Unleashing the Ideavirus

Counter to traditional marketing wisdom, which tries to count, measure, and manipulate the spread of information, Seth Godin argues that the information can spread most effectively from customer to customer, rather than from business to customer. Godin calls this powerful customer-to-customer dialogue the ideavirus, and cheerfully eggs marketers on to create an environment where their ideas can replicate and spread.

In lively detail, Godin looks at the ways companies such as PayPal, Hotmail, GeoCities, even Volkswagen have successfully launched ideaviruses. He offers a "recipe" for creating your own ideavirus, identifies the key factors in the successful spread of an ideavirus (powerful sneezers, hives, a clear vector, a smooth, friction-free transmission), and shows how any business, large or small, can use ideavirus marketing to succeed in a world that just doesn't want to hear it anymore from the traditional marketers.

• Foreword
• Introduction
• SECTION 1: Why Ideas Matter
  • Farms, Factories And Idea Merchants
  • Why Are Ideaviruses So Important?
  • And Five Things Ideaviruses Have In Common
  • Seven Ways An Ideavirus Can Help You
  • The Sad Decline of Interruption Marketing
  • We Live In A Winner-Take-Almost-All World
  • The Traffic Imperative: Why Sites Fail
  • We Used To Make Food.We Used To Make Stuff. Now We Make Ideas
  • People Are More Connected Than They Ever Were Before. We Have Dramatically More Friends Of Friends And We Can Connect With Them Faster And More Frequently Than Ever
  • There's A Tremendous Hunger To Understand The New And To Remain On The Cutting Edge
  • While Early Adopters (The Nerds Who Always Want To Know About The Cool New Thing In Their Field) Have Always Existed, Now We've Got More Nerds Than Ever Before. If You're Reading This, You're A Nerd!
  • Ideas Are More Than Just Essays And Books. Everything From New Technology To New Ways Of Creating To New Products Are Winning Because Of Intelligent Ideavirus Management By Their Creators
  • The End Of The Zero Sum Game  
• SECTION 2: How To Unleash An Ideavirus
  • While It May Appear Accidental, It's Possible To Dramatically Increase The Chances Your Ideavirus Will Catch On And Spread
  • The Heart Of The Ideavirus: Sneezers
  • Sneezers Are So Important, We Need To Subdivide Them
  • The Art Of The Promiscuous
  • It's More Than Just Word Of Mouth
  • An Ideavirus Adores A Vacuum
  • Once It Does Spread, An Ideavirus Follows A Lifecycle. Ignore The Lifecycle And The Ideavirus Dies Out. Feed It Properly And You Can Ride It For A Long Time
  • Viral Marketing Is An Ideavirus, But Not All Ideaviruses Are Viral Marketing
  • What Does It Take To Build And Spread An Ideavirus?
  • There Are Three Key Levers That Determine How Your Ideavirus Will Spread.
  • Thirteen Questions Ideavirus Marketers Want Answered
  • Five Ways To Unleash An Ideavirus  
• SECTION THREE: The Ideavirus Formula
  • Managing Digitally-Augmented Word Of Mouth
  • Tweak The Formula And Make It Work
  • Advanced Riffs On The Eight Variables You Can Tweak In Building Your Virus
  • Sneezers
  • Hive
  • Velocity
  • Vector
  • Medium
  • Smoothness
  • Persistence
  • Amplifier
• SECTION 4: Case Studies and Riffs
  • The Vindigo Case Study
  • Saving The World With An Ideavirus
  • Is Unleasing the Ideavirus An Ideavirus?
  • Moving Private To Public
  • You're In The Fashion Business!
  • The Money Paradox
  • Think Like A Music Executive (Sometimes)
  • Is That Your Final Answer?
  • A Dozen ideaviruses Worth Thinking About
  • Why I Love Bestseller Lists
  • How A Parody Of Star Wars Outsold Star Wars
  • Wassup?
  • Judging A Book By Its Cover
  • Being The Most
  • In Defense Of World Domination
  • If You're A Member Of The Academy, You Go To Movies For Free
  • How An Ideavirus Can Drive The Stock Market
  • Bumper Sticker Marketing
  • No, You Go First!
  • Digital Media Wants to Be Free
  • Van Gogh Lost His Ear To Prove A Point
  • But How Would We Make Money?
  • Crossing The Chasm With An Ideavirus
  • The Myth Of The Tipping Point
  • The Compounding Effect
  • Bill Gates' Biggest Nightmare
  • Hey, Skinny!
  • Get Big Fast? The Mistake So Many Companies Make
  • The Heart Of Viral Marketing
  • The Great Advertising Paradox
  • Permission: The Missing Ingredient How A Virus And Permission Team Up To Find Aliens
  • The Art of Creating an Ideavirus
  • Is He Really More Evil Than Satan Himself?
  • Case Study: Why Digimarc Is Going To Fail
  • Why Are These Cows Laughing?
  • Never Drink Alone
  • The Power Of Parody
  • Bee Stings And The Measles
  • But Isn't It Obvious?
  • Your Company's Worst Enemy
  • Step By Step, Ideavirus Tactics
  • The Future Of The Ideavirus: What Happens When Everyone Does It?

The follow-up to PM. Not as good, but he has a knack for finding case studies that still exists (compare with Tom Peters).