Customer Reviews

Unleashing the Ideavirus

5 star:		(52)
4 star:		(24)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

First I like Seth Godin. He's now gotten my money for three books. The first two were money fairly well spent, the thrid one, Unleashing the Ideavirus, well . . .

I found the book to be full of ideas that had a virus.

For example, on page 29, under the heading "Seven Ways An Ideavirus Can Help You" #6 says, When the demo recording you made becomes a best seller on MP3.com and you get a call from Sony, who wants to give you a recording contract.

Poor sentence construction aside, how hard did Seth have to work was that to think up that idea?

Back up to page 27 and you'll find six "key steps for Internet companies looking to build a virus". #2 says, Have the idea behind your online experience go viral, bring you a large chunk of the group you're targeting without haveing to spend a fortune advertising the new service.

Now that's a revelation. It's kind of like the joke, "Do you want to know the easiest way to become a millionaire? First, get a million dollars."

On page 141 we're counseled, "One of the best ways to facilitate adoption of your ideavirus is to find a bestseller list that makes sense and then dominate it."

Further down we're given insight into some not so novel ways of how to stuff the ballot box. How do you artificially boost the bestseller status of files for download on the Web? Download the file over and over again, increasing the counter of how often it has been downloaded.

Want to launch a new liquor? Pay the bar to post a bestselling drinks list. "Now, bribe enough folks to go in and buy themselves a drink."

While this may not be the most ethical advice it's certainly not new. Ask the folks at Heineken how they got to be the number one beer import way back in the 50's.

The book of course has some high points and it is a fun read at times but don't look for any breakthrough ideas here or else you just might get sick.

Hats off to the author for practicing what he preaches. "Free" was exactly what I needed to engage in this virtual buy-in. I regret that I just couldn't buy the concepts.

I'll limit my criticism to three issues. First, I can only conclude from the author's logic that every successful product/service is an ideavirus. On page 36 he introduces the OXO brand vegetable peeler as an ideavirus. Others include Polaroid brand instant cameras, Carmine's Restaurant, Beanie Babies, Moser Furniture and Tommy Hilfiger. If it's popular and a lot of people want it-which of course makes folks talk about it-you've got yourself an ideavirus. According to the author, the difference between this and word-of-mouth promotion is (1) the transmission medium and (2) the duration. He says, "...word of mouth tends to spread slower, be more analog....word of mouth dies off" (p. 31). These differences seem arbitrary--at least underdeveloped--however true to the pervasive obsession with things digital. The entire book would be easier to handle if the author didn't try to apply the concepts to every ostensibly successful venture.

Second, wholesale advertising bashing, which can be found in "Permission Marketing," appears again. The lockstep mantra equating marketing with advertising is unfortunate. The author's exuberance served as an early-and unnecessary-inoculation to the ideavirus.

Third, while the author never pretends that the foundational concepts upon which he draws are his original ideas, my academic training makes it difficult to quietly accept the lack of attention to the original authors and works from which this "manifesto" is really created. Godin defines a manifesto as "a powerful, logical `essay' that assembles a bunch of existing ideas and creates a new one" (page 13). I believe creating a new manifesto is better served when the old manifestos are acknowledged with sufficient detail. Indeed, many missing concepts from original works would have improved the ideavirus. Rather than just pulling a graph from the 1990's work by Geoffrey Moore, decades of insight on the adoption curve could have been drawn upon from any of Everett Rogers' books, most recently the fifth edition of his "Diffusion of Innovations." Rogers and other researchers detail the characteristic differences between innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority and laggards. Godin lumps together the first two adoption groups and obscures helpful knowledge related to the "chasm" that an ideavirus must traverse. Also, competitive advantage concepts can be traced to Michael Porter and beyond. Positioning concepts used in the ideavirus can be traced at least to Trout and Ries; and branding to David Aaker and others. I realize Godin never intended to write a dissertation, but even a little homework may have put some meat on this skeletal work.

Seth Godin is to be admired. He's mastered much and has the track record to prove his prowess. I openly admit my dot.com envy. My general problem with this book and others like it is that it feeds on the hype of the global digital obsession only to deliver the same one-dimensional perspective that preceded the current reality check now hitting the dot.com world.

NOTE: Page references taken from the .PDF version.

I am not sure what book others read, but this book was aweful. It is unfortunate because the concept is interesting. The execution, however, is best described as a literary train wreck.

Afer reviewing this book and looking at these reviews, I think that the author/publisher, applied some of the concepts in the book to mis-lead people looking for real reviews.

