Event managers and planners have something to celebrate today. I’m sure you can ask any event planner how long they take to struggle to find the right place for your party or event. Not only do they have to navigate around the city, quotes, and specs, but it’s all time consuming. And often times, there’s not a website around that features photos of the event space — just how efficient is this? Well not very. But now, thanks to Los Angeles’s newest and hottest tech incubator, Eventup is here to help make your event planning much easier.

LA’s tech scene has definitely been heating up over the past few months and one of its main contributors has been the new incubator Science, the brainchild of former MySpace CEO Mike Jones and Color co-founder Peter Pham. After the latest collapse by MySpace, the LA tech scene took a hit and needed to find a solid foot hold in which they could bring back the success of days past. And with the recent release of Eventup, it looks like the incubator is onto something. And it’s not surprising since they have some of the best minds in the LA tech scenes, such as Mike Macadaan and Sean Percival, two former MySpace execs who have gone or are going through the fires of entrepreneurship and have created something great. And you might wonder why are all MySpace colleagues working in the same incubator? It seems to be perfectly normal, especially when you consider that MySpace encompassed a large portion of the existing talent pool in the city. VentureBeat’s Jolie O’Dell has a great interview about Science that you can read here.

But back to Eventup…we know that it’s a product of Science, but now that it’s launched, just what does it do? Well in a nutshell, it’s the AirBnB of event planning. As TheNextWeb’s Courney Boyd Myers writes, “just Googling ‘event spaces’ brings up a load of miserable options…” So why don’t you save youself some time and just go to Eventup’s website and do a search of what you want, easily. Right now it looks like only Los Angeles and Southern California venues are available in their database, although they’re doing a bit of a grassroots approach and crowdsourcing for venue information — so if you want to make sure your city is represented in here and help bring in more business, then share your venue with Eventup! But enough of the San Francisco plug, let’s talk about specifics in what event planners will get as a result of this experience: a pretty good results page that shows a lot of promise, I must say…let’s take a look at one in particular:

What event planners will get is a helpful screen with a description of the venue, the types of parties that can be held there, maximum capacity, photos, location and calendar of availability. And the fact that there’s a “verified listing” badge also adds a measure of security knowing that you’re looking at something legitimate.  And no longer will you need to trouble yourself into wondering whether it’s available or not — the calendar will allow you to easily look and book! It’s easy, right? I couldn’t have put it better than what they have on their site:

Simply, search by location, filter down by event type, your budget, how many people are attending, and find venues that are available for the date you have your heart set on. You’ll have high-resolution images, maps to show you what part of town it’s in, and ratings and reviews that help you not get ripped off. All of this, without having to spend hours, if not days, searching through various websites and making phone calls.

The cost? It’s probably all set up by the homeowners and venue managers, just like you’d expect when trying to find a place to stay outside of a hotel. Eventup will take 10% of each booking and will manage all financial transactions and bookings. And for your safety, they also offer venue owners insurance options just in case (we all know what happened to AirBnB, right?).

In one of my former lives, I used to work in tourism and each city has unique spaces that you could rent, like a museum or hotel conference room or even a restaurant back-room. Eventup is the replacement for that and very much the yellow pages of event space. Imagine being able to find some ridiculously awesome venues like Jim Morrison’s former residence or even one of Entourage’s actor’s home just to have an event — that’ll give your attendees something to remember, right? Right now they have over 350 venues in LA and I’m sure that it’s only going to grow.

Eventup is out in the wild now for you to check out. It’s also one of six products to come out of Science and is headed by former MySpace exec Tony Adam.

Last night, at the All Things D’s D:Dive Into Media event in Dana Point, California, Peter Kafka sat down with Twitter’s CEO Dick Costolo to talk about the company and get an idea about the direction it was going. In case you’re interested, the entire conversation was liveblogged and you can read it here. But as I was reading it, I found something interesting about the conversation — Twitter is redefining its role in the world of communication. Some may think that it’s a medium to broadcast their message across the Internet, but rather, Mr. Costolo is telling the world, at least today, that Twitter is just the messenger. In fact, they’re not a media company. He responds that they’re in the media business whereby they distribute traffic and are one of the largest drivers to all sorts of other media properties. So by that definition, the media companies are those that are using the service to broadcast–brands, startups, politicians, and the average citizen.

