Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #761132 in Books
• Published on: 2001-10-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Treat a product or service like a human or computer virus, contends online promotion specialist Seth Godin, and it just might become one. In Unleashing the Ideavirus, Godin describes ways to set any viable commercial concept loose among those who are most likely to catch it--and then stand aside as these recipients become infected and pass it along on to others who might do the same. "The future belongs to marketers who establish a foundation and process where interested people can market to each other", he writes. "Ignite consumer networks and then get out of the way and let them talk."

Godin believes that a solid idea is the best route to success in the new century, but one "that just sits there is worthless". Through the magic of "word of mouse", however, the Internet offers a unique opportunity for interested individuals to transmit ideas quickly and easily to others of like mind. Taking up where his previous book Permission Marketing left off, Godin explains in great detail how ideaviruses have been launched by companies such as Napster, Blue Mountain Arts, GeoCities, and Hotmail. He also describes "sneezers" (influential people who spread them), "hives" (populations most willing to receive them) and "smoothness" (the ease with which sneezers can transmit them throughout a hive). In all, an infectious and highly recommended read. --Howard Rothman

Customer Reviews

Another eye opener from Mr Godin
Another eye opener from Mr Godin. Ideavirus is the follow up to Permission Marketing although in many ways its the precurser. The book analyses how companies can go about gaining permission from customers. Its conclusion is that companies must learn to empower their customer's to do their work for them. Seth identifies methods and recites examples of companies such as Hotmail, ICQ, Bluemountain and Napster that have built huge audiences without the use of expensive branding campaigns but through the use of viral marketing. If you want to find out more about the future of marketing and how sneezers fit into your campaigns then is book is an essential purchase.

The Missing Link
The recent bloodbath among online content peddlers and digital media proselytisers can be traced to two deadly sins. The first was to assume that traffic equals sales. In other words, that a miraculous conversion will spontaneously occur among the hordes of visitors to a web site. It was taken as an article of faith that a certain percentage of this mass will inevitably and nigh hypnotically reach for their bulging pocketbooks and purchase content, however packaged. Moreover, ad revenues (more reasonably) were assumed to be closely correlated with 'eyeballs'. This myth led to an obsession with counters, page hits, impressions, unique visitors, statistics and demographics. It failed, however, to take into account the dwindling efficacy of what Seth Godin, in his brilliant essay ('Unleashing the IdeaVirus'), calls 'Interruption Marketing' - ads, banners, spam and fliers. It also ignored, at its peril, the ethos of free content and open source prevalent among the Internet opinion leaders, movers and shapers. These two neglected aspects of Internet hype and culture led to the trouncing of erstwhile promising web media companies while their business models were exposed as wishful thinking. The second mistake was to exclusively cater to the needs of a highly idiosyncratic group of people (Silicone Valley geeks and nerds). The assumption that the USA (let alone the rest of the world) is Silicone Valley writ large proved to be calamitous to the industry. In the 1970s and 1980s, evolutionary biologists like Richard Dawkins and Rupert Sheldrake developed models of cultural evolution. Dawkins' 'meme' is a cultural element (like a behaviour or an idea) passed from one individual to another and from one generation to another not through biological -genetic means - but by imitation. Sheldrake added the notion of contagion - 'morphic resonance' - which causes behaviour patterns to suddenly emerged in whole populations. Physicists talked about sudden 'phase transitions', the emergent results of a critical mass reached. A latter day thinker, Michael Gladwell, called it the 'tipping point'. Seth Godin invented the concept of an 'ideavirus' and an attendant marketing terminology. In a nutshell, he says, to use his own summation: 'Marketing by interrupting people isn't cost-effective anymore. You can't afford to seek out people and send them unwanted marketing, in large groups and hope that some will send you money. Instead the future belongs to marketers who establish a foundation and process where interested people can market to each other. Ignite consumer networks and then get out of the way and let them talk.' This is sound advice with a shaky conclusion. The conversion from exposure to a marketing message (even from peers within a consumer network) - to an actual sale is a convoluted, multi-layered, highly complex process. It is not a 'black box', better left unattended to. It is the same deadly sin all over again - the belief in a miraculous conversion. And it is highly US-centric. People in other parts of the world interact entirely differently. Two successful authors, Melisse J. Rose and Doug Clepp, are now in the process of constructing a web site that will institutionalise 'buzz marketing' (a technique they successfully applied to their own products). They intend to help authors to mine the Internet for readers who will then interact with other readers to generate a favourable 'hum'. As the author of this column can attest - after 500,000 visitors to his web site and discussion lists with more than 3000 members - you can get them to visit and you get them to talk and you can get them to excite others. But to get them to buy - is a whole different ballgame. Dot.coms had better begin to study its rules. Sam Vaknin, author of "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited".

Packed With Knowledge!
In Unleashing the Ideavirus, Seth Godin says your idea is contagious, like the flu. But hold on - he's not being insulting. If you think of your idea as a virus, says he, you can "infect" the marketplace by motivating customers to talk about your product. He stretches this metaphor to explain how to captivate powerful "sneezers" so they will spread the word. Not a pretty picture, if you are a literal type of person, but you get the concept. For the right product or service, this is an alternative to advertising (or, as Godin calls it, "interruption marketing"). Though he builds on multi-level marketing concepts, Godin distances himself from their negative image. He writes in a breezy, easy style, with examples, charts and illustrations. If you want to spread the word about this book, we suggest that you just cough politely on someone in marketing, advertising or sales.