Silicon Valley Playboys Stand United For Proposition 69
I’m glad that Michael Arringon “came out” earlier and supported Proposition 8 2.0, which guarantees interspecies marriages. Discrimination in any form isn’t acceptable, and banning marriage between humans and farm animals is discrimination.
But there’s an even more important issue that’s on the ballot November 4 in California.
Happy Halloween! 5 Web 2.0 Costume Ideas
The Drama 2.0 Show wishes you a Happy Halloween!
If you’re actively involved with the Web 2.0 community, Halloween serves as a great opportunity to get away from the stark reality of your current unfortunate circumstances.
Here are 5 costume ideas for the inhabitants of the netherworld known as Web 2.0.
Web 2.0 Can’t Even Create a Competent FuckedCompany.com 2.0
It’s somewhat ironic. I was about to write a post entitled “Why Bubble 2.0 Won’t Have its Own Version of FuckedCompany.com 2.0.”
The premise of this post was simple: all of the drama that unfolds in the startup world as the financial crisis and souring economy takes its toll on unsustainable Web 2.0 “companies” isn’t going to lead to the creation of a website like FuckedCompany.com, which became quite popular (and financially successful) by chronicling the demise of tech upstarts when Bubble 1.0 popped.
Announcing The Drama Review – Get Reviewed on The Drama 2.0 Show
I’m pleased to announce a new service: The Drama Review.
The Drama Review is a low-cost way for entrepreneurs to get an objective analysis of their startups without paying a Wharton MBA who couldn’t sell a newspaper subscription to save his life. As an added bonus, it gives startups the opportunity to get a thoughtful review posted on The Drama 2.0 Show.
Why Am I Doing This?
The Drama Review is borne out of the fact that I get a lot of emails from individuals asking me to provide feedback on their products (and future products). Unfortunately, there are only so many hours in the day and producing a fair and honest assessment takes time.
Why VC Infatuation with Cleantech Will Hurt Silicon Valley
I’ve always been a bit harsh on VCs and I do feel that my criticism of VCs has been deserved. If you look at the business of venture capital over the past 10 years, it’s pretty clear that VCs aren’t the sharpest tools in the shed.
That said, there is a place for venture capital and VCs have funded some wonderful companies over the years. The reality is that venture capital is not entirely useless; in recent years there have simply been far too many firms with far too much capital chasing too few good startups.
Inc. Magazine Reprints Long Lost Copy of 2006 BusinessWeek Digg Article
In 2006, BusinessWeek put its credibility in the hands of Sarah Lacy and came out a loser.
The business magazine’s fluffy portrayal of Digg as a potential “new New York Times” and of its founder, Kevin Rose, as the “‘It’ boy among a new wave of entrepreneurs running the hottest of the top 100 Web 2.0 companies” was quickly criticized by many. BusinessWeek’s choice to throw credibility out the window by headlining Rose’s cover “How This Kid Made $60 Million In 18 Months” certainly didn’t help an already lacking article.
Flash forward to today.
Mashable Takes the BiztechDay Bait, Shills with Promotional Text Provided by BiztechDay
As I detailed this past week, I was contacted by one of the individuals behind the BiztechDay conference in San Francisco that I am not attending (Andrzej Buszko was unable to provide airfare, accommodations and escorts) offering me a free media pass in exchange for a promotional post on The Drama 2.0 Show.
Although I was extremely tempted to hop on a plane and to rush out to San Francisco to meet Tim Ferriss, I decided to stay home and get some work done instead. I also couldn’t help but feel that promoting something I wasn’t interested in, and for compensation in the form of a media pass that is supposed to be offered freely, would have been dishonest.
Blame the VCs
The doom and gloom that has hit the subprime startup market has a lot of people pointing fingers at the VCs who bought up equity in overvalued companies apparently thinking that the value of profitless Web 2.0 “businesses” could only go up.
Not surprisingly, VCs are taking about as much responsibility as Dick Fuld. In other words, it’s not their fault.
A couple of weeks, Michael Arrington, himself an angel investor with an impressive portfolio that includes stakes in Web 2.0 powerhouses like Seesmic and DanceJam, explained why the VCs aren’t to blame.
Arrington starts off:
Mahalo Joins the Layoff List
Adbrite, Heavy, hi5, imeem, Jaxtr, Pandora, Seesmic, Tesla, Wikia, Zillow, Zivity.
The number of startups laying off sizable chunks of employees due to “tough times” (as opposed to, say, a lack of a business model that generates revenue) is growing daily. I’ve been pretty mum on this because I’ve been calling bullshit on these startups for quite some time and don’t have a whole lot to say about them now that they’ve been exposed.
But I couldn’t help but mention that today one of my favorite consumer Internet startups regrettably fell victim to these “tough times.” That startup is, of course, Jason Calacanis’ Mahalo.
Scoble Demonstrates that His Book, Naked Conversations, is Pure Bullshit
I decided I needed some material for a post last night and headed over to Scobleizer because Robert Scoble never disappoints. I hadn’t visited his blog in a couple of weeks and apparently I’ve missed a lot – Scoble has a little reader backlash on his hands.
The cause? Politics.
His pointless diatribe about not being an American is apparently the latest in a line of political rants that he has recently posted.
