Favorite e-commerce books 2009

The dirty little secret of buzz

2009-12-15T22:58:00.000-08:00

The Dirty Little Secrets of Buzz.
I chose this book because the title intrigued me. The talks about the buzz marketing strategies which reiterate many topics discussed in this class. This book drives home the point of marketing one's self to get famous without spending any money, and mentioned way to profit off the fame. I liked it, it was an easy read, and it contained a lot useful information. I would recommend it to general public, but as for anyone who has taken this e-commerce class would probably get alot of the same information in the text..

Jin Lee

2009-11-23T17:13:00.000-08:00

This book Blogging for Profits was written to help individuals understand what a blog is and start their own blog with the intention of making a profit. It thoroughly delves into the appeals of business blogging and the advantages of blogging for your business whatever it may be. I selected this book because my group project is on monetizing a blog and I know absolutely nothing about blogging. I have never blogged before or even followed one for that matter. I understand the concept, but not the ins and outs of how to create and monetize this media.
I have learned a blog is a journal-like website that displays its entries in reverse chronological order. Common characteristics of blogs include an informal writing style, frequent updates, and a focus on strong community interactions between blog writers (known as bloggers). Blogs started as a form of online diary. Today, blogs are used for very diverse purposes. For example: Experts use blogs to provide news and commentary on specific subject areas. Businesses use blogs to promote their goods and services. Mainstream media and journalists even use blogs to provide real time coverage of breaking news events. Blogging is now one of the most popular forms of Web publishing which I was not previously aware of.
Dale Anderson the author of this book writes EZ Guides or “how to” books. He has another related book on Writing Articles for Blogs. I’m not sure if I would consider him an expert on the subject; some of his other EZ Guides include: How to Hypnotize Anyone, Swing Trading: How to Earn High Rates Safely, and Trading Skills. It seems he just writes basic how to books on easily accessible information. Nothing I learned in this book was any big secret or all that innovative, it was simple and generically informative. There are no complaints from me since this is exactly what I was looking for to learn about. The primary audience is simply anyone who wants an “easy” read for learning the basics of blogging and discovering the reasons why it would be beneficial for their business.
The primary values delivered in this book discuss the advantages of blogging for profit. Whether you are a small business, big business, from home business, or corporate business blogging can significantly improve online brand imaging according to the book. The biggest advantage with blogs is that there are no fixed rules when it comes to writing them. It is an open medium and as long as what you are writing is interesting, it can get you the money as well. Unlike other writing mediums, blogs don’t need expertise and it is all about short articles. Hence, the effort that you may have to put in is comparatively lesser than when it comes to writing a novel or other forms of writing.
There are other advantages with blogs as well when it comes to blogging for profit. With a high level of traffic, and using tools such as Max Banner Pro you can automatically even get the advertising revenue as more companies will line up to advertise their products and services on your blog. The number of hits to your website is in direct correlation with the companies’ marketing interests and or course the bottom line of sales. Also, you may even garner a name for yourself. As you rise to fame, more people will line up to offer you the opportunity to write for their websites or magazines. Your fame can earn you a lot of money as well. In fact, many bloggers have moved on to other mediums and there are cases where avid bloggers are featured in TV shows or make news for themselves.
I had hoped to gain from this book a better understanding of how blogs work and the strategy behind making them profitable. I primarily learned the basic functions of a blog. There was not as much information around the strategy of monetizing the blog or all the ways that are available to go about getting ads and traffic. The major weakness of this book was the fact that it didn’t not get into specifics of profits or the numbers behind how much others have profited from blogging successfully.
Overall, I enjoyed the content of this book and would recommend it to anyone who needs a brief, simple, clear explanation of what blogs are all about. The book does not use too many technical terms and it is an easy read. However, if you are truly interested in getting a better understanding of how to make profits and some strategies to use, this book is not going to give you all of that detailed information.

FaceBook Marketing

2009-11-19T11:23:00.000-08:00

I selected the book "Facebook Marketing, Leverage Social Media to Grow Your Business" because it is on of the fastest growing social media sites in the world and having a good understanding of how the site works can help tremendously when looking to market through it. I was also hoping that the book would increase my knowledge of how the site functioned so that I might have a better understanding of it when it came to using it for my social gain. The book was definitely not a fun read, but more so a very educational one, in that it introduced me to features and tools I didnt know about on the Facebook site.

Twitter Revolution

2009-11-09T14:03:00.000-08:00

The Revolution of social media. It is no longer a fad. It is coming and you can't stop it. That is the premise of this book. And it is a guide to see you through setting up a Twitter account and making it useful in many areas of life, such as personal to business. This book would be valuable for a novice, and someone who needs to have online formats explained to them in detail. Like another blogger stated, 25 pages of useful info...crammed in 250 pages.

Emily Howard

Spectacular presentation

2009-11-04T23:23:00.000-08:00

For those of you who are saddened that you missed class last week because you were snowed in like me and feel you were deprived my spectacular book report, do not fear! I have worked hard all night and uploaded the presentation to youtube for your viewing/learning pleasure. Please check it out and feel free to leave comments. I'd love to hear from you.

I apologize for the audio quality. My webcam isn't vista compatible, so I grabbed a new one...and it didn't have a microphone built in! I'll be returning it. What a mess new PCs are.

Alex DiPasquale's Favorite e-commerce book I'm on LinkedIn - Now What???

2009-11-04T19:14:00.000-08:00

My favorite e-commerce book is I’m on LinkedIn – Now What ??? by Jason Alba because I put it to practical use. I’ve had a LinkedIn account for about a year and never used it. I’d been meaning to get serious about it but it seemed like a daunting task. Alba’s book made it easy. At 130 pages it is an easy read. I read through it in a few hours and began working on my account.
There’s a quote in the introduction that says Alba teaches a system to tap into the power of LinkedIn is. I don’t fully agree with that quote but it put me in the mindset that LinkedIn is not a passive tool.

The book is broken up into chapters that can stand alone so when I updated my profile I simply turned to chapter 3 and began updating my profile.
The greatest value that I got from the book is the idea of branding. Thinking of LinkedIn as a way to promote my brand influenced my decisions regarding my LinkedIn account. The LinkedIn profile is the first thing a recruiter, or a user, sees when looking for contacts, so this is where ones brand is created.

In the past I’d gotten invitations to join someone’s network and always got the canned, “I’d like to add you to my LinkedIn network’ email. The chapter on connecting with others recommends not using the canned request to connect email provided by LinkedIn but rather to write a personal email that tells the potential contact, who I am, how I found you, and why we should connect. In my opinion, sending a personal email, instead of the canned one, adds to my brand.

The chapter on connecting was very helpful. The search tips not only made it easy for me to find people but they gave me ideas on how I could be found too. I ended up connecting with many people from my working past in Florida, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Some of these people are good business contacts; in other cases I reconnected with friends. I ended up finding an old high school buddy, who I’ll see at my class reunion in July.

The section on groups was very beneficial to me. I would not have even considered joining a LinkedIn group before reading the chapter, now I am in six groups. As the book teaches, the advantages are I connect with people with whom I have a common bond. Every group that I am in gives me access to potential employers or referrals.

Since reading this book I have become the local motivational speaker, touting the advantage of LinkedIn.
I have mentored a few people and watched their networks grow. With everyone that I link to I find another contact to add to my network. Before I read this book I had 3 contacts which gave me access to 1,700 people. Today I have 39 contacts which gives me access to over 205,000 people!

I’m on LinkedIn – Now What ??? is a cross between a how to and a motivational book, it has a fair amount of administrative advice too. This is the type of book that, when the LinkedIn user becomes more comfortable with the website, he or she can reread the book and benefit again and again.

Guerrilla Publicity, Guerrilla tactics to get maximum sales for minimum dollars

2009-11-03T18:34:00.000-08:00

I choose I hoped to gain more knowledge on the new digital age and leverage it in my own practice. I've been an investment advisor and money manager with Strategic Financial Partners for 2 years and I’m always looking for ways to better my practice through seminars, books, etc. The ability to make my practice more efficient, profitable, create more referrals, and increase traffic can payoff tenfold which is why I choose this book.

The idea behind Guerrilla Publicity is to maximize sales for minimum dollars by combining the old tried-and-true ways to sell what you do with the newer developments in publicity. In the new age of publicity, blogs or social media sites, it’s vitally important to harness this technology in your business. It’s a cheap, effective, and updated way to do business and service clients effectively as possible. The most important aspect of the book is its emphasis on the relationships that are built through your practice and how the new digital age has made this better and easier than ever.

The intended audience is small to medium size businesses or individual practices that don’t have the big bankrolls of large corporations for advertising. They are firms who place an emphasis on relationships, creativity, and drive to achieve the results that they want. The ironic part is that larger corporations are adopting these low cost ideas which have been so successful for the smaller businesses, such as community relationships, volunteering, social networking, and public relations. By creating relationships within the communities using innovation and time can be extremely beneficial for a firm that’s looking to maximize its dollars and minimize its costs.

This book is heads above the rest when it comes to general ideas on how to sell and how to utilize new technology. If you are new to promoting your business this is an incredible buy and will serve you very well, especially when on a tight budget. On the other hand, if what you do is extremely specialized or you’re a seasoned veteran then this book wouldn’t be recommended in a lot of instances. Guerrilla Marketing definitely provides incredible ideas for the digital age novice or somebody who can’t quite make the pivot from digital friend and digital client. Overall, I would give Guerrilla Publicity a 3 1/2 out of 5 because it can be utilized in so many different ways and I've personally used it in my own practice with positive results.