One of the concepts discussed in the book is to pay people to spead your idea/virus, so that others will become interested, purchase your product. There is clearly a disconnect between many of these reviews and the actual execution of the book itself. In fact, I have never seen such a huge disconnect. I find it difficult to believe that it is only a matter of a difference of opinion based on my experiences with other reviews.

Not only is it poorly organized, but the information presented as fact is sometimes clearly wrong (referencing the Prius example used in the book) and recommendations are taken out of context. Proposing solutions without framing them in real-world business context (that is factually accurate) is worthless. Answers work ONLY in the context in which they are applied.

I would strongly recommend that you don't buy this book or waste the time to read it. Far better books are on the market dealing with marketing solutions.

(This is my first review. I decided to write it to counter some of the oddly positive reviews written by others. If you read these reviews, you will have a better understanding of what the author is trying to say. Some of the reviewers have completed a better, more efficient explanation of the concept in less than 1000 words than the author could do in an entire book.)

When I started reading this book, I was ready to be suspicious of the concept of the ideavirus. I downloaded it because it was free, and that made it attractive to me. As I read the book, though, I realized that the ideas are common sense. It hit home the first time I signed up for PayPal -- one of the best examples of an ideavirus.

In fact, now that I have read "Unleashing the Ideavirus," I can spot mistakes made by Internet-based companies. For example, companies that change the rules in midstream are doomed to lose business.

While Seth Godin loves the idea of the "Tell a Friend" feature, I think it has one flaw he forgot to address. Some people are afraid to enter their friends' e-mail addresses because they don't want their friends to get spam. While many companies don't sell those addresses, some do. Until more companies learn the importance of privacy, I will be reluctant to use the "Tell a Friend" feature.

My other complaint was that the book gets repetitive in some spots. Certain ideas are repeated so often that I started skimming those pages.

Anne M. Marble -- All About Romance

I picked this book up to see if there were any new ideas under the sun. At first I read along hoping to see some original thought on marketing ideas. I quickly realized I had heard of this 'ideavirus' concept before, only it was called memes before.

The book makes a very sloppy stab at translating the science of Memetics into a 'revolutionary' marketing strategy. This would be fine had it succeeded. A workable introduction into the marketing implication of Memetics would be a very valuable tool to anyone trying to propogate an idea. However this book fails in accomplishing that goal. As it stands the book simply creates a feeble representation of Memetics, rebrands it as the 'ideavirus' and proclaims the author as head of a revolutionary new marketing technology.

I started hoping to find some new ideas under the sun. This was not to be. The book earned its place, and that place is where the sun don't shine.

Unleashing the idea virus is short and covers one simple idea: ideas spread through a population like viruses and by working from this point of view we can tailor and present our products/ideas for maximum spread and persistence.

Godin's idea is a simple one and relevant. Basically consumers have progressed to a point where they stop paying attention once they realized that they are being advertised to. So advertisers have to find a new approach. Godin's suggestion is that advertisers make it as easy as possible for consumers to recommend a product to one another. By using the analogy of a contagious idea to a virus spreading like a force of nature, he points out examples of successful products that have benefitted from this type of hype (whether or not they intentionally created the hype).

The main problem I have with this book is that it is starting to feel dated already and it only came out 4 years ago. Most of the examples Godin uses are internet-based. For example he describes the hot new cartoon that was circulating when he wrote Unleashing the Idea Virus. Rather than illustrating his example I found myself on a trip down memory fondly recalling 1999. This happened quite a bit.

So Godin has a compelling idea that makes sense with regards to marketing, however his presentation is very dated and it distracted me. This is a short book so it is probably still worth your time to read it. I recommend Malcome Gladwell's The Tipping Point for a much less dated and to me more interesting discussion of similar issues.

Seth Godin writes about social observations and then applies them to the world of business. For example, this book is about "viral/word of mouth marketing" whereas his prior book was about permission based marketing and its impact on communications with customers. His recently released book, Survival is not Enough, is about "survival of the fittest" via his Darwinian-like take on business.

I read permission marketing some years ago and really enjoyed it as it refreshed my thoughts on customer satisfaction and interaction. Then, this book came out and it really changed my paradigm about the growth aspect of businesses and how "viral marketing" could have a profound impact on an upstart Internet companies growth trajectory. I've read Gladwell's The Tipping Point and I must say, this book is better written and has examples more applicable to business.

