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You Should Crave the Rave! I recently finished reading David Meerman Scott’s latest book World Wide Rave . It is a great how-to book on creating “triggers that get millions of people to spread your ideas and share your stories”. With the same quick pace of his past books Scott introduces readers to his six Rules of the Rave: 1) Nobody cares about your products (except you) 2) No coercion required 3) Lose control 4) Put down roots 5) Create triggers that encourage people to share 6) Point the word to your (virtual) doorstep In the following chapters he shares some powerful examples of how PR, marketing and product professionals took advantage of these ideas to raise awareness. My favorite story was how Cindy Gordon, VP of new media at Universal Orlando Resort, hyped the upcoming Harry Potter attraction by telling just seven people. These seven were so influential that eventually 350 million people heard about the attraction. He also weaves some best practices like creating buyer person

Stephen King & Intertemporal Pricing About 11 years ago, I read an article in the Wall Street Journal entitled The Future of the Book. It was written by Daniel Akst on December 18, 1998. It made a real impression on me because he made some prognostications about what would happen to the price of books when they became digital. Akst argued the following: The cost of books ought to plummet once they are distributed and consumed electronically. Consider that a hardcover book retails for $30 and wholesales for $16. Out of that sum, $6 goes into manufacturing (paper, printing, etc) to say nothing of shipping, inventory costs and publisher’s overhead. Editorial expenses are a mere $.67, and the author’s royalty is $4. Publisher’s pretax profits is $1. E-distribution could radically lower the cost of publishing – and the barriers to entry in the publishing business. I was reminded of this article (subscription required) recently when I read about Scribner’s decision to delay the