Internet Riches: The Simple Money-Making Secrets of Online Millionaires

2009-11-03T11:05:00.000-08:00

Zach Bauer

Professor Gruen

MKTG 470-001

22 October 2009

Book Review

Published in 2006, Scott Fox’s best-seller, Internet Riches: The Simple Money-Making Secrets of Online Millionaires, is not so much a book of tips and hints to becoming an Internet millionaire, but, rather, it is set up as a step-by-step guide to achieving success and wealth via the e-business model. It was written for people, like me, who understand the fact that the Internet provides a huge opportunity for new businesses, but, sadly, are not sure how exactly to utilize this magnificent tool to our advantage. Fox is a serial entrepreneur, online marketing expert, motivational speaker, and advisor to e-businesses and celebrities worldwide. Initially, when I was searching for a book to analyze, I planned to find a book that detailed the success of a company like Amazon, who has found a way to capitalize on the online business setting and do it extremely well. However, I quickly turned away from this route when I realized that companies like Amazon have achieved success because the leaders and founders of the companies were passionate about the business and had the will to make them a success. In short, each and every successful business is unique in its own way and, in my opinion, researching the success of one business in particular (while it can yield some useful tips and advice about starting up a business) won’t really tell a person how he or she can hone in on his or her specific talents or passions and make them a reality. Fox’s book does this: it provides a step-by-step process the reader can apply to his or her own business venture to make it a success.

The book begins with a discussion of the unlimited opportunity of the Internet and aims at providing a foundation of hope for the reader with the intent on giving a background on e-businesses and the reality that it is much more affordable and less risky to start up an Internet business. As the book progresses, Fox includes many examples of real-life people who have turned their entrepreneurial idea into reality via the Internet. These serve as inspiration for the reader and also bring credibility to what Scott writes. Each chapter also includes a selection of italicized sections called, Internet Millionaire Secrets. Under each heading resides either a story of a business that was a success or a note by Fox giving insights and advice pertinent to each chapter’s specific material. Overall, all the juicy insights he provides us with seems true, and the possible outcomes for applying his wisdom all seem obtainable (with hard work, a good idea, and a passion to make the business succeed, of course).

There have been a number of similar books published over the years. One of the newer ones to appear on the shelf is called, Secrets of Internet Millionaires Revealed, written by Irfan Khairi, who became a millionaire at age 25. Upon reading reviews of the book, all contained similar descriptions. Sweet101.com’s Maria Zain wrote, “Most importantly, he explains to the reader, whom he assumes is a novice at the internet, the first few steps in putting their ideas in motion - he talks about business identification, setting up the website itself, facilitating transactions as well as the core element of success - promotion of the business.” This same quote could have been stated about Fox’s text. What this should tell the reader is that, no, Fox’s book is not revolutionary or unique. It follows a format that is regurgitated time and time again, but on the same token, this format appears to be working. In addition, the fact that Internet Riches follows a formula shouldn’t steer readers away completely. It simply means that similar writings in the same format are available that are likely to contain very similar, credible information.

The book’s strongest aspect is its interface, which is easy to navigate—the setup is tailored to user friendliness. For instance, Fox utilizes charts and graphs to depict many of his ideas, bulleted lists instead of overwhelming paragraphs, and also indents and italicizes major points in the text. This makes it easy to read and interpret. The book also includes some appendices that are useful to the reader. These consist an index of all the business entrepreneurs and services Fox refers to in the text, a description of internet research skills that would benefit the online businessman or businesswoman, and a glossary of some common e-business terms that may not be so common for the average Joe. Although Fox incorporates some useful tools for his readers, there are flaws to the presentation of his material.

The book’s biggest weakness centers on its presentation of the material. In other words, because there are so many other “how to” books available, consumers may not be inclined to purchase and read Fox’s book over another. In addition, because the text was published in 2006, there must be periodic updates to the text to keep it up-to-date and relevant, due to the nature of the Internet’s ever changing and adapting environment (the most recent publication is a sequel to Internet Riches, entitled, e-Riches 2.0: Next Generation Online Marketing Strategies). I’d say that overall the format Internet Riches is a strength for the book in the sense that the title is intriguing and format sells so well (the how-to book), but in another sense the format is a huge weakness because there are so many other books sporting similar content and format.

Overall, I can’t say that I would recommend Internet Riches to somebody so much as I would recommend its content. That is to say I wouldn’t recommend Fox’s interpretation of the content over another author’s. In essence, I do not know for certain that Fox necessarily holds a better grip on what it takes to become an online millionaire than does Irfan Khairi, or does Amy Joyner (The Online Millionaire: Strategies for Building a Web-Based Empire on eBay and Beyond) or does Renee V. Richards (Online Marketing Success Stories: Insider Secrets, from the Experts Who Are Making Millions on the Internet Today). In short, here’s my summary: there are some important tidbits to be learned from Internet Riches, but nothing that hasn’t been published and republished and republished and republished . . . catch my drift?

Twitter Power

2009-11-02T17:58:00.000-08:00

My whole purpose for selecting Twitter Power was for the sole purpose that I was no wear near familiar with Twitter at all, besides for all the hype that it has been creating. So I wanted a tool that would allow me to become more aquatinted with the new craze of micro-blogging and possibly learn a few tricks along the way. Twitter Power is a great guide to help beginner micro-bloggers learn to use Twitter. Let's face it, Twitter can be confusing. Sure it's simple enough to type in a 140-character or less message, but there is so much more to Twitter than that.
Twitter Power begins by introducing readers to social media, explaining what Twitter is and why is works, providing tips for building a Twitter following how to use it to build better teams and a stronger brands; also how to make twitter your ultimate help desk by not being afraid to ask questions and delving into more advanced topics such as tweeting for business. The main subject matter in the book is all about conveying the message on how to leverage the power of Twitter for instant business benefits-like reaching new markets and increasing sales. Joel Comm definitely makes it known, that Twitter is not just a social media tool to help you keep in touch with your friends but a tool that helps you or your company gains a real advantage over other competition.

One of the main reasons I like this book is because it's written in a very approachable and conversational style. Devoid of rhetoric but filled with layman's terms, the author does a great job of communicating the why's and how's of Twitter for a non-technical, social media novice audience. The book is non-fictional and gives you the facts straight up, and has a very informational format. A couple of books that are pretty similar to Twitter Power are: Twitter Tips, Trick, and Tweets by: Paul McFedries and Twitter Revolution by: Warren Whitlock & Deborah Micek. Just to name a couple. The brands that seem to be targeting the same audience as Joel Comm has would have to be books targeting consumers whom are looking to improve their micro-blogging experience and/or companies looking to gain a competitive advantage. Such companies would have to be Facebook.com, and LinkedIn.com. Both of these websites have been shooting to connect individuals young and old, and each has its own version of social media that they are trying to convey and each has done so in their own way and have been successful but Twitter power helps you use the simple tools of Twitter to put your best face forward and help you keep your conversations going.

Twitter Power was written by two authors the first, Joel Comm, who is an American author and Internet marketer. He is one of the world’s leading experts on strategies for making money online. He is an in-demand speaker at conferences on internet marketing and business, and also he is the author of The AdSense Code and Click Here to Order. Here is an example Second is Ken Burge which is an eight-year veteran of Microsoft and is currently Joel Comm’s business partner and President of InfoMedia, Inc. As an expert in online marketing and Strategy, Ken is responsible for the direction and management of more than fifty profitable online properties. Here are a couple of Rave reviews that this book received; “Joel Comm’s understanding of Social Media and it’s applications for entrepreneurs and the growth of their businesses is remarkable. Beyond his knowledge, it is his ability to communicate it effectively that makes him stand apart while his humor in delivery keeps you coming back for more. ” -Jen Groover which is the Founder of Butler Bag, LLC. Another rave review came from Mark Joyner, #1 Bestselling Author of “Integration Marketing”. “This book is Jam-packed with clever ways to leverage the Jovian social-networking power of Twitter. The ‘Twitter as Help Desk’ idea alone is a fiendishly simple revolutionary idea.” And these are just a couple out of the many rave reviews this book has received.

The intended audience of this book is going to be individuals like myself who are at a very novice level in the big surge of social media right now and also individuals who are looking to gain a competitive advantage over their competition by using Twitter. The Primary value of this book is to teach you the value of dominating your network one tweet at a time. By doing this you can build a loyal customer following, expand your brand, and generate instant buzz when you integrate twitter into your marketing strategies.

Some of the parts of Twitter Power that I found particularly interesting were the tips for building a following, the explanation of the types of tweets, and the reference list of Twitter applications such as TweetDeck and TweetLater that can be overwhelming and confusing for new Twitter users. One of the strongest aspects of the book is that it is a comprehensive guide that demonstrates how any business or individual can leverage the power of Twitter and benefit from the results. Also the book is so simple to understand, everything is really broken down and there is not a lot of high tech words that would get in between you and affectively using Twitter. Most of the reviews on this book really emphasize that attribute as well. And I can’t forget, by buying this book you automatically earn a free ticket to Joel’s online 4-week social media workshop which is valued at a $197, a pretty great deal for buying a $14.

