Robert Scoble and the Egosphere
You don’t have to be incredibly perceptive to notice that some of the more popular “personalities” (if you can call them that) in the small world of the technology blogosphere have humorously large egos.
In my opinion, the technology blogosphere is no longer even best described as an echo chamber; it’s best described as a circle jerk.
To a certain extent, I believe that it now serves little purpose beyond stoking the egos of a handful of people who are not only out of touch with reality, but out of touch with their place in it.
TechCrunch’s DataPortability Conflict of Interest?
A reader of The Drama 2.0 Show who wishes to remain nameless sent me an email earlier pointing out some interesting facts related to the recent coziness between TechCrunch and the DataPortability Workgroup.
Yesterday, TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington announced that the $13,250 in ticket sales was being “donated” to “charity.” Which “charities”? The OpenID Foundation and the DataPortability Workgroup, each one of which will receive $6,625.
First, it’s important to note that there is a distinction between a “charity” and a “non-profit, tax-exempt organization.” All charities are non-profit, tax-exempt organizations but not all non-profit, tax-exempt organizations are charities. I don’t see any indication that the OpenID Foundation or DataPortability Workgroup are registered charities.
Robert Scoble Needs to Get Real
As my more astute readers have recognized, The Drama 2.0 Show is less critical of Web 2.0 in and of itself than it is of the Web 2.0 community’s incredible lack of perspective.
If you are to believe the kool aid drinkers, Web 2.0 is as important as the advent of the printing press or the Industrial Revolution. Social networks will bring us together like never before, services like Twitter are going to change the way we communicate and social media itself is going to turn the marketing world upside down. And the world will become a better place at the same time.
Duncan Riley’s “Fully Transactional Web 2.0 Banners” Revisited
Back in July 2007, Duncan Riley was excited about advertising again. Tailgate, whose technology “delivers ecommerce transactions from the banner itself,” had Duncan amazed.
He commented:
The benefits from web sites owners are immediately obvious: using Tailgate, advertisements will no longer take users from their sites. For advertisers, capturing impulse buyers just became that much more easy.
It’s usually difficult to get excited about advertising technology, and countless “new” offerings usually tend to be just variations on an existing theme. Tailgate on the other hand is quite simply remarkable.
Tailgate could well be the banner advertising unit of tomorrow.
Forrester’s Jeremiah Owyang Babbles About Communities
Thanks to the drama between FastCompany’s Shel Israel and 1938media’s Loren Feldman, I came across Israel’s interview with Forrester’s Jeremiah Owyang.
If my past criticisms of Forrester’s “research” on the world of social media haven’t been enough to demonstrate just how asinine some of the social media hyperbole is, going through the painful process of watching Israel’s “interview” of Owyang should do the trick.
In short, much of Owyang’s commentary is essentially unintelligible and the majority of the rest is filled with so much common sense as to be worthless to a semi-intelligent viewer.
The Truthiness According to Wikipedia
An interesting documentary created by Dutch director IJsbrand van Veelen premiered at the Next Web conference. Entitled “The Truth According to Wikipedia,” van Veelen offers a critical look at Wikipedia and Web 2.0 in general.
Featured in the documentary are prominent Web 2.0 proponents, including Jimmy Wales and Tim O’Reilly. Web 2.0 skeptic Andrew Keen, author of “The Cult of the Amateur,” does most of the anti-Web 2.0 heavy lifting along with the former editor-in-chief of Encyclopedia Britannica, Bob McHenry.
A Conference 2.0 Comment Worth Reposting
News.com has an article entitled “How to survive the next-gen confab” which discusses the Conference 2.0 concept that I dismissed previously.
An enlightened and spot-on comment from “JDGDOIT” resonated so much with me that I felt it was worth reposting here. Not only does it make a valid point about Conference 2.0, some of its insight can be applied to other Web 2.0 bullshit.
Advertising != Engineering
In a recent post on E-consultancy.com entitled “Why most geeks shouldn’t be marketers” I laid out some of my thoughts on why injecting too much science into the advertising business was not a good idea.
My post was “inspired” by kool aid sipper Hank Williams, who in a post entitled “In 10 Years, Marketing Will Be Taught In Engineering School,” stated:
Marketing is still primarily perceived as a fuzzy touchy feely discipline. But the Internet is bringing this to an end rapidly. In ten years our current perspectives on this will seem quaint.
Tweet This: Nobody Even Knows Not to Give a Fuck
My distaste for everything Twitter-related is not a secret. In my opinion, Twitter is, for all practical intents and purposes, completely useless. It is, at best, a virtual hub of chronic time-wasters and at worst, a cesspool of narcissistic twats.
Given this, it’s not surprising that Twitter is one of the most hyped Web 2.0 properties and if you find yourself in the unfortunate position of having any exposure to the Web 2.0 “community,” you just might find yourself believing that Twitter is a revolutionary communications platform set to take over the world.
Duncan Riley’s “Challenge to Network Television” Revisited
On June 30, 2007 one of the most addicted kool aid drinkers, Duncan Riley, proclaimed that the seeds of a revolution had been sown and that the “the missing link in Web 2.0’s challenge to network television” had been discovered. What was afoot? According to Duncan, live online video streaming.
So it was with interest that I read Erick Schonfeld’s post “celebrating” the one-year anniversary of Justin.tv, one of Web 2.0’s most useless startups. Erick’s post reveals that in February, less than 300,000 unique visitors wasted time on Justin.tv if comScore’s numbers are to be believed.
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Drama 2.0 spikes the Web 2.0 kool aid by providing a critical analysis of Web 2.0 startups and the impact of Web 2.0 on the media industry. Other topics are explored when Drama 2.0 has a slight buzz. Read more about the Internet's version of Keyser Söze here.
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