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August 26, 2005

The Big Moo by Seth Godin

Michael Arrington

43 comments »

Seth Godin is my favorite business writer right now.

In fact, as I look around, my desk is littered with copies of his books - Purple Cow (my favorite), All Marketers are Liars, and Unleashing the Ideavirus.

Read these books and learn about how to build and market products that will excite your customers. See here for a short interview with Seth by Brian Oberkirch.

I haven’t had the opportunity to meet Seth in person yet, but I sure hope to. I’ll probably act like a teenage girl meeting some cool pop band, and not know what to say. Maybe I’ll get a picture with him. That would be cool.

His books are crisply written and to the point. And his points are good. One of my favorite quotes, from Purple Cow, is:

If someone in your organization is charged with creating a Purple Cow, leave them alone! Don’t use internal reviews and usability testing to figure out if the new product is as good as what you’ve got now. Instead, pick the right maverick and get out of the way.

As I mentioned in a recent weekly summary (see no. 6), Seth’s new book, The Big Moo, is coming out and he’s eating his own dogfood in promoting it. Seth has started selling batches of 50 galley copies to people if they promise to “sneeze” the book to other influential people. I purchased 50 copies, and am now offering them to TechCrunch readers.

By the way, the book is another winner. It’s a collaborative effort - Seth has brought in 33 “of the world’s smartest business thinkers” to write the book. I started it last night and have almost finished it. I am learning to not be boring. I am trying to be fearless. I am going to risk it all (more on this later…edgeio).

I am giving these books away. The first 10 comments to this post get a free copy. I’ll even pay the shipping if you are in the US or Canada. If you are somewhere else, I’ll ask for $5 in shipping. Dave Wheeler did the same thing and got an overwhelming response.

I’ll send another batch to the first 10 people who post about the book and trackback here. Same rules apply on shipping.

If you comment, I already have your email address. If you trackback, make sure you send you email me at editor@techcrunch.com along with the post URL. Once I have the 20 complete, I’ll send out a mass email to get your shipping address.

Good luck to those of you who use slow RSS readers. :-)

  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Friday, August 26th, 2005 at 1:43 pm and is filed under Web 2.0 News & Ideas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Trackbacks/Pings (Trackback URL)

  1. Vy Blog

    August 26th, 2005 at 2:26 pm

  2. brento @ vSocial

    August 26th, 2005 at 3:09 pm

  3. Licence to Roam

    August 27th, 2005 at 8:04 am

  4. WeBreakStuff

    August 27th, 2005 at 8:54 am

  5. reemer.com

    August 27th, 2005 at 11:30 pm

  6. davids brain blog » Seth Godin - The Big Moo

    August 28th, 2005 at 1:25 am

  7. A Cry for Help

    August 29th, 2005 at 8:22 am

  8. JimSpot

    August 30th, 2005 at 5:00 pm

  9. pedromendes.com » Blog Archive » Moooooo

    September 1st, 2005 at 7:16 am

  10. Moustache » The Big Moo review

    September 17th, 2005 at 10:21 pm

  11. Brendan - Point2 Agent Blogger » Blog Archive » Seth Rocks

    April 16th, 2006 at 6:52 pm

  12. credit scores

    May 23rd, 2006 at 5:47 pm

  13. Association Distributor Fabric Textile

    February 17th, 2007 at 10:45 pm

Comments

RSS feed for comments on this post.

  1. Casey parsons

    August 26th, 2005 at 1:47 pm

    BOOK!

  2. Michael Arrington

    August 26th, 2005 at 1:49 pm

    Damn that was fast.

  3. Brian Oberkirch

    August 26th, 2005 at 1:52 pm

    Seth rules. Rules like Van Halen back in the day, but with a tad less glitz.

  4. Mark Allen

    August 26th, 2005 at 1:55 pm

    Book?

  5. cboone

    August 26th, 2005 at 1:58 pm

    Dig it.

    Thanks…

  6. Casey Parsons

    August 26th, 2005 at 2:00 pm

    I am very speedy. :-) …and lucky, I guess.

  7. Peter W.

    August 26th, 2005 at 2:03 pm

    I hope the book is as good as your web site! Thanks for the essential Web 2.0 resource.

