Glenn Kelman Continues to Prove Sanity Exists in the Tech World

Posted on February 15, 2008
Filed Under Valley Drama | 7 Comments

Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman has an interesting post that continues to prove he just might be the most sane player in the tech space these days. In “How Green Was My Valley,” Glenn discusses Seattle in the context of how it’s different from Silicon Valley.

He makes some interesting points that are well worth noting here:

In reality, most places don’t even want to try to be like the Valley.

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Note to Tide: Detergent is Detergent

Posted on February 14, 2008
Filed Under Marketing 2.0 | 5 Comments

In on the absurdity of Forrester Research’s recommendation that marketers spend more money on social media advertising, I noted:

…consumers may love your products, but at the end of the day, toothpaste is toothpaste.

I recently hired a few marketing interns and am having them catalog all of the stupid social media marketing campaigns they can find on services like Facebook. I’m thinking about one day publishing a full-color, glossy coffee table book that serves as a visual compendium of the insanity of some of the social media marketing campaigns.

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Social Media Marketers Targeting People Who Don’t Exist?

Posted on February 13, 2008
Filed Under Marketing 2.0 | 11 Comments

Continuing my debunking of many of the absurdities promoted by social media marketers, discusses dealing with the subject of “Influentials,” those desirable individuals whose influential ways supposedly have the power to spark viral word-of-mouth buzz.

Word-of-mouth is one of the cornerstones of the social media marketer’s proposition to brands. Using social media, they’ll get your product and message into the hands of Influentials and the rest is apparently magic. Sounds good, right?

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Latest Web 2.0 Stupidity: Building a Killer Web App In 45 Minutes

Posted on February 13, 2008
Filed Under Web 2.0 Kool Aid | 5 Comments

If you could gather together some of the smartest Web developers and ask them to brainstorm a killer app for you, what would you ask them to build? Oh, and they will only have 45 minutes to do it.

No, it’s not another dumb reality TV program from FOX. It’s a special panel event at the upcoming Future of Web Apps (FOWA) conference in Miami starring Web 2.0 celebrities such as Kevin Rose.

And you - the viewing public - get to play a role in what killer app they develop. That’s right, by voting on TechCrunch, you can make sure that the 45 minutes are used productively to benefit mankind.

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Forrester Research: Blow Your Money on Social Marketing

Posted on February 11, 2008
Filed Under Marketing 2.0 | 5 Comments

Given my recent focus on debunking many of the claims about social media marketing and the viability of social networks as strong marketing platforms, I wanted to point readers of The Drama 2.0 Show in the direction of on the subject at E-consultancy.

In a recent free “report,” Forrester is advising clients to spend more money on social network advertising, especially as the economy falters. I think this is stupid advice and detail why .

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Tweet This: Nobody Gives a Fuck

Posted on February 10, 2008
Filed Under Culture & Technology | 17 Comments

I’ve never understood Twitter. The concept of regularly “micro-blogging” to the world an answer to the question “What are you doing?” using no more than 140 characters seems utterly stupid to me. After all, not only do I feel no compulsion whatsoever to broadcast my every move to the rest of humanity, I suppose I’m just not narcissistic enough to assume that other people, my friends and associates included, actually give a damn anyway.

Since Allen Stern at CenterNetworks has asked “” I figured it was worthwhile to write something nasty about Twitter.

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Introducing Another Kool Aid Drinker

Posted on February 8, 2008
Filed Under Web 2.0 Kool Aid | 1 Comment

I asked for some hate, and it looks like I’m starting to get it.

It’s not unexpected. In some ways, the party is for more and more Web 2.0 companies and the most passionate kool aid drinkers want to make sure that no drop of kool aid goes unsipped. From Duncan Riley to Jason Ervin, as the clock ticks the kool aid drinkers seem to get more aggressive in their kool aid drinking. One of the kool aid drinkers that has come onto my radar recently is Hank Williams. Hank is a self-professed geek whose “professional career [has entailed] making products, Including Clickradio, an early Internet music service, and DayMaker, one of the first PIMs for the Mac.”

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Uncov Guys Launch a Web 2.0 Startup

Posted on February 8, 2008
Filed Under Web 2.0 Kool Aid | Leave a Comment

Somebody emailed me last week to let me know that the guys behind (Matt Kent, Ted Dziuba, and Kyle Shank) have stopped publishing the popular anti-Web 2.0 blog.

I never really got into Uncov. Although Uncov, like The Drama 2.0 Show, was decidedly negative about most of Web 2.0, I never really found Uncov’s brand of humor to be entertaining and to be honest, it was all a little too geeky for me.

What I do find interesting is that well into Bubble 2.0, the Uncov creators have stopped publishing to (cough) start a Web 2.0 company. That company, Persai, is a recommendation engine with the obligatory Web 2.0 gradient logo. According to the :

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Posted on February 6, 2008
Filed Under Valley Drama |

When Alisa Leonard, the “social media junkie” who I’ve been debating, initially emailed me, it was with a subject line “i love you.” How quickly love can turn to hate.

Apparently frustrated with the way our “debate” has been going, she sent me the following email on Tuesday:

now, while a response is in the works (you see, i get very busy with client work) i have some notes for you–

Oh, poor blessed Drama 2.0. Kid (ahem, personal inference- you are a 35+ balding man from the UK who suffers from severe blog envy, and frustrated at not being able to actionably leverage social media). First, for the record, lets get some things straight dear Drama–

The Social Media Debates: Round 3

Posted on February 4, 2008
Filed Under Marketing 2.0 | 2 Comments

After getting “owned” in Round 1 of The Social Media Debates, Alisa Leonard apparently took some time off from her Twitter activities to stage a better fight in Round 2 of our debate. Unfortunately, she’s still a lightweight trying to beat a heavyweight.

On a macro level, Drama’s premise of his “are we going to talk or fuck?” approach to marketing is that he doesn’t buy the value of relationship marketing.

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