The Amazon Showroom
Customers.com
by Patricia Seybold
Hardback
Purchase from Amazon.co.uk
Purchase from Amazon.com
Amazon rating: 4 out of 5
Synopsis:
Lots of books have been written about how to do business on the Internet, but few can match the understanding and passion for making e-commerce work of Patricia Seybold's Customers.com. Drawing on case studies of companies and organizations as diverse as Boeing, Babson College, National Semiconductor, Hertz, PhotoDisc, and Wells Fargo, Seybold identifies what makes e-commerce work successfully. She argues that any e-commerce initiative has to begin with the customer.
Review:
Covers a lot of case studies, clearly describes the business benefits of using ecommerce/web/IT to its best advantage in any sized 'bricks and mortar' business. Angled towards a business audience, the more technical reader might prefer some more techie info, but otherwise highly recommended to those unfamiliar with Ecommerce, as well as to those familiar with it (or trying to sell it!) looking for good references and case studies.
Futurize your Enterprise
by David Siegel
Hardback
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Purchase from Amazon.com
Amazon rating: 5 out of 5
Synopsis:
San Francisco strategy consultant David Siegel is a web designer and global authority on web strategy. This text offers his insight and experience to a general business audience. It examines how businesses can strategically realign themselves to take advantage of the Internet, and benefit from future growth. It examines how some firms' corporate websites are preventing growth, and indicates the way forward with a list of six meeting plans that will help businesses to be more strategically oriented to the Internet. In addition, there are insights into how to create a customer-driven web strategy.
Review:
Of the fifty or so books I have read on business, management and the internet, this one stands out. Siegel is the e-commerce guru, and manages to convey a strong sensible message that questions the very nature of current business models. Forget business fads and embrace the 21st century bible of business.
The Cluetrain Manifesto
by Christopher Locke & Rick Levine
Paperback
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Purchase from Amazon.com
Amazon rating: 5 out of 5
Synopsis:
The Cluetrain Manifesto began as a Web site (www.cluetrain.com) in 1999 when the authors, who have worked variously at IBM, Sun Microsystems, the Linux Journal and NPR, posted 95 theses that pronounced what they felt was the new reality of the networked marketplace. For example, thesis no.2: "Markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors"; thesis no.20: "Companies need to realize their markets are often laughing. At them"; thesis no. 62: "Markets do not want to talk to flacks and hucksters. They want to participate in the conversations going on behind the corporate firewall"; thesis no. 74: "We are immune to advertising. Just forget it". The book enlarges on these themes through seven essays filled with dozens of stories and observations about how business gets done in America and how the Internet will change it all. While Cluetrain will strike many as loud and over the top, the message itself remains quite relevant and unique. This book is for anyone interested in the Internet and e-commerce, and is especially important for those businesses struggling to navigate the topography of the wired marketplace.
Review:
This is about as far away from a traditonal business book as you can get. The Cluetrain Manifesto is about the end of business as usual and the role of the Internet as the empowerer to the masses. It whitewashes the world that traditional marketing and advertising paint. The authors clearly present a simple choice to businessmen. Ride the Cluetrain, understand that markets are conversations, and that customers and workers will have these conversations whether you like it or not, or lose your business. The book is written in an anecdotal fashion and as such some of it should be taken with a pinch of salt. An interesting and provocative read - not for the faint hearted or unimaginative.
Striking it Rich.Com - Profiles of 23 Incredibly Successful Websites You've Probably Never Heard Of
by Jaclyn Easton & Jeff Bezos
Hardback
Purchase from Amazon.co.uk
Purchase from Amazon.com
Amazon rating: 4 out of 5
Synopsis:
StrikingItRich.Com: Profiles of 23 Incredibly Successful Websites That You've Probably Never Heard Of offers the best in-depth examination yet available of what makes such winners tick. Following a foreword by Amazon.com founder and Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos, Easton presents highly detailed portraits of a diverse collection of sites with little in common except for one crucial ingredient in her bottom-line recipe for online prosperity: "Be the first, be the best, or be different." Exactly how sites like iPrint, Horsenet, The Knot and Ask the Builder achieve this, of course, is as different as the cyberproducts they're peddling. Precise information on site creation, content development, revenue streams, promotional programs, and other operational aspects make this an extremely practical and motivational read.
Review:
So many books quote the theory, rather than true examples. This is a great read for anyone interested in making money from the Internet. It's not suitable for larger businesses looking for a way into e-commerce and shouldn't really be viewed as such. As a motivational reminder of what can be achieved without a massive up-front investment though, this is a good book. It's also a good reminder to web developers that to make money, you really don't need flash technology and animated gifs! Read this and THEN choose your web designer :)
Ebrands
by Phil Carpenter
Hardback
Purchase from Amazon.co.uk
Purchase from Amazon.com
Synopsis:
The Internet and brands are probably the two hottest business topics of the moment. So Phil Carpenter's timely book eBrands, which looks at how to build brands on the Internet, scores a double whammy on the business groovometer. Carpenter, director of corporate marketing for Silicon Valley start-up Remarq, forgoes the business school theoretical approach, in favour of the far more easily absorbed case-study method, with detailed analysis, interviews and behind-the-scenes peeks at six businesses which have already established themselves successfully as Internet brands.
Review:
Carpenter makes much of the point that a brand is far more than a logo or marque and includes everything the company does, from publicity through answering the phone to order fulfilment. While it's an argument that will be old-hat to anybody with a marketing background, it is a point well made for those coming from a more technical or general business environment--as net entrepreneurs tend to do. This is an excellent marketing primer for anyone who needs to know how to make e-business work.
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