.americansolutions.com/lameduck/