It’s hard to find weaknesses throughout this book but if I had to find something I would have to say that I felt it was a bit of a slower read, because it was on more of a novice level, I felt bits of it were a little cut-n-dry and made it hard to push through at times or I would just skip to the next section. But the content of this book was very intriguing with a lot of great content. One inconsistency that I did find was that in the book when Joel was explaining about designing a commercial background Image for Twitter, he referenced an example of a designer (Natalie Jost) who designs Twitter background patterns. He mentions that she has a wide variety of free backgrounds to offer on her site, but when I went to check out the great deal so I could style up my Twitter page, they were nowhere to be found, and they were all valued at $5.

This book is a complete introduction to and how to use manual for twitter. Only after the chapters on mastering Twitter use does the author then discuss the best ways to use Twitter for marketing (although suggestions are sprinkled throughout). I would highly recommend it to anybody, whether you have never used Twitter or have been using it for months and whether you are a business or just somebody with a blog. I feel I have a much better understanding of the Social media world and I know anyone who reads this book will have the same feelings too.

eBay for Dummies

2009-10-30T14:51:00.000-07:00

The reason I chose this book is to be able to sell old college books that have been stacking up in my closet. I've also had some bad experiences with eBay and felt that reading this book would be a good way to save myself from rookie mistakes. I thought eBay was an unsafe way to do business but after reading the book I feel like I have more confidence.

eBay for Dummies was written as a guide to people who know absolutely nothing about how to use eBay, much like myself. The book covers a very wide variety of topics ranging from simple things such as how to sign up, use menus, and search for items to some complex things such as how to research your asking price, what to do when auctions go bad, setting up eBay stores and so on. The book takes the reader step by step through processes that are potentially daunting for first time users such as the buying process and selling process.

The author of the book is Marsha Collier. She started using eBay in 1996 to get money for her daughers education. She was one of the first eBay University instructors and one of the first PowerSellers. She is the best selling author of eBay books with over a million copies in print. She is an experienced writer having worked at places like the Miami Herald and Los Angeles Daily News.

The primary value of this book is that when new eBay users are done reading it they know what to expect when they use eBay, and they can start buying and selling without a trial and error approach. It is easy to make mistakes using something like eBay for the first time, and this book is a confidence booster for people like me.

The strongest aspects of this book are the author’s expertise, the completeness of the book, the well placed humor, easy reading, and a part of the book called the “Ten (or So) Golden Rules for eBay Buyers and Sellers.” This part summarizes all of the important lessons and overarching themes throughout the book in about twelve short sections near the end.

I highly recommend this book for people who are new to ebay and new to the internet. For people who grew up using the internet and computers this book is unnecessary, although there are good lessons in it. I would recommend this book for people like my mom and dad.

The E-Myth Enterprise

2009-10-29T22:21:00.000-07:00

I selected this book over the countless other business books at Barns and Noble due to the large E, truth be told and the available in audio reading too. I also had an interest in entrepreneurship. So this was a good reason to do some reading on bettering my understanding in this subject. I hoped to get insight to the world of entrepreneurship in what needs to be achieved to make a successful business. This book gives a few references to the internet, with it being written in early 2009. They mention on some marketing methods on the internet, using a social network to introduce services, accessing EBay to give extra exposure to the company brand.

As before this book follows individuals and how they became successful business owners from their “Break Through” idea. This book occasionally gets hard to follow what the person was trying to solve, marketing issues, who to put as the “King,” identifying a target market to better spend advertising budget to. This may have been intentional seeing running a business is complex and every problem needs to be addressed at one time, or so it seems. Once getting the “Break Through” idea he goes through steps to get the business started, gaining sufficient funding, assess the marketing landscape and ask “Does the economy want and support my business.” After these crucial steps then to further your business with visual ideals, what do you want your business to portray? Emotional ideal is very complex in how people emotionally think of your business; brand, business activity, and operations. Functional Ideal, how functional is the business in the community. Financial Ideal, what is the business there to do for you the owner; make money, supply society with a new service, benefit other businesses around you, this is the most important step for the business to be guided correctly. Many people don’t envision a business in these steps, this book helps people to look into these and identify needed areas they may have missed on their own.

I see this books strongest aspect is relating real world activities to terminology to better understand these methods. Another strong part is the reiteration of terminology in one or two sentences at the end of long chapters. This gives the reader a second chance to absorb the content and eliminates the need to do extra research to find what the author meant. These are the strongest aspects of the book. I view the mixing of peoples stories become confusing later in the book, found myself numerous times trying to identify which person he was talking about. This in turn distracted me from his conceptual information which is the major content needed to be known by the reader. I would instead of following the person from start to finish, extract parts of this persons’ mission to start the business and explain the conceptual ideas being relayed. This would prevent the reader from losing interest and just scanning for information. This is a good book to be read by people wanting to start a business but don’t know how to get that idea off the ground, defiantly not a casual business reading book. The large text made for easier following and great for night reading before going to bed.

Web design: e-commerce

2009-10-29T15:18:00.000-07:00

Reason for choosing this book

I buy a lot of stuff online from textbook to snowboard gear, and if I think about it, the one main reason that I buy online is because it is cheap.
As Patrick Bultema, CEO of Code baby said in the lecture, competition to the cheapest price is getting more intense. Main reason is that there might be cheaper price for same product literally two clicks away. Nobody buys from complicated, boring site (you just go to different web site to buy the same product even if it had the cheapest price). I think eye catching, user friendly web site is what makes the difference in this competitive environment if you don’t want to be the cost leader.
And that’s why I wanted to see how companies are handling this issue; making it unique and eye catching, but still easy to navigate through the site.

Book summary

The book is not a instructional one at all. It is more like portfolio of many companies’ successful cutting edge website. Each companies’ sites are analyzed and presented as cases.
Examples include, O’niell, Victoria’s secret, IKEA online retail, Office chair retailer, racing bike retailer, Record shop, etc. Analysis on each case is rather lacking depth though. They go through mainly the design and rational behind it, but nothing about technical side of creating that website. The second half of the book was double page spreads of home pages and screenshots of innovative web sites. Examples includes big companies like Ford motors and Jet blue to small ones such as Threadless (T-shirt company), fragrance shop, skateboard shop, etc. I got the impression that this book is more like art book, which is used for references and inspiration, but not for a guide to create one.

Author qualification

Julius Wiedemann studied graphic design and marketing in Brazil.
After that he works several years in Japan as editor and director for digital and design magazine. He joins Taschen (Publisher) as editor in charge in 2001. He has been creating a number of title in variety of subject such as design, advertising, communication, technology, and digital culture. Also, he has been a speaker of many events such as Institute of contemporary arts and Belgrade design week last couple of years. He has Sold over one million copies of his publication sold world-wide. Plenty of experience and knowledge in web design field.

primary value and weakness

Strength of this book is definitely the visual. All pictures are in colors and printed on thick nice pages. Also, it is very cheap relative to quality of the book.
This book will be a really good source of reference, inspiration, and sample work for experienced audiences. If audience cares to go visit the real site, It will significantly enhance the experience because it is so much easier to understand by experiencing the user friendliness yourself than reading.
Most of them were in fact user friendly with really eye catching design as the book says, with few exceptions.
Some of them were too elaborated in design and reduced customer friendliness as a result. Thus, you can easily and effectively study customer friendliness of cutting edge websites if you use the book and the real experience. I would say this is the primary value of this book.

Conclusion

Overall, this book is fun, smart, stylish, and has full of visuals (It is design book after all). Even though you can’t use this book for learning technical side, I would say it is not a bad one to own. Considering that most of the other web design books focus on technical side, I would recommend this book as supplement source for other bigger and thicker web design books.

SOCIALNOMICS BY ERIK QUALMAN

2009-10-29T13:31:00.000-07:00

SUMMARY:

“We are at the start of a newer and brighter world for consumers and businesses; this is the world of Socialnomics,” stated by Erik Qualman in his book titled ‘Socialnomics.’ Socialnomics is changing and will continue to change every aspect of the consumers’ and businesses’ worlds as we once knew them.

Qualman understands that many of his readers use social media in one form or another. He demonstrates how we all can benefit from our friend’s/follower’s ideas. Through social media we are able to be more efficient. By using Facebook and Twitter updates we can actively record an “answer to the age-old question ‘What am I doing with my life?’” (Qualman, 59) Consumers can have a profound impact on their favorite brands. “Often our customers will market the product better than we can; if we can leverage one of their ideas, then it is beneficial to everyone.” (Qualman, 129)

The author uses many examples of companies that fail to use social media to their advantage. “Poor companies spend time attempting to obfuscate or manipulate negative comments within social media.” (Qualman, 42) He compares them to companies who innovatively and creatively implement new ideas of marketing through social media to build real relationships with customers. “Effective companies and people relish critical feedback via social media. Customer comments that identify areas for improvement are invaluable.” (Qualman, 42) If businesses truly take into account the information that is given to them through the easily accessible social media both businesses and consumers will benefit.

