My Top 10 Online Guilty Pleasures (People I follow, want to meet and whose brains I want to pick)

The Deltree's "Fifty People, One Question"

If this list were influential or meaningful, it might be different but nonetheless here are the top 10 people I can’t get enough of, for better or worse:

10. Pete Cashmore - He’s cute. I’m not going to lie, if Pete Cashmore looked like Gary Busey I wouldn’t care as much. Since he doesn’t, I think it’s fair to say that I’m in love. He’s Scottish. He’s got an accent. He’s smart. He owns a business. He’s forward-thinking. He even has a sense of humor. I just can’t get enough of him.

9. Julia Allison – I know people hate her. I understand why they do, too. She can, at times, seem to trivialize this business. “She’s the internet’s Paris Hilton or Britney Spears,” they say. The thing is though, she’s not. Anyone who can make it on the cover of Wired, has respect in my book. Say what you will about her, but I refuse to believe you haven’t stumbled upon her blog and thought, “Ugh! I want her life.”

8. Twittering Celebs - Guilty Pleasure at its finest. Who doesn’t want to know how @JimmyFallon is doing as he prepares for debut of his new show? Or want to watch as Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk) sends Demi Moore (@MrsKutcher) sweet nothings via twitter? (OK, maybe that one is just me.) It’s totally pointless, yet somehow addictive.

7. Jeff Jarvis - His book “What Would Google Do?” came out this week, and since it’s causing such a furor I felt I couldn’t leave him off the list. His blog BuzzMachine is such an industry standard that when one finds a rare journalist who hasn’t at least heard of the blog it’s ever-so-slightly frightening.

6. Tina Brown - Since I’ve grown up with a fascination with The New Yorker and Vanity Fair (not to mention Princess Diana and Hillary Clinton), Tina Brown has a special place in my heart. When she launched her Web site The Daily Beast a few shy months ago, I thought it would fail miserably. So far, so good though, and I have to admit I AM an avid reader. Kudos for ACTUALLY paying your writers, trying to be fair in your coverage, and having an AMAZING design to your Web site (That wasn’t a slam on The Huffington Post, I swear!

5. Gary Vaynerchuk - He’s insane. I’m QUITE certain of it. But just I am quite sure that he is insane, I’m also sure that he actually knows what he’s talking about. That man certainly is interesting. It’s no wonder he has as many followers as he does. He could talk about window blinds and people would still tune in and comment like crazy.

4. Poul Madsen and Henrik Kastenskov of The Bombay Flying Club - I’m a little partial since I’ve interviewed Poul in the fall, yet I still don’t understand why people aren’t paying more attention to The Bombay Flying Club. These guys are doing things newspapers and magazines will be doing more of as time goes on. Pay attention. They’re work is so fascinating and so deep that I can’t help but be glued.

3. Young Journalists (Particularly those at TNTJ) - Part shameless self-promotion (I occasionally blog there), but completely rooted in reality: these young journo-bloggers continuously post such interesting, deep and educated responses to the forums monthly questions that I routinely feel pressure me (but the good kind!) to think about things I normally wouldn’t consider — and then blog about it. The other bloggers on the forum are some of the most interesting people I’ve encountered on the internet.

2. Benjamin Reece - Creator of The Deltree, he is the creative force behind the video phenomenon known as “50 People, One Question.” The simplicity of its approach, matched with its powerful editing is able to show the complexity of the spirit and the human mind in ways expensive, elaborate productions can only dream of doing. For Reese and his crew at The Deltree, choosing what not to is just as important as choosing what to do.

1. Daisy Whitney - I can’t help but love Daisy Whitney. As a young woman interested in new media, she really is an inspiration. Her weekly podcast “This Week in Media” never seizes to entertain me. When listening to the program, Whitney’s charm and intelligence breezes through the computer as casually as though I were a part of her weekly discussions. I feel as though I know her or at least enough to know that I want her to be my new best friend.