"Adam Penenberg's lively book opens a window to all of our futures..." --Ken Auletta, author of Googled: The End of the World as We Know It "If you want to understand all things viral, this is the place to start. Penenberg's reporting gives us a ringside seat for some of the biggest viral success stories in history, from Tupperware to Ning." --Dan Heath, co-author of Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die "One of the most astounding things about the Web age is how the best advertising is often no advertising at all. Penenberg masterfully explains how this works with case studies of products that were designed to spread. Every product can use a dose of this technique; this is the book to get to learn how." --Chris Anderson, author of Free: The Future of a Radical Price "In tight, engaging prose, Adam captures the essence of the ever-scaling power of the virus. It's not just for geeks anymore."

 --Seth Godin, author of Tribes "Penenberg discovers the perpetual motion machine for business and marketing... Buy this book. Catch a virus. Make a fortune." --Jeff Jarvis "Penenberg has unlocked the secret to the most successful digital businesses. An indispensable read." --Robert Safian, Editor-in-Chief, Fast Company "Instead of entrusting your business to a guru with an agenda and a ghostwriter, you should be turning to a pro journalist like Adam Penenberg, who understands the way media and money interact, has the critical faculty to engage with these phenomena in an unbiased fashion, and the technical facility to explain them to you in an entirely engaging, informative, and actionable way." --Douglas Rushkoff, author of Media Virus and Life Inc: How the world became a corporation and how to take it back. Here's something you may not know about today's Internet. Simply by designing your product the right way, you can build a flourishing business from scratch. No advertising or marketing budget, no need for a sales force, and venture capitalists will flock to throw money at you. Many of the most successful Web 2.0 companies, including MySpace, YouTube, eBay, and rising stars like Twitter and Flickr, are prime examples of what journalist Adam L. Penenberg calls a "viral loop"--to use it, you have to spread it. After all, what's the sense of being on Facebook if none of your friends are? The result: Never before has there been the potential to create wealth this fast, on this scale, and starting with so little. In this game-changing must-read, Penenberg tells the fascinating story of the entrepreneurs who first harnessed the unprecedented potential of viral loops to create the successful online businesses--some worth billions of dollars--that we have all grown to rely on. The trick is that they created something people really want, so much so that their customers happily spread the word about the

Price: $3.99 USD

If you're still chasing customers online, you're looking at the challenge backward. Aaron Shapiro helps companies build thriving digitally driven businesses. In his firm's extensive study of the Fortune 1000, a clear pattern emerged: the most successful companies drive sales by focusing on users instead of just customers. This is a fundamental strategic shift. Rather than trying to get people to buy stuff online, these companies home in on the user experience. They've realized that building relationships between people and their brand has huge value, even if those users aren't spending a dime on their products (yet). It's no secret that Internet-based companies like Google and Facebook thrive by building their user base before turning to monetization. Shapiro's big insight is that offline companies can successfully do the same, integrating offline products with an online presence and building platforms that create a lasting relationship between their brand and their users. Shapiro provides a strategic approach to refocusing your business in every way, from technology infrastructure and management to product design and marketing.

Price: $12.99 USD

Make Consulting Your Dream Job-On Your Own Terms. When you start your own consulting business, you can be your own boss, set your own hours-and make big profits! But that only happens if you're truly prepared. Are you familiar with the biggest consulting myths? Do you know the 12 success factors for consultants? Have you ever owned your own business before? How to Build a Successful Consulting Practice has all these answers and more-distilled by consulting guru Jack Phillips from years spent researching and reviewing successful firms that are still in business today. This essential volume shows how to:.:.; Develop a bulletproof business plan.; Find and keep clients for life.; Build your brand with magnetic marketing strategies.; Write spot-on proposals.; Use the Internet as a secret weapon.; Become a charismatic public speaker.; Avoid financial, legal, and ethical pitfalls.; Adjust to a new work life.