“Just like businesses, politicians and governments need to keep up with advancements in social media, otherwise they will be left behind.” (Qualman 87) Through the effective use of social media Obama won the election. “It is argued that without the internet Barack Obama would not be our President.” (Qualman, 87)

THE AUDIENCE:

Socialnomics was written primarily for businesses and consumers. Qualman hopes that companies will jump aboard the social media train. He emphasizes that businesses will be left behind if they are stuck in their rut of the old way of doing things. The companies that do not attempt to modify their business models to embrace this new from of marketing will cease to exist. Qualman demonstrates to consumers how much of an impact they have on business decisions. He shows consumers how much more efficient life is through social media.

STRENGTHS:

The book uses real world examples based on the author’s own working experience. Qualman illustrated stories from ESPN, Comcast, NBC, Google, Hulu, Scabulous, Coca-Cola, and Second Life; just to name a few. The book also uses fictional stories to relate and appeal to consumers. A good example of this can be found in chapter one when Qualman introduces Sally Supermarket.

WEAKNESSES:

The author seemed to exaggerate and over emphasize how plugged in our society has and is becoming. During the Sally Supermarket illustration Qualman dramatized the amount of information that can be received from Facebook. Although Facebook is one of Google’s biggest competitors it is not know to users that the social media can also serve as a search engine. Additionally, Qualman mentioned President Obama’s achievements made possible by social media. While, Obama did make good use of social media and this did assist him during his campaign I believe making this a primary example in the book turns off those readers who do not approve of Obama. Furthermore, Qualman mentioned some of the same examples and concepts more than once in separate chapters. This made the book a little hard to follow.

THE BOOK:

The book is an informational popular press book. The format is a hardcover book. Some other similar books are Twitter Power: How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time by Joel Comm and Ken Burge; Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff; and World Wide Rave: Creating Triggers that Get Millions of People to Spread Your Ideas and Share Your Stories by David Meerman Scott.

THE AUTHOR:

Currently the Global Vice President of Online Marketing for EF Education, Erik Qualman has also improved e-commerce for Cadillac, AT&T, Yahoo!, EarthLink, and Travelzoo. He speaks at internet and marketing events. His works are featured in Business Week, Advertising Age, Forbes, Investor’s Business Daily, eWeek, Media Life, Adweek, TechCrunch, Direct Marketing News, Marketing FM, and Direct Response Magazine. Qualman received his BA from Michigan State University and his MBA from University of Texas at Austin. In addition to his present position at EF Education he also writes for Search Engine Watch and SES Magazine. (Qualman, 257)

MY THOUGHTS:

I selected this book because it looked like it was easy to read and understand. I am not tech savvy therefore, I looked for a book I could identify with. Fortunately, Socialnomics was a perfect find. I was able to follow along with the many examples and stories the author provided. He used several illustrations of human commonalities with social media which made the information relatable. I do not know much about the newer versions of social media, such as Twitter, so I was looking forward to finding out what all the hype was about. I learned that social media does not stop at Facebook and Twitter even search engines, texting, and Wikipedia are all social in nature.

Given similar books I would strongly recommend Socialnomics based on the writers experience and background in e-commerce. His many illustrations relevant to businesses and consumers provide great support for his claims.

Designing the Digital Experience

2009-10-29T12:52:00.000-07:00

Author: David Lee King
As the Digital Branch and Services Manager at the Topeka & Shawnee County Library(in Kansas) , the author is accustomed to planning, implementing and experimenting with the various trends in the emerging technological world. He has been a speaker at information industry events in the US as well as overseas, has been published in numerous library industry journals, and writes the “Internet Spotlight” column in Public Libraries Magazine with Michael Porter. Overall, David is highly knowledgeable of the e-commerce industry (specifically website design) and what does and does not work in attracting a generation with a limited attention span.
*His website/blog is: http://www.davidleeking.com/

Selection of the book:
Although the class is based around e-commerce and the internet world, I didn’t find my book through a search engine like Google or a recommendation posted by an individual or company on their website. Instead, I navigated through the dusty halls of the local library and found it nestled in the computer “how-to” section. Initially, I had no interest in the book. The cover wasn’t eye-catching and the author’s name was unfamiliar. However, after reading the synopsis and reviews in the first couple of pages, I quickly changed my preconceived notions. As a marketing major, I’ am continuously learning about design and implementation strategies in business. This book seemed like a perfect fit with my personal interests and career plans. In completing the book, my hope was to be more informed of the tools and tricks of using the internet as a marketing medium.

Summary:
The book serves as a guide to the tech-savvy reader who desires to know how to effectively design experiences on the internet. David Armano (VP of Experience Design and author of Critical Mass) sums the foundation of the book: “We’re all social beings, we all have to get our basic needs met, and we seek positive experiences while trying to avoid negative ones. Whether it be a website, product, or service, these are basic human truths. And it’s why the strategy, planning, and execution of experiences are more important than they’ve possibly ever been.”With this base on the human need for experience, the chapters are broken into three parts:

PART 1- The structural focus in digital experience design (creating better experiences by improving the websites usability).
PART 2- the community focus in digital experience design (online participation and community).
PART 3- the customer focus (stage experiences online and turn negative/neutral experiences into positive/memorable ones).

Also included are general tips on how to generate conversations with blogs, wikis, and podcasting. All in all, the main strategy and subject is centered on the end result- the customer’s attitude towards the product/service being marketed.

Recommendation:
I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in marketing via the internet. The thread throughout the book of “an experience” is vital in understanding how to effectively communicate with others. Joseph B. Pine II and James H. Gilmore (authors of The Experience Economy: Work is Theatre & Every Business a Stage) pinpointed this tool perfectly: "It's crucial to understand that experiences are a distinct economic offering, as distinct from services as services are from goods. Experiences result when a company uses tangible goods as props and intangible services as the stage for engaging each customer in an inherently personal way.”Therefore, understanding that customers want an experience primarily (along with the product/service) will set you apart from all other individuals in the business world.

Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything

2009-10-29T04:46:00.000-07:00

What book was selected?
Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything is the text that I selected for our book review project in this course. The book, produced collaboratively by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams, postulates on how interactive online communities can strengthen the efforts of all involved. Throughout the work the two authors makes strong cases for this viewpoint, and back their assessments up with situational data and real-life examples. Even the subtitle of their book was created via an online public discussion. By the end of this book the authors have strongly made their case, and have gone a long way towards convincing me about the validity of their stance.

Why was this book chosen?

My initial selection of the book came out of my desire to learn how to more effectively use online interactive communities. These sites are not only fantastic social extensions, but also can serve as an excellent promotional tool if they are maintained skillfully. Being a performer and needing a way to spread the word about myself, I naturally latched onto a book that might teach me something about using such networks effectively. I had seen the book mentioned on Amazon in several “Best Of” lists created by site members, and thought it would be an excellent tool for reaching this goal. While in the end the book was not exactly what I had in mind, it was still very illuminating.

What is the book's subject?

Wikinomics, to quote the authors, is about how “new mass collaboration is changing how companies and societies harness knowledge and capability to innovate and create value.” An example it cites early on to elaborate this principle is that of GoldCorp. GoldCorp was a mining corporation which was seeking ways to discover new veins in addition to its existing properties, which were moving towards depletion. Rather than hire a development team to work inside the company, GoldCorp opened up the challenge to the entire world via a contest wherein they offered $575,000 in prize money to whoever could develop the best predictive models for gold discovery. The project was a massive success, and the winning model helped transform GoldCorp from an under-performing $100 million company into a $9 billion powerhouse. Obviously the system of peer collaboration can produce profitable results. This text shows that basic principle at work again and again, explaining how any company which ignores this capability is missing out on a massive revenue opportunity.

What is the book's format?

In general the book utilizes the same format seen in many books of this nature. Each section is split up based on the main principle or idea being discussed within, with subsections based on a case-by-case basis. Often a whole chapter is designated to a gradual explanation of the title principle. An example would be the chapter “Ideagoras”, which discusses the emerging global marketplace of qualified minds that can be applied to solving all sorts of dilemmas. It elaborates later on by noting “the world is your R&D department”, an intriguing notion indeed. Each section of the book works thusly by introducing its primary principle and then detailing how it works in today’s e-commerce world. Most of these sections were very informative. There is occasional redundancy, but that’s to be expected in any text of this nature.

What is the value of the book to its target audience?
The value the book offers to these readers, as well as any business student willing to pick it up and read it, is an educational one. It illuminates its readers to the gradual dissemination of all information. A good example would be its chapter “Collaborative Minds”, which again goes a long way towards selling its viewpoint. The information in this chapter makes a strong case for the release of most proprietary information in order to drive the total evolution of the marketplace. Tapscott and Williams state that by following this practice, companies help create a “synergized ecosystem” in which “prosumers” and “ideagoras” will help to remodel and streamline business practices on a new global stage. If one should take away anything from the text, it is the notion of the incredibly high value of “human capital” utilization across organizational boundaries.

What was your final reaction?
While the book’s primary principles are valid, it ignores some contradictory data in order to make its point. At no point does the text convincingly address how this new market of mass collaboration will overcome the problem of groupthink. That is, the fact that in many collaborative groups such as “think tanks” set up by world governments, ideas can often be lost as individuals within the group strive to reach consensus while sacrificing creativity. The pursuit of group cohesiveness can often be overpowering in an attempt to reach a solution. Many companies, such as GoldCorp, have fought this concept by turning the whole process into a contest for cash reward. Still, the text never discusses how many collaborative research groups fight the groupthink impulse. More elaboration here would have been of great value.

