Meatball Sundae Book Review & Giveaway Reminder
Mar 17th, 2008 by Rich Page
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Sorry Seth, I have to admit - I have never managed to convince myself to jump on the Seth Godin bandwagon and read one of your books. But at the recent Omniture Summit, your frank, funny and revealing keynote session, all about the ‘New Marketing’ had my interest peaked. But I still didn’t think I would read your new book called Meatball Sundae. But you got me. Two main reasons converted me… firstly, you gave out free copies, and secondly, its a small book divided into short chapters (echoing your chapter on ‘extremely short attention spans’), which made it quick enough to read on a few plane/train rides. So. I did it. I read it. And i’m glad to say it was very worth while - and worth a review….
But why would a web analyst read and review a marketing book? Well, in my mind, at the heart of every true web analyst is a good marketer. Its not just all about crunching numbers and looking at pageviews. Web analytics is all about helping improve a major and growing field of marketing - websites on the world wide web!
While this was my first Seth Godin book that I have read, I was very impressed. Two things in particular that I loved - his frankness, and the many wonderful examples he used to help hammer home his points scattered thoughout the book (I certainly didn’t know that Wedgewood was considered the ‘marketing’ pioneer). Parts of it reminded me very much of one of my other favorite books - Tipping Point. Seth’s kind of thinking echoes many of my sentiments in business - how old businesses need to adapt to this ‘new marketing’ - its no longer good enough to simply try and spend billions of dollars marketing to the masses (his example of Microsofts ‘old marketing’ approach to Zune failure is perfect).
The chapters that really hit home with me were the ‘Long Tail’, ‘authentic stories’, ’scarcity’ and ‘amplification of the consumer voice’ chapters - in particular, his Dell customer service blog horror story should be read by every CEO, and they should act on it. Listen to the bloggers! We are growing in power, and as Seth mentions, are often more influential than a Zagat review, or a review in Forbes!
His new upside down bell distribution curve is also very interesting - outlining the fact that its now easier to sell more cheap stuff to some or more very expensive stuff to some, than selling medium priced to the many. Overall, I loved this book, and I will definitely make it a point to start reading his other books. And I strongly suggest that any marketing/web analyst read Meatball Sundae too!
So. Seth. You have yourself a new bloglines subscriber to your Seth Godin blog. Me. Maybe the fact that I’m giving away a few copies of your book and reviewing it will get you a few more subscribers too. After all, as you said, its all about creating something memorable, and making it easy for people to talk about it…
And to my loyal readers - remember I am giving away three copies of Meatball Sundae - I will announce the winners next monday. All you have to do to stand a chance of winning is register for email updates on this blog, using the signup box in the top right. Easy as that! I even pay for the for shipping 
Godin is a great story teller and uses a lot of interesting examples to support his theories. He has a gift to make incredibly insightful observations of the marketplace and tell us in a direct and simplified way.
Wow. This book sounds fascinating. I love Tipping Point too. I think Gladwell and Godin should co-author something again.