During this interview, Twitter’s CEO was pressed on a whole lot of issues like SOPA and PIPA and even the 2012 elections. Many probably criticized Twitter for not participating in some sort of “black-out” a couple weeks ago over the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act that was being debated in Congress, but Mr. Costolo defended Twitter’s actions by saying that “there were 3.9 million tweets that day about SOPA and PIPA. When you’ve got an amplifier like that, you don’t pull the batteries out of the microphone.” Seems logical to me because how else are you going to communicate your anger while still protesting?  It seems that Twitter has taken on the life of the messenger quite well and that you shouldn’t “shoot the messenger”. In other words, just like communication was done through paper mail or telephone tree or even email and message boards, so too now can people use Twitter as that medium and it seems Mr. Costolo is letting the service be all about the people and allowing them to communicate – as long as it adheres to all local laws.

As for the 2012 election, Mr. Costolo believes that it’s going to be the Twitter election — more than 2008 was. Why? Because it seems that all party presidential candidates and other potential office-seekers are using Twitter to get their message across. Just look at how yesterday, California Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, joined Twitter. The fascinating thing about 2012, according to Mr. Costolo, is that this was apparent during this year’s State of the Union: “When Obama made the spilled milk joke, there was this collective groan, and we didn’t have to wait for the pundits to tell us that. Republicans live-tweeted.” News happening isn’t late breaking anymore…it’s just breaking. Mashable has analyzed these comments and believes that Twitter has become an essential platform for reaching voters and for gathering and responding to feedback in real-time — and they’re entirely right. No longer are we going to have to go attend a rally just to get 30 seconds with that candidate to ask them questions or ask one of their surrogates. Instead, if the candidate is serious about talking to as many people as humanly possible, voters can send a tweet and get some sort of a response back. Moreover, evangelist voters can create a rapid grassroots effort to help get out the vote as well.

Twitter has definitely helped shape the way people communicate with one another and as I look at the company, I don’t see another AT&T or Verizon or media company that controls the Internet airwaves. Rather, it’s a technology that we can use to communicate. No longer is the pen mighter than the sword…it’s the tweet that rules.

Photo Credit: kenyee/Flickr.com / Peter Kafka and Dick Costolo via All Things D

A couple weeks ago, a quick teaser video emerged on the web and many thought that all signs pointed to the sequel to the classic movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. The teaser video simply had Ferris Bueller star, Matthew Broderick emerge from behind a curtain and hint “how could he go to work on a day like this”. The full-length video was supposed to air around the time of this year’s Super Bowl, but according to All Things D’s Lauren Goode, Hawker Media’s car blog Jalopnik, discovered it online last Friday. It seems that the rumors were all wrong…well at least technically. The teaser wasn’t about a movie sequel. Rather, it was a promo spot for a car – the Honda CR-V.

Directed by the writer/director of “The Hangover”, Matthew Broderick pulls a Ferris by calling in sick from his work and does all the things he did in his movie, but with a more modern twist. There’s no more high school in Chicago – he’s now playing himself in real life and avoids work with his agent. Next, instead of the favorite St. Patrick’s Day parade and crooning “Danke Schoen”, he celebrates Chinese New Year (well-timed, by the way). Oh, and the topping on the cake? Remember when Cameron’s car gets stolen by the valets in the movie? Well Broderick’s video has that too, except the valet steals the CR-V.

So the video has been definitely upgraded for the modern times, but I’ll admit that I’m a bit disappointed that it’s not for the next part of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Nevertheless, it is a bit funny and doesn’t necessarily focus on the car, but you do see Broderick driving it around Los Angeles enjoying his day off while reminding us about the cool parts of Broderick’s movie.

Below is the entire YouTube video for your enjoyment.

Broderick? Broderick?

Since our last beta invite post was such a hit, we decided to bring you another new site to check out! ScoreBig is the latest way to score (pun intended) below-retail tickets to an upcoming event or concert in your area.

The site currently has more than 500,000 events from this weekend to this summer and seats from the best in the house to the most affordable, so it’s not just last-minute seats that no one wants.

Some of the perks of the members-only site include:

• Every ticket  is below retail price
• No fees or delivery charges
• Members decide how much they pay (a la Priceline)

Although there’s currently a wait to get in and try ScoreBig, we have 50 invites for Bub.blicio.us readers! Click here to sign up.