Marketing for Physical Therapy Clinics

2009-10-29T00:07:00.001-07:00

Selection
I picked this book because I hope to one day run my own physical therapy clinic and my course project involves building a website for a local PT clinic. Most physical therapists are lacking in business sense and I hope that my undergrad degree will set me apart in the industry. I was very excited to find a book that pulled my interests together.

The Book

While the book was designed to cover all aspects of marketing for a physical therapy firm, the primary focus of the book is on web marketing through the company's website, social media, and permission-based marketing. The dedication of the book sums up the purpose well stating the book is designed to "help our community market our services better." The heavy focus on web marketing is due to current state of physical therapy practices in the US. Most patients go to a new clinic with a prescription from their doctor, but choose a clinic based on personal recommendations and web-based research on local clinics. Word of mouth and the company website are crutial. Since word of mouth is harder to control, the book focused on what can be done, careful website building.

The book is written to be used either as reference for a company that is struggling in only one area of marketing or to be read cover-to-cover. The tone of the book gives it a feeling of being a self-help book crossed with a business text. When I'm done loaning it out, I'll keep it around for reference.

I've never found another book like this, even when looking for books on website building for other types of clinics. Specific information for healthcare providers to handle their businesses doesn't exist. Most providers also have negative attitudes about business since the 'only goal is to sacrifice patients for profit.' Due to this dominat belief, it's amazing there aren't more targeted books to break through to this market.

The Author
The author, Nitin Chhoda, PT, CSCS, is a physical therapist who in addition to his practice is a health and wellness speaker, runs a fitness camp, and has two websites and a blog to help other PTs with the business behind their clinics.

The book is intended for physical therapists who own their own clinics and the book would also be benificial to office managers and staff to make certain that everyone in the clinic is on the same page with regard to a consistent message in marketing.

Value of the Read

The value of this book comes from the industry specific research and proven techniques for using a website to meet different business objectives. The book doesn't discuss the techinical aspects of building a site, but rather focuses on content generation that will engage clients and drive traffic to the clinic. The most important part of the book is the discussion of making the message 'viral.' Ultimately, word of mouth is what drives new patients to a clinic. The book discusses how to use your website, blog, and permission-based marketing to get people talking about your clinic and sharing valuable wellness information.

The weak point of the book comes from the poor quality of the writing. Grammatical errors flurish on the pages along with inconsistant line spacing and the wrong words. It should have been a very fast read, but figuring out what the guy wanted to say was challenging at times. I keep looking back at the book still stunned at how unprofessionally it is put together yet what great information it contains. It's facinatingly bizarre.

Recommendation

I recommend this book though I give it only one star, if that. The terrible quality of the book makes it intolerable, but the information is indispensible. I corrected much of the book, often more than 3 errors per page so that it won't be as bad for all those who will be reading it after me. I've got several therapists lined up to read the book as soon as I'm done with it for school. I hate that I had to preface my recommendations to these men with, "It's horrible, but I corrected it for you. The information is really valuable, but it's hard to believe Amazon is selling something this horrid."

Ignore this Book at Your Peril!

2009-10-28T19:22:00.000-07:00

The title of this blog is a quote by Michael S. Malone of ABC news after reading this book by Dave Evans, I would have to agree with him. If you are a senior in college, are a Marketing or IS major, this is a must read. We are in a technology revolution …if you doubt it or are not an early adopter of the social web, don’t wait until you feel uninformed and not with it to read this book. Technology revolutions always take longer than predicted, but arrive faster than anticipated. Think about mp3players…just think about it…when did you get your first one? What did it do? Play music? How did you purchase or borrow the songs you played on it? Hum…and when was that? How do you listen to music now? What else can you do with that very little mp3 player? Even if you plan to focus in another marketing specialty be it production, print, media, whatever…wherever you work the social web will be the buzz and certainly will be a part of your life at work and home. If you decide to work for an advertising agency, you should find one that has a social media department. This might be a good indicator that they are on the cutting edge of what is already here and coming our way. But…it won’t do you any good if you can’t speak the language.

Dave Evans provides great insight as to why people are using the web to connect, share ideas, spread the word both good and bad and how companies that aren’t using this marketing avenue can understand the big picture and put it to use. Dave applies basic marketing principles and explains how they are used in the vast world of the social web; Blogging, YouTube, Twitter, and so forth. Through a comprehensive list of exercises the reader is to do in an hour a day, he or she is given places to go on the web to understand what is happening and why it is appealing, appropriate for them… or not. An hour a day, something most people can manage and commit to doing. In my limited experience, I find that most people do not understand that we are in a revolution, they don’t understand it, deny the possibilities and tend to criticize people that spend time on the social web. This is mostly a fear response. Your job will be to help them overcome their fear and embrace the opportunities available to them, comfortably evaluate and explain the costs and the benefits to their organization.

If you utilize the book the way that the author intended it to be used it is more of a hands on study. By chapter four you are hooked. The biggest challenge in reading this book is the time you can dedicate to the exercises as you are quickly sucked into areas of the web you have never considered. You are drawn into the real reason you probably bought the book, “How can I make money at this?”, and “If I choose to jump in, how do I start, and how do I evaluate my success?”. You’ll have to read the book to get the answers… after all, this is just a review.

Search Engine Optimization: Your visual blueprint for effective Internet marketing.

2009-10-28T18:03:00.000-07:00

Why did I choose this book?

I choose this book because I was looking for ways to further broaden my current knowledge of search engine optimization. I was looking for a book that would offer more ideas in optimizing websites. After hearing other testimonials about how great this book was I was anxious to give it a read.

What is the book about?

This book is about search engine optimization with subject matter that encompasses a multitude of activities that are involved with website optimization. The methods discussed involve steps that are needed to be taken at every step of the website development process. The steps range from structuring and organizing the website content to promoting a website through the use of blogs and other social media websites. There are over 140 different ideas that can be used in this book to better market a webpage for a higher ranking in search engines which in turn will bring more traffic and potential customer transactions to your website.

What is the format of this book?

This book is a guidebook that has a format of text and illustration and screenshots of various websites. The beginning of each chapter explains the general topics in an easy to understand manner. After the chapter’s explanation of the topics, it transitions into a visual guide in which displays screenshots of the discussed websites and a step by step explanation to reinforce the chapter’s concepts through visual reinforcement.

About The Author

The author of this book is Kristopher B. Jones, who is the CEO of PepperJam, an internet marketing agency. Kris is well know in this industry and is an expert in search and internet marketing. Kris has many years experience in search engine marketing and optimization.

Who is the intended audience?

The intended audience is anyone who is trying to increase traffic to a website. This book covers all experiences from a beginner to a seasoned expert in this field. If you want to have a website without needing to be highly ranked in search engines, than this book would not be for you. This book is very valuable because it makes the concepts of search engine optimization very easy to understand.

Recommendation

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in increasing traffic to their website. If you were to only implement half of the ideas in this book, you would easily increase your ranking in search engines. I would rate this book 5 out of 5 stars.

Six Pixels of Separaton: Everyone Is Connected. Connect Your Business to Everyone

2009-10-28T14:35:00.000-07:00

Why Six Pixels of Separation?
The book Six Pixels of Separation: Everyone Is Connected. Connect Your Business to Everyone was selected for the book review project because it use the concepts discussed in the E-Commerce course about using different means of online marketing to target audiences. On the front flap of the cover the author poses the notion: “Is it important to be connected? Well, consider this: If Facebook were a country, it would have the sixth largest population in the world.” This statement interested me enough that I purchased the book because it conjured up thoughts about if that many people are online there is a huge opportunity to reach them.
From reading this book I hoped to gain the knowledge of how to use different internet channels to market a business. I also hoped it would correlate well with the E-Commerce course in illustrating the benefits of using online marketing channels.

What is Six Pixels of Separation about?
Six Pixels of Separation is advertised to be the first book to integrate digital marketing, social media, personal branding, and entrepreneurship in a clear, entertaining, and instructive manner that everyone can understand and apply. The author, Mitch Joel, does a good job of doing this. He uses case studies and personal experience from himself and friends to explain how to use the online world to expand the marketing efforts for oneself and one’s business. The idea of Six Pixels of Separation is that the world is no longer made up of degrees of separation, but rather almost everyone is six or less mouse clicks away form being connected to everyone else.
The book is divided into fourteen chapters that are broken down further into subchapters. The author uses captivating titles for each chapter such as: I Google You… Just Like You Google Me, Burn the Ships, and Digital Nomad. The writing style of this book is really enthusiastic which causes the reader to become more interested in what is sometimes an uninteresting topic. Six Pixels of Separation is a book designed to help and targeted at entrepreneurs and small business owners who want to explore their marketing options online.

The Author
Mitch Joel, the author, of Six Pixels of Separation is the president of Twist Image, an award-winning digital marketing and communications agency. The about the author describes Joel as follows: he has been called a marketing and communications visionary, interactive expert, community leader, blogger and podcaster.
Marketing Magazine dubbed him the “Rock Star of Digital Marketing” and in 2006 he was named one of the most influential authorities on blog marketing in the world. In 2008, Mitch was named Canada’s Most Influential Male in Social Media, One of the top 100 online marketers in the world, and he was also awarded Canada’s Top 40 under 40 Award.
He also runs a Blog called “Six Pixels of Separation” where he discusses many of the same topics discussed in the book and helps followers learn how to expand their online marketing efforts.