I found myself reading the book quite quickly as I was consumed by it as it was filled with interesting ideas about how to get people interested in what you have to offer. The principles mentioned in the book could be applied to anything you do in life that you want others to notice but I found the examples on Internet businesses to be fascinating. Counter to traditional marketing wisdom,which tries to count,measure,and manipulate the spread of information, Godin argues that the information can spread most effectively from customer to customer,rather than from business to customer. Godin calls this powerful customer-to-customer dialogue the ideavirus and cheerfully egg marketers on to create and environment where their ideas can replicate.

If you are an aspiring entrepreneur this book is not a "how-to" book with a step-by-step approach to marketing but, if you read permission marketing and then this book you will have a VERY THOROUGH understanding about how to market on the Internet and grow your business.

Other useful books on marketing that I have read or been recommended include Seth Godin's Permission Marketing and Unleashing the Ideavirus (both great reads), the 22 immutable laws of marketing by Jack Trout and All Reis (excellent authors and a good read), Robert Cialdini's Influence and Ogilvy on Advertising or Wizard of Ads for help in sales copying.

Godin himself notes that much of the content of his book (and his earlier Permission Marketing) seems obvious. Yet, as he goes on to show convincingly, that which is obvious has rarely been practiced. When you read Godins thoughts about permission marketing and ideaviruses, they may sound obvious yet almost all marketers continue to throw huge sums of money at old-fashioned interruption marketing. The infamous peak of this was the spurt of expensive Superbowl ads by transient e-tailers.

Like his previous book, Godins Unleashing the Ideavirus entertains the reader while successfully setting off bursts of ideas along the way. Rather than marketing at the consumer, Godins approach seeks to maximize the spread of information from customer to customer. The book provides the expected examples of successful ideavirus marketing, then develops a recipe for concocting your own ideaviruses. In order to show how to make your idea infectious, the book examines what makes a powerful sneezer, how hives work, and applies the concepts of critical velocity, vector, medium, smoothness, persistence, and amplifiers. As Godin shows, the now-familiar idea of viral marketing is one very specific form of ideavirus marketing. Most businesses will not be able to engage in true viral marketing, but all can use the ideavirus approach.

While you may finish Unleashing the Ideavirus thinking that you really did not learn anything drastically new, it is unlikely that you will feel that youve wasted your time. Godin has once again written an enjoyable book that cleverly packages important ideas that have obvious practical use. Any book like this that causes the reader to continually stop and rapidly jot down ideas to implement is well worth the hour or two it takes to read.

The author by his own words (pg.187) is just restating the obvious. Basically this book is about the power of word of mouth in a digital environment which evolves into the ideavirus. This information is essentially basic marketing repackaged in the biological metaphor of a virus. I found it more valuable to learn the basics in a modern marketing textbook, which addresses most of the author's points plus much more. If you are new to marketing you should hold off on this book. The only folks I would really recommend it to are the people who feel they have to read every marketing text around. There are a few good anecdotes and examples, but it seems like every successful venture (online especially) was/is an ideavirus and did not benefit from any other conditions, strategies, or tactics.

Finally given the author's stance on interruption marketing I find the subtle contradiction amusing. In every chapter there is a big yellow sign with links for me to, "Send this file to a friend", or read the fast company article, and last but not least, to go and buy what I already have. This attempt at "smoothness" was an interruption to me.

Bottom line: I rate this book a five because it has changed the way I think on the fly and for the better. I'm applying today what I read yesterday. How many books do that to you?

I have been hearing the hype about `viral marketing' for quite some time now. To date no one, including myself, has been able to set it apart from word of mouth. The name itself has left a bad taste in my mouth as I have taken the term to be someone's clever `term of the times' for the obvious. Seth has eased my pain and captured my attention.

From how Seth launched his book to the last page he has had me engaged and impressed. With useful phrases like "word of mouse" to "interruption marketing" my brain has started looking at the world with a healthy twist. I don't consider Seth's brilliance in his writing style. Rather, it is in his ability to turn his thoughts into catalysts via his wisdom, walking the talk, candor, simplicity, and humility.

Far too many beautiful ideas never make it past the beer mugs on a Saturday night, the coffee cups on a Sunday morning, or that napkin in your car with the scribbled notes and mustard stain. Far too many passion filled business leaders have thrown money down the toilet on worthless marketing scars that had bled their businesses, assaulted their audience and abused our natural resources. Why? You know word of mouth is the cheapest and most powerful form of marketing...go ahead and learn about word of mouth version 2.3!