Price: $19.95 USD

Advanced Selling For Dummies® is a terrific resource that can energize your business performance and boost your bottom line. An excellent guide for both seasoned salespeople who want to take their productivity to the next level and small- and large-business entrepreneurs who are missing the advanced selling strategies that they really need to generate business and revenue. This book is packed with practical advice on how to boost sales, productivity and profits through the full-court-press approach to marketing and sales. Unlike other books that claim to reveal the "secret" to selling, Advanced Selling For Dummies is based on the premise that no single secret exists. You need a positive attitude, a strong work ethic, a creative mind, and the "sticktoitism" to survive and thrive in today's competitive marketplace. In the book, Ralph R. Roberts and a select group of the top sales people and trainers across the country give readers the necessary tools to become top-producers. Stressing the importance of focusing on your innate skill sets and creating a distinctive brand for yourself, Advanced Selling For Dummies teaches the tricks and habits that can benefit you both in your professional and personal life--things like: · Believing in and motivating yourself · Planning the work and then working the plan · Techniques for honing your sales skills · Hour of Power-100 phone calls, one hour a day · Personal branding through shameless self-promotion · Credibility building through websites, blogging, and social media · Personal partnering for inspiration and accountability · Tapping the un-served and under-served multicultural marketplace · Embracing change and taking risks · Implementing the latest productivity-boosting technologies · Hiring an assistant so you can pursue your passions · Tapping the power of R-Commerce (Relationship-Commerce Roberts also tackles the process of running a sales operation, which requires deft maneuvering. Here, you'll learn to create solid partnerships with like-minded, talented people; set the right goals and reward yourself properly when you reach them; embrace change in your industry (and the world at large) to grow your business; create your own USP, a kind of personal resume and mission statement; "seed" your business cards; take a weekly "Hour of Power" to keep in touch with your contacts; and use the latest technology such as the Internet and blogs to grow sales.

Price: $21.99 USD

"Marketing has entered a new era of rapid advance. Those unwilling to experiment with new combinations of traditional and internet marketing will be left behind." –Chris Trimble, Adjunct Associate Professor of Business Administration, Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and Coauthor, Ten Rules for Strategic Innovators: From Idea to Execution “It’s no secret that business has been changing dramatically over the last decade. To succeed in this rapidly changing environment, businesses must adapt their marketing strategies accordingly–The New Language of Marketing 2.0 provides practical, proven, and prescient tools to do exactly that.” –Dr. Steve Moxey, Research Fellow, High-Tech Marketing, Manchester Business School “Most U.S. marketers mistakenly think 'going global' is just a matter of translating your promotional materials into different languages and widening your media buys. Packed with real-life examples, this new book amply demonstrates that successful global marketing is actually all about local marketing. Learn how to give a local spin within each regional marketplace for global success.” –Anne Holland, Founder, MarketingSherpa Inc Use ANGELS and Web 2.0 Marketing to Drive Powerful, Quantifiable Results For every marketer, strategist, executive, and entrepreneur Today, marketers have an array of radically new Web 2.0-based techniques at their disposal: viral marketing, social networking, virtual worlds, widgets, Web communities, blogs, podcasts, and next-generation search, to name just a few. Now, leading IBM marketing innovator Sandy Carter introduces ANGELS, a start-to-finish framework for choosing the right Web 2.0 marketing tools–and using them to maximize revenue and profitability. Carter demonstrates winning Web 2.0 marketing at work through 54 brand-new case studies: organizations ranging from Staples to Harley Davidson, Coca-Cola to Mentos, Nortel to IBM itself. You’ll discover powerful new ways to market brands and products in both B2B and B2C markets...integrate Web 2.0, experiential, and conventional marketing...maximize synergies between global and local marketing...gain more value from influencers, and more. Includes information, case studies, and working examples for next generation marketing strategies such as: •  Social networks with virtual environments, including Second Life •  Online communities including Facebook •  Viral Marketing and eNurturing •  Serious Gaming •  Widgets •  Wikis •  Blogging, including Twitter •  RSS •  Podcasting •  Videocasting Whether you’re a marketing professional, Web specialist, strategist, executive, or entrepreneur, this book will help you drive immense, quantifiable value from Web 2.0 technologies–now, and for years to come. Sandy Carter’s breakthrough ANGELS approach, a step-by-step

Price: $23.99 USD

What happens when a naive intern is granted unfettered access to people's most private thoughts and actions? Young Stephen Thorpe lands a coveted internship at Ubatoo, an Internet empire that provides its users with popular online services, from a search engine and shopping to e-mail and social networking. When Stephen's boss asks him to work on a project with the American Coalition for Civil Liberties, Stephen innocently obliges, believing he is mining Ubatoo's vast databases to protect the ever-growing number of people unfairly targeted in the name of national security. But nothing is as it seems. Suspicious individuals--do-gooders, voyeurs, government agents, and radicals--surface, doing all they can to access the mass of desires and vulnerabilities gleaned from scouring Ubatoo's wealth of intimate information. Entry into Ubatoo's vaults of personal data need not require technical wizardry--simply knowing how to manipulate a well-intentioned intern may be enough. Set in today's cutting-edge data mining industry, The Silicon Jungle is a cautionary tale of data mining's promise and peril, and how others can use our online activities for political and personal gain just as easily as for marketing and humanitarian purposes. A timely thriller, The Silicon Jungle raises serious ethical questions about today's technological innovations and how our most confidential activities and minute details can be routinely pieced together into rich profiles that reveal our habits, goals, and secret desires--all ready to be exploited in ways beyond our wildest imaginations.

Price: $27.95 USD