Primary Value and Strengths of Six Pixels of Separation
The primary value gained from Six Pixels of Separation is the knowledge that there are many free easy to use online marketing channels that any entrepreneur or small business owner can use. From using social media websites like Facebook and Twitter to creating a blog or starting an online community anyone can reach their specific target market if they are online.
The key strengths of this book are the writing style, the use of real world examples, and the author’s creditability. The writing style of the book is very enthusiastic and motivating for the reader because of this it helps make the sometimes scary and daunting idea of turning to the internet as a marketing tool easier to handle. The use of real world examples in the book also help make the idea of using internet marketing less stressful because it shows that other people just like the reader have been able to find success online. The final key strength of this book is the author’s creditability because he has become very successful using the tool he describes in the book it makes the reader more assured that the same can happen for them.

Weaknesses, inconsistencies, or incorrect assumptions of Six Pixels of Separation
There were some key weaknesses in this book. A main one being throughout almost the first half of the book the author would discuss different topics and then state, “This is what this book is all about.” The author seemed to be trying to sell the book even though it had already been purchased. Another key weakness of the Six Pixels of Separation is at times it seemed repetitive. For example topics discussed earlier in the book were brought up again later on. The topics were slightly different in the way they were explained, but the basic ideas were the same, which could cause some confusion for the reader as to why a topic is being discussed again.
The main incorrect assumption I had with this book is I believed it would explain how to set up and use the different marketing channels available on the internet. Six Pixels of Separation is not really a user manual, it is more of a motivational book to get business owners interested in expanding online. This could be somewhat inconvenient for readers who do not have a lot of experience on the internet because the book explains what channels to use, when to use them, where to use them, and how to get benefit from them, but not how to set up the channels.

Recommendations
Six Pixels of Separation is an interesting book that helps make sense of a sometimes overwhelming idea of taking one’s business and marketing efforts online. I would recommend this book to any entrepreneur, small business owner, or anyone who is interested in expanding their company online or anyone who is interested in the different areas of the e-commerce industry.

World Wide Rave

2009-10-27T21:39:00.000-07:00

What is a World Wide Rave? David Meerman Scott describes it as such:

“A World Wide Rave is when people around the world are talking about you, your company, and your products. Whether you’re located in San Francisco, Dubai, or Reykjavík, it’s when global communities eagerly link to your stuff on the Web. It’s when online buzz drives buyers to your virtual doorstep. And it’s when tons of fans visit your Web site and your blog because they genuinely want to be there.”

The sub-title on the front cover that reads, “ Creating triggers that get millions of people to spread your ideas and share your stories” is the reason I chose this book. This concept sounded very appealing to me. I have a few ideas in mind and I was hoping to learn tools that can help me share stories in the future.

This type of book is basically an online marketing tool, but not exclusive to products or services. It was written to drive people to action. Scott hopes his readers will learn from dozens of people who have achieved amazing success so they can trigger a World Wide Rave of their own.

Who is the intended audience?

At first, I thought the intended audience for this book was geared toward organizations capable of reaching millions of readers, viewers, or listeners, but the concepts for a world wide rave can also be used by those who don’t have a huge potential market. Scott prompts the reader by asking “How big is your ‘world’?” Whether you are an experienced marketer, a CEO, business owner or entrepreneur, new to online marketing or an expert, you will benefit from the wealth of these new ideas and fascinating stories of success Scott shares within the pages of this book. He introduces many people just like you and me who have created their own World Wide Rave. Some people have reached millions of people; however, others have generated online interest in smaller, yet no less important, ways.

Would I recommend this book?

Given similar books (not many, if any at all), I would recommend this book to the fullest extent possible to not only people in the business world, but to my family, friends and even anyone interested in reading a good story (many stories, actually). I was so unbelievable impressed with this book.

Scott referenced nearly 100 websites that he believes to be World Wide Raves. I looked at about 15 of them and my favorite is perhaps www.wherethehellismatt.com. It’s one of the most amazing World Wide Raves I’ve seen so far. The short story is that a friend suggested that he film a particular silly dance that he occasionally does. He eventually was sponsored to travel all over the world and film his dance and invited thousands of people to dance with him. It’s such a simple thing that he’s doing, but it has linked people all over the world.

Scott’s book, World Wide Rave, kept me engaged literally throughout every single page. This wasn’t just a book I was forced to read for a school project or class assignment, I was thrilled about the content and tools I was learning and would absolutely read it on my own personal time. READ THIS BOOK!!

"The Accidental Billionaires"

2009-10-27T13:36:00.000-07:00

Summary

The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich is a fictional narrative of the creation of Facebook. The story is told through the vantage point of Eduardo Saverin a close friend of the creator of Facebook, Mark Zuckerman, as well as a classmate Tyler Winklevoss and a key player in the success of the site Sean Parker. While most of the story is told about Mark Zuckerman and his trials in creating Facebook, his vantage point is never used. A limitation of the book is the lack of credence to the story. Facebook has released a statement saying the book " is not entirely truthful and neglects some of the people that were key to the success of Facebook". For example Mark's two roomate who were the first employees of Facebook and helped create the applications that make the site so easy to use.

Audience

The intended audience of this book are those people who are interested in the controversy of Facebook. While this was supposed to be a key selling point of the book it is not clearly expressed in the story. Other than the subtitle "The Founding of Facebook a tale of sex, money, genius and betrayal" there really is not much controversy or action in the book. Most tales of sex or betrayal are only hinted to have occurred. For instance Eduardo states "I wasn't sure but it looked like Mark went home with a Victoria Secret model". Clearly the uncertainty of all statements made in the book was done intentionally to protect the author from a lawsuit.

What Did I Get?

From this book I learned the interesting path an idea like Facebook took to its creation. I learned how some of the mistakes of Mark's previous sites helped in the success of Facebook. What I wished I would have learned is how the website monetized itself. Investments from venture capitalists were mentioned but there was no discussion on how their investments work. Overall I would recommend this book to those with an interest on the creation of Facebook. This book was not a good read if you were purely interested in the business model of social media sites.

The Facebook Era: Tapping Online Social Networks to Build Better Products, Reach New Audiences, and Sell More Stuff.

2009-10-27T12:40:00.001-07:00

Why did I select this book?

I am a current Facebook networker, and I wanted to learn new ways to make internet-based sales and how to do business with more people over the internet. I was allways interested in how Facebook knew which advertisements to show me, and the structure of the advertisements on the site. I wanted to get a firm understanding of exactly what business are doing to attract new customers and keep the customers they currently have. This book was selected because it effectively teaches people new ways to use Facebook in ways that I have not been exposed to. Also, Clara Shih is a well known former software developer and the creater of faceconnector, which is the first business application on Facebook.

What the books about

The book is targeted at at people who use Facebook in their everyday life and are interested in using Facebook to increase business opportunities. It was written to help sales people sell more effectively to the target market and also shows what succesfull social media using companies are doing to contribute more profits to their bottom line. The book portays that the most successful organizations realize that businesses are comprised of networks of people, and having a firm understanding of how to take advantage of these networks can be an invaluable core competence to an organization. Facebook has allowed companies to build better relationships between sales people and consumers, and provides an additional medium for customers to keep up to date with whats going on with a particular company.

Would I recommend this book?

This book taught me how to use Facebook outside of the context I was previously using inside my personal network. The book describes ways to successfully hyper-target customers and ways to successfully use social recruiting to grow your staff base. The book was written extremely well, as Clara Shih was especially qualified to write about the topics discussed. There were no weaknesses about the book what-so-ever, and I feel confident that I will be able to use this book as a great reference when I begin using social media sites like Facebook to aid in my personal business adventures.

2009-10-26T16:07:00.000-07:00

Why did I select this book?

When I first found out about the book review project in this class I was kind of excited. I really enjoy reading and having the freedom to choose what I read. When searching for a book to read, I looked for something with sustenance, something that I would be able to pick up and not set down. I read quick reviews on books that I narrowed down in my selection process to determine if they were dry, or juicy. My mind was set on ‘The Long Tail’ after hearing about it from my good friend in Minnesota who is web designer. I watched a webinar that discussed the book and read a preview of a chapter and decided that this was the book for me. I hoped to understand more about ecommerce and its impact on the different economies around the world. I didn’t understand what the “long tail” was and what its relevance was. I also hoped to gain more of an understanding of niche markets and how they are impacting the world even more now than the popular choice markets.

What is the book is about?

This book is about the 80/20 rule and how globalization, with the main contributing factor, the internet, has changed that rule. The rule is that 80 percent of something is the result of 20% of something else. This rule was applied to the marketing and sales of products before the internet. The top 20% of products make up for 100% of revenue. With this, 80% of all products are failures. The visual representation of this rule is a graph that starts out high (20% of products making all the revenue) and then exponentially curves to a low tail (80% of products making low revenue). This book explains how the internet opened up information and products to a worldwide audience. People were once limited to few choices, then with those choices the top pick became the best and made the most money. Now, people have infinite choices and the top choices aren’t making the money they once were. People choose what ever they want forming niches in the market. The goal of marketers now is to market to specific niches.
The book is an informative book that not only informs the reader on the ever changing world, but also one that incites reaction in the reader, challenging him/her to actively look for these changes and how they can market. Its format is a descriptive, flowing and easy to follow format. It feels as if the author is having a discussion with the reader, rather than dry textbook format that puts readers to sleep.