  8. Artemi Krymski

    August 26th, 2005 at 2:04 pm

    if (speed == fast) {
    send(book);
    return(thanks);
    }

  9. Michael Arrington

    August 26th, 2005 at 2:07 pm

    ok, wow. 7 replies in 20 minutes. And this won’t be up on bloglines for 4 more hours. :-)

  10. Mason Cole

    August 26th, 2005 at 2:11 pm

    Here comes the post…

  11. Clarence Wooten

    August 26th, 2005 at 2:14 pm

    Send me my free book! I couldn’t resist :-) I’m a fan of Seth as well… I remember when he sold Yoyodyne (or something like that) to Yahoo. Boy time flies!

  12. Michael Arrington

    August 26th, 2005 at 2:22 pm

    Ah, Clarence, you can afford to buy your own frickin copy. :-)

  13. Scott Truitt

    August 26th, 2005 at 2:57 pm

    your comments don’t count, right?

  14. Dorrian

    August 26th, 2005 at 3:02 pm

    This should make official comment #10.

  15. Michael Arrington

    August 26th, 2005 at 4:49 pm

    Correct, my comments don’t count. :-)

    I count nine individual comments and two trackbacks. That leaves one comment slot and eight trackback slots left.

    Casey was no 1 and no 6. No. 10 and no. 13 are both Mason cole, so that leaves one comment left.

    I still say Clarence can afford his own, being a venture capitalist and all (Clarence, I was your attorney, remember? I KNOW about the sale of your company to VRSN). :-) However, he does in fact count.

    It looks like the first 9 comments are:

    1. Casey parsons
    2. Brian Oberkirch
    3. Mark Allen
    4. cboone
    5. Peter W.
    6. Artemi Krymski
    7. Clarence Wooten
    8. Scott Truitt
    9. Dorrian

    trackbacks so far:

    1. Vy Blog
    2. brento @ vSocial

    And it STILL isn’t up on bloglines, hours later.


  16. August 26th, 2005 at 5:15 pm

    Pick me pick me!

  17. Ben Richardson

    August 26th, 2005 at 6:31 pm

    Did I just miss the cut?

  18. Michael Arrington

    August 26th, 2005 at 6:41 pm

    Ben, yeah, you did. But I’ll add you as well. That’s it for comments. 8 trackback slots left.

    nearly 5 hours after the post…still not up on bloglines.

  19. Alex

    August 26th, 2005 at 8:12 pm

    ah man.. you have 50 books, least give half away (25 commnets… ) Would love a book- thanks!

  20. Brian Benzinger

    August 26th, 2005 at 8:25 pm

    Wow, this is awesome. I purchased “All Marketers are Liars” last week and am loving it. I’m going to have to pickup this one now.

    Michael, Bloglines has been rediculous lately. On the 24th, I made a post on my blog and I didn’t even see it on Bloglines until 9 hours later. 9 hours! That’s not right!

  21. David

    August 26th, 2005 at 11:43 pm

    Hey, I’d love a book! Guess I’m a bit late to this party though now, oops

  22. Thomas King

    August 27th, 2005 at 1:23 am

    Hi all,
    this is unfair! ;-) I am from Germany and you posted the offer in the middle of the night (European Standard Time). I have to sleep! ;-) Anyway, I will buy the book at amazon. ;-(

  23. Fred

    August 27th, 2005 at 8:40 am

    I’ll be collecting mine in San Francisco. You better save one for me ;)

  24. Brad Chmielewski

    August 27th, 2005 at 12:05 pm

    Great interview!

  25. Thomas King

    August 27th, 2005 at 2:16 pm

    Here we go: I installed a blogging software on my website and added my first blog message. Of course, it is talking about TechCrunch.com and “The Big Moo” … Have a look! …

    Now, I hope I get a free copy of “The Big Moo”! *g* ;-)

  26. blewtooth

    August 28th, 2005 at 9:53 am

    It seems that I am late to the party.

  27. Akash

    August 28th, 2005 at 9:37 pm

    Is it too late to get one copy?

  28. Jason Tucker

    August 29th, 2005 at 2:28 pm

    Add me to the list of people that didn’t know he was writing another book.

    Hopefully, I’ll be able to catch a copy soon.

  29. jacky

    July 21st, 2006 at 9:42 pm

    Oh,what a beautiful blog! I like it very much! I’m agreeable to your point of view!
    my name is 反应釜 I hope to make feiends with you !

  30. commercial

    August 27th, 2006 at 1:24 am

    thank stampedes Grafton!Maddox!bobbins!Mars reeled!

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