This whole thing has been blown way out of proportion. Tim O’Reilly would not have let it come to this if he had prior knowledge. I think Tom Raftery of IT@Cork has taken this opportunity to promote his own conference by giving Tim a black eye in the blogosphere. Some of the comments I am seeing to Tim’s response are just harsh and uncalled for. You know that Tim “gets it,” and this was never his intention. But the CMP lawyers didn’t get it, and this is understandable. They just don’t get our world yet. The blogosphere enjoys nothing more that laughing and pointing at the non-blogosphere who to not get transparency/open source/cluetrain/free culture/creative commons and all associated memes. I think it is just human nature for people to laugh and ridicule outsiders. The blogosphere just brings out the best and the worst of people.
Monthly Archive for May, 2006
How about someone making a YouTube search add-on for Firefox?
Apparently, YouTube has more than 50% of the video search market, so this only makes sense.
UPDATE 6/11/2006
Spoke too soon.
Add You Tube Search to Firefox.
Check out this Flickr photo stream from a user who has posted the grand opening of the new Apple Store that is open 24 hours.
Joseph Jaffe responds to an e-mail I sent him in his podcast regarding Seth Godin’s Squidoo, and how TechCrunch argues that it is failure. What I was trying to articulate to Joseph was whether he is going to use his new marketing approach with his sponsorship of X + 1, and how both Joseph and Seth are practicing what they preach instead of just preaching. There are some great comments on the topic on Jaffe Juice where Joseph talks about the similarities (or lack of).
Assuming a book has sold any significant number, an author of a book has a built-in audience. The readers of a book will want to know what the opinions are on related topics, or how the author sees the content of the book relating to new information. The author can write (has the talent to) if he or she wrote a book. So, all authors should blog.
Guy Kawasaki and Malcolm Gladwell both started blogging this year, and have significant readership. This allows for an ongoing conversation that the author with readers, the readers with each other, and the readers with the authors. There is no easier way to keep the author’s ideas expressed in the book fresh in the minds of his or her readers. When the author announces a new book, it is almost guaranteed that at least 25% of the readers will buy the book within the first month. I am basing this is number is based on 37 Signal’s readership, and how many Getting Real e-books they sold in the first month of the release, (around 19,000 blog subscribers at that time of this post according to their FeedBurner stats) with the only marketing being a blog post and a sub domain page on their site, and enthusiastic readers’ word of mouth.
Malcolm Gladwell blogs to point out new examples of the points he made in his books Blink and The Tipping Point. As do As do Guy Kawasaki regarding startups, as does and Seath Goodin regarding marketing, as does Joseph Jaffe regarding new marketing. In the case of Robert Scoble and Shel Israel, they used a blog to introduce the ideas of blogging in a book they wrote, and then continue to point out new examples of the points in their book as news items break.
Almost every book I have purchased in the last year was because of blog buzz. Only one was based on Amazon ratings and reviews. Some are because I read the author’s blog, others are because the books keep coming up in the conversation in various blogs. Or could it just be that these books just happen to be popular with blog readers?
Books I have purchased from being influenced by the author or the book in blogs/podcasts (I am not going to link to my Amazon affiliate links because I want to make a genuine point in this post, and do not want it to appear that I am doing this for the commission):
-Naked Conversations, Robert Scoble and Shel Israel
-Life After the 30 Second Spot, Joseph Jaffe
-Ruby Programming, Dave Thomas, Chad Fowler and Andy Hunt
-Agile Development in Rails, David Heinemeier Hansson, Tomas Hunt
-Learn to Program, Chris Pine
-The Pragmatic Programmer, Andy Hunt, Dave Thomas
-The World Is Flat, Thomas Freidman
-Getting Real, 37 Signals
-Defensive Web Design, 37 Signals
Future book purchase from being influenced by the author or the book in blogs/podcasts:
-The Tipping Point, Malcolm Glawell
-Blink, Malcolm Gladwell
-Freakonomics, Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner
-The Clutrain Manifesto, Christopher Locke, Rick Levine, Doc Searls, David Weinberger
-Rise of the Creative Class, Richard Florida
-The Ten Faces of Innovation, Thomas Kelley
-Creating Customer Evangelists, Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell
One thing to note is that I did not first hear about them, nor was I marketed to about them by any traditional means such as TV, newspapers, magazines, or radio. It was all through reading blogs (by the authors in some cases), and in many cases, hearing the author speak in a podcast. I am wondering whether it is more blogs or Amazon reviews that are influencing blog readers to buy a given book.
Full story at http://alternet.org/blogs/peek/35728. Finally, net neutrality has a proponent who can do something to keep the internet the way we like it.
Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) threw down the gauntlet just moments ago, introducing the Network Neutrality Act of 2006 [full text HERE], which “[offers a] choice between favoring the broadband designs of a small handful of very large companies, and safeguarding the dreams of thousands of inventors, entrepreneurs, and small businesses. This legislation is designed to save the Internet and thwart those who seek to fundamentally and detrimentally alter the Internet as we know it.
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