Author Qualifications

Chris Anderson is the editor-in-chief of “Wired Magazine”. Wired Magazine won a national award while he was its editor-in-chief. He also has a lot of ecommerce experience and has written many articles.

Given similar books, to what degree would you recommend it?

I would recommend this book on a higher level than others (8/10) because it is informative in a discussion type of voice rather than bland, dry text books. The reader friendly dialogue of the book and usage of key points being explained to the lowest common denominator (without the baby-talk) really gave the book an advantage over others.

The eBay Marketing Bible

2009-10-25T10:50:00.000-07:00

Audience

This book was written with people in mind who want build an eBay store and/or bring more traffic to and from their own website. The authors talk in detail about how these entrepreneurs can market their store through many avenues. The main purpose for this book is to help other eBay sellers market their wares and drive more buyers to their stores.

About The Authors

The authors are very knowledgeable about the subject of how to market an eBay store. Cliff Ennico is a small business lawyer, as well as a Certified eBay Education Specialist. Cindy L. Shelby is an eBay Certified Education Specialist, Certified Business Consultant, and eBay Powerseller. They both have previously written other eBay marketing books. Both authors are considered experts in the field of eBay Education Specialists.

Key Points In The Chapters

One of the key points the authors bring up in the beginning of the book is a new word for all sellers and that is “marketainment: marketing your business in cool, fun, humorous, dramatic, or compelling way that entertains your customers or otherwise manipulates their emotions.” What Cliff is telling you is that to effectively market yourself or your brand in this age of fast moving technology you need a gimmick to get noticed.

The first couple of chapters cover developing a marketing strategy, and building your presence on eBay. The book provides in depth help to the seller to figure out who their customers are, and what types of things to sell to these customers. The authors then describe the necessity for creating your user and store ID on eBay. These ID’s have to be ones that will make a potential customer want to stop and look inside your store to see what you have to offer. Another customer friendly strategy is to have an email address that matches both ID’s, using eBay’s my world pages.

In the next couple of chapters the book discusses using eBay and other online marketing techniques to drive traffic to your store. The authors start off by letting the readers know about many of the guidelines that restrict what sellers can and cannot do on the eBay site no matter whether they have a store or are creating individual sales. Some of these include not posting a URL to your outside website on your eBay listing or store, your customers must opt-in to any emails that you might want to send to them, and a couple of the most obvious ones are-do not misrepresent your items and there will be zero fraud tolerated. Cliff and Shelby also let their audience know about the many marketing tools that eBay has at your disposal. These include markdown manager, joint ventures, neighborhoods, discussion boards, charity donations, and Skype.

The book then goes on to provide some in depth ideas about how to really market your store. Many of these ideas include those that most of us have heard about (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs, Facebook, and YouTube), but they also brought up many more online forms of media marketing. These included podcasting, RSS feeds, Squidoo, Wikis, and Knol.

The final couple of chapters delve into some of the more common forms of offline marketing (press releases, ads, radio, television, billboards, etc…). There are a few other tactics that are shared in the last couple of chapters that are a must read for any sales person. (I'm not going to give away the whole book).

Weaknesses

The one drawback to this book was that it really was geared towards building a store presence and not on individual listings. The hope was that it would delve more into how to make actual listings and what draws customers to that listing. So while there were some tips for all types of sellers it just didn’t give enough attention to the individual listing side of eBay. One of the reasons for the lack of individual listing tips may be due to the fact that eBay is moving away from the more traditional individual sales and moving more towards the online store setup.

Recommendations

This book is a recommended read for just about anyone, but especially those in sales or marketing. While it predominantly centered on eBay stores it has a lot of great information for anyone in those two fields, and would be a very useful resource book to have handy. This would also be a good book for new or experienced sellers on eBay, since it does talk about several of the guidelines that have to be followed in order to remain in good standing on the site, as well as some very good resources in the appendix. So go ahead read it you might just find out some things you never knew before.

Blogging @merica

2009-10-23T19:05:00.001-07:00

ABOUT THE BOOK

This book was written by Aaron Barlow. The direct focus of this book is the new public sphere. Blogging is becoming a new public trend that is an easy and convenient way to share information. This is the second book that Aaron Barlow has written about blogging, his first was entitled The Rise of the Blogosphere.

WHY I CHOSE THIS BOOK

I chose this book as I was interested in blogging and it was a topic that I knew nothing about. I also chose this book because I know that blogging is becoming a social norm and a job requirement. I wanted to be as up to date as I can be for my career. I believe that this book is very beneficial because I can understand the different ideas and motives for writing blogs. From this book I gained several insights about blogging from within an organization, the different political issues and how to deal with the press, and how blogs interact with popular culture and society.

OVERVIEW

The book is about how blogging is affecting our culture and how to deal with the changing social norms. This book was written to continue what Aaron Barlow had written in the first book. He tries to identify how blogs themselves work and how they are changing the cultural landscape of America. The book begins by explaining blogs where they came from and briefly why they are taking such a strong hold in America. His next chapter which discusses blogs in society first covers the negative images that bloggers have and how they are trying to correct that problem. Blogs are now also a way for businesses to communicate with their consumers. The third chapter discusses blogs from within the organization, which explains how they can be used as a good or a bad thing. The fourth chapter discusses the political issues and the press; it talks a lot about the free exchange. The fifth chapter is a blog in popular culture and explains how it is becoming a trend and how it is emerging considerably. The final chapter explains the online community and online utilization: the Christian blog.

This book is written for anyone who wants to expand their knowledge. This book explains blogging and how it is changing our culture. It also explains to the reader why it is so popular and how to use it effectively. I believe that if anyone is interested in this topic this book is a good read. It can be easily understood by several different audiences. Whether older people are reading it to help them to understand the current technology or whether it is being read by someone who is just beginning their career and wants to stay ahead of the curve this book caters to their needs.

SIMILAR BOOKS

The first one that I found several good reviews on is ProBlogger by Chris Garrett and Darren Rowse. This book explains how to make an income by blogging and how low entry barriers can help those with a low income. Another book that I found is The New Influences. This book is written by Paul Gillin and it discusses ways to relate to the customers on a new level. Another book that I believe is very similar is Clear Blogging which was written by Bob Walsh. It is a very basic way of explaining blogs in non-technical terms so that those who have no idea where to start can get a good grasp on them. The key competitive set is a way to determine strengths and weaknesses and find strategies that provide you with a distinct advantage over your competitors. I believe that for this book the key competitive set includes giving a clear definition of the concept, an in depth look at how to apply it to the upcoming business trend, and ways to make your blog in a good format.

VALUE ADDED

This book gives information for those who work in a small business or a large corporation as well as for those who want to blog for their own personal reasons. This book also heavily discusses political blogs, community blogs, personal blogs, and other reasons why individuals would have blogs. Also it gives us an understanding of what to expect on these kinds of blogs.

RECOMMENDATION

I find that this book is a good read for any generation, who is interested in blogging. I have not read any other books on blogging so it is hard to tell what degree I would rank it. However, I believe that this is a good book and a great read for anyone interested in blogging. I have found several good reviews on this book from professionals. I would rate this book a 9 out of 10 for anyone who is interested in gaining wisdom on the issue of blogging.

Advertise, Promote, and Market Your Business or Web Site with little or no money.

2009-10-22T12:07:00.000-07:00

I purchased the book hoping to find a way to improve my business’s existing website, and find out any kind of general online marketing information I could. The book covered those topics and gave me all kinds of new ideas. I already knew a decent amount about my topic, and this book covered what I knew in depth and added a lot to it, which is what I believe to be the key to any good book. When it comes to value, I found it to be an easy read. The book was easy to start and was hard to put down to be honest. The format of the book itself made it easy to follow, the bullets made it feel very informative and easy to find what you were looking for. The nice thing was, the subheadings within each chapter even allowed you to skip what you didn’t need to know. The subheadings also made it very easy to look back through and find a quick reference for whatever project you may be working on.

The strongest aspects of the book are the fact that it makes a great “pocket guide” to any kind of project you are working on. The layout of the book is fantastic and you can select the chapter that matches your need, then you can look into that chapter for the exact question you have. The other strength of the book is the fact that it covers all kinds of internet topics, it can be used by anyone of any skill level. A great overall guide to the internet in my opinion.

When it comes to weaknesses there really aren’t many. I would say the most glaring weakness is the fact that the book doesn’t cover a significant amount on any one single topic. The book will provide you with good general information on any topic, but if you needed to learn anything about code, or any other technologically challenging topic, it does not tell you how to do them. It is a brief coverage of every topic and if you know what you are doing, then the book will not be that helpful to you.

I haven’t read many other books on the topic of e-commerce marketing, but from what I can tell this book seems to do a really good job in helping you understand things about the internet marketing experience. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone thinking of starting a website or trying to improve one, this book covers it all.

