Naked Conversations : How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers

click here for more details, find new or used items	Robert Scoble, Shel Israel Our price £11.04 (£16.99) New from £6.94 Used from £5.51 Pages: 272 (Hardcover) ISBN: 047174719X Pub: John Wiley & Sons Pub date: 2006-01-31 Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 88692

Reader Reviews:

Somewhat disappointing (3/5 people found this helpful)

I bought this title partly because I usually follow Scoble's adventures and commentaries in my blogroll, and because I am quite fond of Channel 9 videos (for those who may not know, videos from inside Microsoft). And I bought it as well expecting to find more sound advice on business blogging. I have to admit that, as it is usual with customers, I can't really pinpoint what I mean by "more sound advice", but, being honest, I don't consider a myriad of blogging examples to be illuminating when there's no analysis of those examples or, when there is some insight, it does not go very deep.

My advice is this: if you already are blogging, if your blogroll is full of prominent business references (people like Scoble himself, Guy Kawasaki, Chris Anderson, Seth Godin, GapingVoid.com, and the likes, you know, the usual name dropping), then you don't need this book, and most of its content will be merely anecdotical or, sometimes, boring.

On the other hand, it could probably be very useful for the clueless folk in marketing. But then they will not probably be very open minded about the ideas conveyed in this reading; and they won't even know about Scoble and Israel in the first place.

However, let me stress that this is not for lack of quality in the book itself, but because this book has somewhat missed its audience for the reasons above (obvioulsy that's my personal opinion only).

It motivated me to set up a (profitable) blog (11/11 people found this helpful)

I'd known about blogging since 2002, but never really "got it". Then on a whim, I bought "Naked Conversations."

The book is firmly aimed away from geeks (and consequently doesn't waste time on the sordid details of the RSS specification), and firmly aimed towards business owners and marketeers who want to communicate better with their customers.

Lots of good case studies of widely-read blogs, balanced out with some good analysis of what the succesful blogs have in common.

Now, if your intention is to set up a blog to communicate with your school friends and family members round the world, then this isn't for you.

If your intention is to improve your relationship with your customers, then it would be a good use of your time at get this. The material covered is very similar to that in "Blog Marketing (Jeremy Anderson)", but Scoble and Israel have a rather deeper coverage, and to me, their book is more succesful at conveying WHY blogging works, rather than just what to do (which is where the Anderson book concentrates.)

Oh, and yes, two months in, the direct revenue I can track back to my blog has paid for the book many, many, times over!

How - and why ­- to be a business blogger (3/4 people found this helpful)

Successful blogger Robert Scoble and co-author Shel Israel push people in business to get involved with blogging as a means of communication and of staying on top of conversations that affect their companies. The authors summarize blogging's history and provide examples of how companies have benefited from it, including interviews with high-ranking corporate bloggers. Their easy-to-read and easy-to-understand writing style ensures that even those who know little about blogging can grasp it. The book covers how to blog and how to participate in conversations, rather than always talking and never listening. We recommend it to businesspeople who blog or are thinking about it, and to executives who want to know why blogging is important and how it can build their companies' bottom line.

A book visualising the benefits of business blogging (2/4 people found this helpful)

An excellent discussion on benefits of business blogging. Shows some pains of not blogging and provides insight on how to establish and benefit from blogging through practical examples.

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