Blog Marketing

Mark Forrester has managed to obtain a copy of Jeremy Wright‘s book, “Blog Marketing” which he (Mark) is going to review in return.  I am really interested in what Mark has to say about this book.  I am currently reading “Naked Conversations” by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel and while I still have a chapter or two to go before I finish it, it hasn’t quite thrilled me the way “The Cluetrain Manifesto” did.

While “Naked Conversations” is worth the purchase, it seems to be intended to be a sequel to “Cluetrain” and yet it doesn’t muster the impact that “Cluetrain” had/has.  I also have an issued with “Naked Conversations” speaking about how Scoble generally does the right thing from the perspective of the book as if he isn’t one of the writers of the book!  It seems a little like gratuitous self-promotion disguised as objective commentary.  Maybe I am just a cynical sod but that is my perception of the book.  Of course none of this detracts from the validity of the book’s message about the value of a blog in business.  It does, however, detract from my enjoyment of the book.  It also irks me a bit that as I read “Naked Conversations” I keep picking up the instances where the style emulates the style in “Cluetrain” and it feels like Scoble and Israel have adopted that original voice as their own in parts.  I don’t know if that was intentional or not but it irks me a bit because it feels insincere.

Once again, I may be a bit too critical of Scoble and Israel here.  I don’t know much about Israel but I have been following Scoble’s blog on an off for a year or so and I appreciate many of the things he does and the voice he expresses every day (well, barring the occasional blog holiday).  He is one of the most prominent voices in the blogosphere today and is an important one at that.  I would never want to take that away from him (assuming I could even do that).  But still, those are my thoughts on the book.

Anyway, as I mentioned above, I am looking forward to Mark’s review.  Wright’s book could be another winner on a topic I am becoming more and more passionate about every day.

Update:

I finished reading “Naked Conversations” earlier this evening.  I enjoyed the section on podcasting and found the mp3 of the presentation Malcolm Gladwell gave.  I look forward to hearing that on my iPod as soon as possible.  Aside from that I also appreciated the many links to blogs and other sites mentioned in the book.

Ultimately my thoughts and feelings about the book haven’t really changed.  The book feels too Microsoft-centric and I am still not too comfortable with Scoble’s and Israel’s dual role as authors and as extensions of the case studies themselves.  The book does deal with why businesses should take blogging seriously and takes a decent snapshot of the blogosphere.  It isn’t in the same league as “Cluetrain” (which I am about to re-read) and at the same time it is worth reading because it takes “Cluetrain” a little further in that it applies “Cluetrain” principles to blogging which really begins to introduce the conversational elements of Web-based markets.

Technorati Tags: blog marketing, cluetrain manifesto, jeremy wright, naked conversations, robert scoble, shel israel