Quite disappointing really, I would of thought it would be possible to be a lot more targeted, especially as I already have links to their site from my posts so even returning the “others have bought” books would be an order of magnitude increase in performance.

They aren’t exactly in the same vein by the way, but each has a lot to offer in its own sphere. Freakonomics and The Wisdom of Crowds share some mind space, but Liar’s Poker stands alone. Check them out….

Personally, I can’t really see a world developing where those who don’t blog can’t succeed. But, in most cases I agree that if you’re not out there paying attention to this stuff you (as in your company) will miss out on some great opportunities to learn from your customers.

There is also the possibility that you could really mess up like Kryptonite did when the ignored this post, Kryptonite lock being hacked by a bic pen. Apparently the company’s lack of response here has cost them in the region of $10 million – a good reason perhaps to care what one geek and a computer think!!!!

Aside from the numerous examples of where blogging has worked,or where ignoring it has been a disaster, the authors also provide some good tips on how to go about writing a good blog, most of which I now try to keep in mind when posting here, but will certainly form part of the blogging guide for Cominded when we launch.

Towards the end of the book there is a chapter called “Emerging Technology” that I particularly liked. They have a very nice summary of the last ten years on the internet in “From Surf to Search to Syndication” and a good overview of RSS all of course detailed with some great links (which is a theme running throughout the book).

You can check out the authors blogs here:

Scobleizer Blog

The Naked Conversations Blog

There are a few which should probably appear in the development books as they provide such a great way of doing things it should be taught as standard:

1. DRY Up Your Databse Configuration
2. Cleaning Up Controller with Postback Actions
3. Make Your URLs Meaningful (and Pretty)
4. Creating Dynamic Test Fixtures
5. Polymorphic Associations

To name a few. Other recipes that stood out particularly are the two dealing with the ‘acts_as_taggable’ and ‘acts_as_versioned’ plugins. These are features that are pretty ubiquitous in the ‘World 2.0’ and the discussions here (alhough short) provide a great intro to the concepts behind the plugins and might just open your eyes to some new ideas.

All in all, this has without a doubt been the most useful addition to my collection of Rails books / ebooks so far and I would strongly advise anyone to have at least a flick through it before embarking on any non-trivial Rails application.

Having said that, some of the viruses outlined in this book have nothing to do with the web, Polaroid and Tupperware for example, although they do show how important the web can be in the determination of how virulant your virus is.

I guess for myself I found this book to be a bit of a revelation even though most of it seems so obvious once you’ve read it (as he himself points out). In fact I don’t think I’ve ever found myself saying “of course” so often while reading a book – certainly not one about marketing!!

I had never really taken the time to appreciate the beauty of permission marketing as opposed to “interruption marketing”, or to even really understand the true concept of viral marketing and how that differs to word of mouth (or mouse!!).

There are some interesting links to from this book to others I have read (Crossing the Chasm, The Cathedral & The Bazzar, The Tipping Point, and my current book – Naked Conversations), and I find myself drawn to the way of thinking of all of these people and to the visions they all seem to share of the way the world works, and the way it can be made to work better either for you, your company or just in general.

Another interesting of the book is the terminology, Godin admits that he has made an effort to provide a new way to talk about this style of marketing with buzz words such as: Smoothness, Hive, Velocity, Sneezers and Medium. The funny thing is they all seem to fit the domain so naturally that once defined you find it hard to even remember the way you would of described it before.

Here (for my own benefit really) is the step by step guide to unleashing an ideavirus (if you want more clarity read the book!!)

1. Invent a virusworthy idea.
2. Identify the hive.
3. Expose the idea.
4. Figure out what you want the sneezers to say.
5. Give the sneezers the tools they need to spread the virus.
6. Once the consumer has volunteered his attention get permission to follow up.
7. Amaze your audiance so that they will reinforce the virus and keep it growing.
8. Admit that few viruses last forever. Embrace the lifecycle of the virus.

A few months ago I was reminded of them by a friend, and immediately ordered the book.

While the original essay remains as seminal as ever, the other manifestos Raymond puts forward in this collection are every bit as informative. In fact a few years on from my initial headlong rush into technology that came with joining CERN, it is ‘The Magic Cauldron’ that now speaks most to me. I wish I had been able to quote from its lucid pages when attempting to convince the clients of my last company (Axomic) that a linux based intranet was a good thing.

Quote from ‘Open Source and Strategic Business Risk, The Magic Cauldren’

“The brutal truth is this: when your key business processes are executed by opaque blocks of bits that you can’t even see inside (let alone modify) you have lost control of your business. You need your supplier more than your supplier needs you—and you will pay, and pay, and pay again for that power imbalance. You’ll pay in higher prices, you’ll pay in lost opportunities, and you’ll pay in lock-in that grows worse over time as the supplier (who has refined its game on a lot of previous victims) tightens its hold.

Contrast this with the open-source choice. If you go that route, you have the source code, and no one can take it away from you. Instead of a supplier monopoly with a chokehold on your business, you now have multiple service companies bidding for your business—and you not only get to play them against each other, you have the option of building your own captive support organization if that looks less expensive than contracting out. The market works for you.

The logic is compelling; depending on closed source code is an unacceptable strategic business risk. So much so that I believe it will not be very long until closed-source single-vendor acquisitions when there is an open-source alternative available will be viewed as actual fiduciary irresponsibility, and rightly grounds for a shareholder lawsuit.”