Comic-Con 2010 has just wrapped up in San Diego, CA and much of the buzz coming out of the four day conference covered everything from a new Tron Legacy trailer, new cast members for the Avengers, sneak peak at Scott Pilgrim vs. The World film screenings, rumors of Daft Punk performing live, and even how a Harry Potter fan stabbed someone in the eye with a pen over a seat in Hall H. Nonetheless, Comic-Con exceeded the expectations of many and most are looking forward to next years! Don’t forget to buy your tickets early before they are sold-out!

If you attended Comic-Con, what were your favorite highlights of the trip?

By Julie Blaustein

His Holiness, Tenzin Gyatso the 14th Dalai Lama

Rather than write about a company launch, a new service or yet another conference, I wanted to write about technology itself and what it does to our quality of life. A friend of mine sent out a group email to alert all her friends and family that she had eliminated Text from her life as she “wasn’t enjoying how some people text vs. call these days and she was receiving lots of unnecessary texts. The world doesn’t need more ways to stay disconnected.” At first I though, that is a bit drastic and unnecessary as it does provide a purpose of sorts to quickly reach out to folks when needed. Then I read the quote below that she included from His Holiness, Tenzin Gyatso the 14th Dali Lama reflecting about technology.

It made me realize I too am guilty of losing touch with the simple things in life that make us human due to my never ending use of technology. Although technology can provide a better, faster, smarter and even more productive society; it can also take away from what makes us and our lives so special. Our curiosity. Our interactions with one another and our willingness to help each other. Below are some of the thoughts I had about the technology and services that I and others seem to have become distracted with these days.

• We live vicariously through virtual games such as Mafia Wars and via other people’s lives through Gossip Sites.
  
• Using Twitter has become a popularity game; let’s see how many followers we can have following us on Twitter. And when did it become necessary to share every single thought with others?
  
• Companies and celebrities are bombarding us with contact as they gather audiences at no cost from Twitter, Facebook and other social network sites.
  
• Anyone can promote themselves on LinkedIn and call themselves an expert without needing proof other than providing content that just may have been taken from other’s work.
• As useful as many sites are, they also require vast amounts of time constantly updating, reading and watching such as with Plaxo, LinkedIn, YouTube, Delicious, Bebo, Hi5 and countless others.
  
• Pressure on Facebook to continuously read and update one’s whereabouts, doings and witty thoughts is exhausting to keep up with.
  
• Reporting where one is at all times on FourSquare makes me wonder if people are seeking their own personal stalker? Another example of how isolated people have become because of technology and the need to let people know where they are to counter it.
  
• An epidemic of ADD has taken over our lives with the need for one to check email not once in awhile, but constantly, even if its in the presence of others.
  

I only hope that as technology continues to evolves, we will flourish with all the good it provides. One doesn’t have to take the “drastic” step of cutting off one’s Text Service, but one may want to be mindful of how one uses and contributes in life through this wonderful gift of technology that has been bestowed upon us.

By Julie Blaustein

Tom Murphy's FourSquare HomePage. A Mayor of 21 Places and 16 Badges

How do you use it?
Like most social networks, you will want to connect with your friends. You can do that the usual ways – Inviting your friends or importing via your Facebook, Gmail (interesting that there is no HotMail or AOL importing offered) or friends you follow on Twitter. Once you have a posse, you can then update your locations, letting them know where you are. And they can let you know where they are if you are interested in knowing.

The premise behind FourSquare is its a game similar to loyalty rewards but without the annoying cards. By updating where you are, you can be awarded points but only on weekends and non-business hours. Your Twitter accounts can be synced up and there is also an iPhone application to keep you in the know. Now for the really fun part – Badges can be earned by checking into locations with tags or if you check in frequently. You can even become “Mayor” if you are the one who has checked in the most frequently for a number of day at a particular venue. There is more to learn about the ins and outs of playing with FourSquare on their Help Section.

Do I recommend it?
FourSquare is a tremendous opportunity for local businesses to offer some type of reward for users to “Check In” to their venue and to gain some real traffic in the form of real people. I would not recommend it if you don’t want to share with your friends where you are at all times or be stalked by “friends,” I haven’t quite gotten into the swing of “Checking In” with FourSquare yet either. But, I know once I rack up some badges and become the “Mayor” there is no doubt that I will be letting you know where I am at! Tom Murphy, the Mayor of 21 places and 16 badges, shared his interest in using FourSquare as, “Having recently moved to San Francisco, FourSquare is the easiest, fastest, and best way to learn what’s happening in The City. Not only do I find what my friends think is cool, but I make new friends who like exploring San Francisco as much as I do.”