Who is Sponsoring The Drama 2.0 Show?

The Drama 2.0 Show has a sponsor. It’s a stealth Internet startup not based in Silicon Valley.

Later this month, the sponsor will be announced on The Drama 2.0 Show and I’ll provide an overview of the company, including my honest, unabashed opinion on its service and business. The startup has encouraged me to be candid about any weaknesses and flaws I see, which I, of course, planned to be anyway.

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Mark Zuckerberg needs to go. But who should replace him? I’ve suggested 12 potential successors . What do you think?

Be sure to check out some of my recent posts on other websites:

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Pablo’s Place: We Keep that White Girl

The Opportunity

Each year, more than $500 billion changes hands in the global business of narcotics. It is one of the most sophisticated industries on the face on the planet and brings together a diverse range of individuals and groups for one purpose: to make significant amounts of money.

There is a market for narcotics for a simple reason: the world is a tough place and people just want to get high. Yet, for the most part, there is no major online hub that serves the needs of those who use narcotics and those who deal in narcotics. Pablo’s Place will change that by providing the first comprehensive Internet portal for narcotics. In doing so, it will cement its place in one of the most lucrative businesses known to man.

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Digg Has Bidders?

It looks like the investment bankers at Allen & Co. may be close to earning their fees. It’s rumored that Digg’s desperate search for a buyer has found two suckers: Google and Microsoft.

According to Michael Arrington at TechCrunch, Google is prepared to offer $200-$225 million, which Digg is reportedly willing to accept. Microsoft is apparently willing to pay less but if Steve Ballmer anything is possible - a bidding war just might break out .

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RIP: Brands? Hardly

Hank Williams recently informed the world of the tragic inevitable passing of the brand. After the Oscars pulled in the lowest number of viewers in 39 years, Hank recognized something that seemed to have eluded everybody else:

I think what it really says is something quite significant about the value and role of brands in modern culture. The Oscar failure is is a reflection of the fact that we are inexorably headed towards a day when brands, as a concept, mean absolutely nothing.

I found it amusing that Hank would use the Oscars as a “case study” for his ill-informed argument given that the causes for the poor ratings are fairly well-accepted:

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Wales, Wikipedia and Ethics

While I have no interest in playing up the scandal that erupted over the love-affair-gone-bad between Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and political commentator Rachel Marsden, behind the salacious stories, there are several issues of real substance.

As reported by the Associated Press, questions have emerged about Jimmy Wales’ expenses at the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit, donor-supported organization that operates Wikipedia. , a former employee of the Wikimedia Foundation, Wales has a habit of using the Wikimedia Foundation’s coffers as his own personal bank account.

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More Forrester Bullshit

I’m skeptical about and I’m skeptical about data portability. The two came together when Forrester Research’s Charlene Li took the stage to speak at the Graphing Social Patterns West conference. As reported by GigaOm, Charlene “laid out what social networks would look like 10 years from now.”

Amongst her predictions:

Li still thinks that we will see some major changes this year, though she cautioned that we won’t see the ubiquitous social network that centers around your email as the constant of your social graph. That, she said, will most likely play out on a large portal site, but not for another five or so.

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Email is Dead, Long Live Email

If you were to listen to prominent Web 2.0 personalities at the FOWA conference, you’d probably get the impression that email was dying. According to Caroline McCarthy of News.com:

The way people have been talking about e-mail at the Future of Web Apps conference, you’d think it were a cell phone carrier or a domestic airline. It’s antiquated, it’s backward, and everybody hates it.

Erick Schonfeld, who moderated what did turn out to be a useless 45-minute brainstorming session, stated:

It was clear that the panelists think these communication modes that we rely on every day may very well be in the process of breaking down.

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