Software as a Service inflection point

2009-10-21T21:11:00.000-07:00

For most of you it looking at this book I am sure you are saying this looks boring. While software as a service might not rank up there with facebook and twiter books it had some great information for business professionals. This book was very well written and tells about how SaaS can effect your daily life in the business world and how it can help your company. I found that SaaS is quickly becoming the norm for businesses to get the software they need. Most SaaS allow the customer to build highly customized application to suit there specific needs. While SaaS is cool in it self it would be nothing with out the incorporation of cloud computing. Cloud computing is a personal cloud or server that is customized to you. For many of these SaaS applications you can simply use a web browser to log into highly complexed software from any computer in the world with a internet connection and maybe even a Iphone some day. The power of this is the processing is being done by the cloud and you have safe access to this software any where. Think about the last time you were at school and you said crap I forgot that paper or power point on my home computer I wish I could get it. For some of us super nerds maybe you had remote desk top set up and could grab it that way, but for the rest of us we were stuck. With much of the new cloud computing and SaaS products in current existence it would not matter what computer you were on just log in and all of your information is there. The limits to software like this are endless to where we would simply just have web browsers and our computer would be a cloud.

Create Your Own Website

2009-10-21T20:25:00.000-07:00

About The Book

I selected this book because I am an IS Major and I thought that it would assist me in my current Business Programming class.

The book comes with a CD that contains SeaMonkey software which allows you to publish your pages to the web. It also comes with two pre-designed templates: a family template and a online storefront template. It also contains step by step instructions on how to incorporate PayPal into your website.

The book gives a very thorough explanation of what to do in order to publish your work to the web. It explains what a web host provider is and how to find one. It explains what a domain name is, how to get one and even how to get around using one. The SeaMonkey software explains how to do this as well. The remainder of the books chapters explains how to use: EBay, SnapFish, Blogging, MySpace, FaceBook and YouTube. The author lastly included a "Bonus Material" chapter. In this chapter he provides information on HTML, how the internet works, and how to optimize your digital photos.

My over all impressions were that for the beginner the author provides pictures to go along with what he is describing and explains it very well and this book would be very well recommended to someone who is wanting to learn how to create their own website. However, for the more sophisticated user, this book describes in detail some of the basic things that the user would already know how to do. So, for them this book would not be recommended.

About The Author

The author is Scott Mitchell. According to Amazon.com, this is the eighth book that Scott has published. He regularly writes columns for Microsoft’s MSDN magazine, speaks at numerous technical conferences around the country and teaches technology classes at the University of California-San Diego. Scott also develops software and works as an independent consultant. He has developed and sold several commercial software programs.

Second Life for Dummies

2009-10-21T19:25:00.000-07:00

Why I selected this book, what I had hoped to gain from this book:
I selected the book Second Life for Dummies, writing by Sarah Robbins and Mark Bell, for a few reasons; the interest it sparked in my mind, other projects, and Professor Czapleski. Ever since I hear about SL (Second Life) I have been curious to find out what the big fuss is about. However, I am not an online gamer but the possibilities on this site are endless. Secondly, I have another project in this class, the social media project, which my teammate and I have decided to find out about SL. This book has helped me in researching about SL. Additionally, in another business course we are studying the industry of SL, where this book has also helped. Finally, is an instructor that I had last semester who introduced the online program of SL to our class, which also sparked my interest.

From this texted, I hope to gain information about how to navigate through Second Life, how to make money, and the basic framework of what goes on in this virtual world. Through my reading, I have found everything that I was looking for.

What is SL for Dummies about, what is the subject matter, and why was this written:
Second Life for Dummies is a detailed how-to book for individuals who want to be a resident on SL. A resident is someone who is a part of SL; this is like being a player on a video game. This book is broken down into sections: an introduction, an overview, exploring and socializing, tools and money, building, and opportunities.

The introduction explains why SL was created, who it was created by and how the idea of Second Life came about. Through this section it elucidates the basics of SL; such as islands that your need to be careful of when entering SL or ideas that have be on the media that are not true.

The overview section goes into detail about what SL is used for such as: business ventures, social networking, and new product experimenting. Additionally, throughout this part it shows you step by step of how to set your computer up, allowing individuals to log onto the program. Next, it will take you through the process of setting your account up and getting a feel for your new environment in SL. This book also gives you tips of islands (coordinates on SL) where you can explore to get familiar with this virtual world and pick up freebees to customize your avatar. Finally, this section will give you tools to use when navigating through SL to get where you want to go without looking like a newbie.

The next segment is how to explore and socialize with other avatar people. This may sound easy, however, one must know how to use their tools in the program in order to communicate and travel to different landmarks. In SL, appearance is everything. Knowing where to find the latest trends, finding objects at a good price and being able to change your clothes is important. Additionally, this section discusses how to find events and groups that you have interests in and how to join in on the fun. This is where a resident will be able to network and social with other avatars.

Tools, money, and land are in the following chapters. First the book talks about all the tools that are at your disposal. These include, clothing that can be stored in your inventory and how to access them later, how to manage your inventory by creating and deleting objects, or sharing your files with other residents in SL. Next, is the most important part, money; the book describes how to get money through their online website (http://www.secondlife.com/) and how to sell your money back to be exchanged into U.S. dollars. The book also explains what the money is worth; about $4 for every 1000 Linden dollars. Linden dollars is SL’s currency. Finally, are land opportunities; how you can buy land, who you can buy the land from, ways to search when purchasing land, and what to use the land for.

The next section explains about building. Your avatar can hire someone to build on your land for you, or you can create your own buildings through programs provide through SL. However, this skill is very hard to master and requires a lot of practice and experience. Additionally, building is not limited to traditional buildings you would see on city streets. Building also includes, customizing the clothing you make or buy from other residents, making your own hair dos, or even creating your own poses, gestures, and animations.

Lastly, is the opportunities in SL; this by far the best part in my opinion. In this section, the book explains and illustrates how to find jobs in Second Life and how to make money to spend it in the virtual world. Next, is how the economy works, this is actually a lot like our first life (or the real world). The only exception to this is that you cannot lose any assets from your first life. The final part in this section explores the world of education. Individuals can tour and attend certain Universities on SL. This is more or less an excellence extended studies program.
This book is defiantly for beginners who are starting to explore this new virtual world. However, this world should not be taken lightly, but as an opportunity to visit new options of make money for your first life.

I believe this book was written to give individuals a helpful tool to get started in Second Life. This place can be overwhelming when you first enter. There is a lot to know about this complex environment and without having an insider, such as these two authors to explain the “rules”, you will be lost and confused when navigating through this virtual world.

The general type of this book and its format:
Second Life for Dummies is a how-to book that gives great examples and live shots inside SL to guide you through their illustrations. The format of this book is an easy to follow instructional guide to navigate and make a life SL.

Similar books and a key competitive set:
The Beginners Guide to Second Life, Scripting Recipes for Second Life, and Creating Your World are all books that are related and similar to Second Life for Dummies. The Beginners Guide does not go into great detail and does not have help hint through out to help you succeed. Scripting Recipes discuss “fun” thing to do which do not include how to make money in SL. Finally, Creating Your World includes a tutorial and examples on a CD that can be viewed in addition to the reading.

Author’s Qualifications:
Sarah Robbins who is one of the authors was the first educator to teach a class on Second Life. She is currently the Director of Emerging Technology in Media at Indiana University. Robbins is also a candidate for a PhD in Rhetoric at Ball State University. Additionally, she knows everything to know about SL and has her own avatar which she uses as explains in the text. Furthermore, Mark Bell is student at Indiana University studying Telecommunications in the PhD program. He specifically studies virtual worlds a part of social networks. Prior to going back to school he was in the computer field for 14 years as a trainer and documentation specialist. Mark himself has done a wide-ranging of research on Second Life and is also a resident in SL.

Intended Audience:
The intended audience for this book is adults, over the age of 18, who want to gain more knowledge of how to become a part of the Second Life community. This book is directed to beginners in the virtual gaming industry, such as me. However, there are islands on SL that are geared towards tens ages 14-17, though this book is not directed towards young adults. This virtual world is for adult communication, making real money, and not for the light hearted.

Primary value:
The primary value of this book for me was to gain knowledge that I could use for other projects in my courses this semester. However, on a deeper level, this book gave me the tools to understand a second world where I too, can discover new ways to make money just but sitting at my computer. I believe that I have also gained greater knowledge of how to promote and market real world products to the demographic in this virtual world. These individuals are adults range from their 20’s into their 50’s, and who are also early innovators.

Strongest aspects of the book:
The best aspects of this book are the sections that discuss how a resident can achieve wealth in SL. The book gives excellent examples of what the authors have done to have a positive cash follow and the different ways to create real money through this program. Anyone, can simply sit around SL and make money, however, this is not the best way. Most importantly, just like in the real world one has to find their “nitch” in the market and do what they do best to create wealth. It is not easy, but it is a whole lot more fun make money in SL than it is in real life.

Weakness, inconsistencies, incorrect assumptions of this book:
The weakness of this book is that it only gives the basics of SL. However, this is what the book is, but if it explored all the options of how to customize your clothing or all the options of how to make money, this would greatly improve the content. I did not notice any inconsistencies within this book. However, a few times the authors did repeat themselves. Additionally, I do not know do any incorrect assumptions this book had because of my lack of experience on the topic of Second Life. I have no knowledge of SL and would not be able to differentiate true facts from false ones until I can fully explore this virtual world myself.

How I would rate this book comparatively to others:
I would rate this book very high. The content of this book was exactly what I was looking for and more. If anyone is interested in socializing with individuals around the world, staking their claim, or making money I would highly recommend reading this book to get started.