I've been spending most of my exercise time biking the last few weeks, but the weather is turning slightly colder now and I'm just as happy on my nordic track, reading. So as a result I can add another review to the Nordic Track Book List, Seth Godin's Free Prize Inside! I first read Seth in 1995, getting a great deal of information from eMarketing. He's been a favorite author of mine ever since.
The Free Prize is something that draws consumers to your product, something they don't need necessarily, but they want it and just love whatever that special quality or service might be. Our job as developers, business people, everyday folks, is to take that idea (ideas are the easy part and are often very simple things to implement) to the extreme edge where the product IS the marketing and people talk about it.
As I said, the book wasn't about coming up with good ideas (though a long list of approaches to Free Prize ideas was provided), but rather with following those ideas through to fruition and how to go to the extreme and get noticed in the pack.
Its a short book, easy and fun read. A continuation of Seth's Purple Cow book. I don't think I'll gain much from reading Purple Cow, but I would like to read The Big Red Fez: How to Make Any Web Site Better.
Here's a link to Seth's Free Prize site. Lots of interesting stuff there, including a detailed Notes listing to the book. A great book summary is there, as well as Seth's blog, too.
