Seth Godin

Infobox Person
name = Seth Godin


image_size = 180px
caption =
birth_date = birth date and age|1960|7|10
birth_place =
death_date =
death_place =
occupation = Author, Marketing expert
main interests =
spouse = Helene Godin
url = [http://sethgodin.com/ sethgodin.com]

Seth Godin (born July 10, 1960) is an American author of business books and a popular speaker with appearances at Google, TED and a number of charities. His blog is one of the most popular blogs in the world.Fact|date=August 2008 Godin popularized the topic of permission marketing.

Background

According to his biography, Godin's earliest fascination was with a short-wave radio his grandparents bought for him. In an interview with UXPioneers Godin recalls that talking to people without the use of wires felt like "magic."

At 14, Godin took his first steps into entrepreneurship printing Biorhythms at the local university and selling them for $30 each. At 16, Godin founded a ski club and took a group of 50-60 children to ski by his house in Buffalo every week. Around this time Godin is also known to have worked at a fast food outlet and in media sales.

Godin graduated from Tufts University in 1982 with a degree in computer science and philosophy. He later claims to have abused a major loophole in the system to skip difficult engineering classes in favor of philosophy.Fact|date=August 2008 Godin earned his MBA in marketing from Stanford Business School. From 1983 to 1986, he worked as a brand manager at Spinnaker Software. For a time Godin commuted every week from California and Boston to do both his new job and complete his MBA.

After leaving Spinnaker Software in 1986, Godin became a book packager. It was in the same offices that Godin met Mark Hurst, and founded Yoyodyne. After a few years Godin sold the book packaging business to his employees and focused his efforts on Yoyodyne, one of the first online marketing companies. It was with Yoyodyne that Godin came up with the concept of permission marketing. For a period of time, Godin served as a columnist for "Fast Company" [cite web |url=http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2004/09/so_long_to_fast.html |title=Seth's Blog: So long to Fast Company |accessdate=2008-02-16 |format= |work=] .

Godin and his wife Helene now live in Westchester County, New York.

Viewpoints

Godin combines three elements in his writings. First, the end of the "TV-Industrial complex" means that marketers no longer have the power to command the attention of anyone they choose, whenever they choose. Second, in a marketplace in which consumers have more power, marketers must show more respect; this means no spam, no deceit and a bias for keeping promises. Finally, Godin asserts that the only way to spread the word about an idea is for that idea to earn the buzz by being remarkable. Godin refers to those who spread these ideas as "Sneezers", and to the ideas so spread as an "IdeaVirus." He calls a remarkable product or service a . Yahoo! currently has a model of a purple cow in the lobby of its Sunnyvale campus. Fact|date=May 2008

Advertisements on television and radio are classified as 'interruption marketing', which interrupt the customer while he is doing something of his preference. Godin introduced the concept of "permission marketing" where the business provides something of value to the customer and thus obtains his permission and then does marketing.

Business ventures

Yoyodyne

In 1995, Godin launched Yoyodyne, which used contests, online games, and scavenger hunts to market companies to participating users. [http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/news/columns/98-06/e3564029.htm Point, Click, Here's the Pitch] "BusinessWeek" February 9, 1998] The site gained significant traction, with over one million viewers visiting the site, and companies like American Online, American Express, H&R Block, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, Sony Music, Sprint, and Volvo using its services. [http://news.earthweb.com/bus-news/article.php/22911 Yahoo! to Acquire Yoyodyne] "Earthweb News". October 12, 1998.] It was here that Godin founded the principle of "permission marketing."

In 1998, Godin sold Yoyodyne to Yahoo! for $30 million [http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/1998/10/15555 Yahoo Acquiring Yoyodyne] "Wired.com". October 12, 1998.] and became its vice president of direct marketing, a position he held until 2000. [http://www.sla.org/content/Events/conference/ac2008/Conference/keynoters/godin.cfm Seth Godin] on "SLA.org".]

ChangeThis

Godin developed the idea for ChangeThis, a website aimed at spreading ideas through PDF files. [ [www.changethis.com ChangeThis] ] In the summer of 2004, Godin hired five interns -- Amit Gupta, Catherine Hickey, Noah Weiss, Phoebe Espiritu and Michelle Sriwongtong -- to build and develop the website. [http://changethis.com/content/faq ChangeThis FAQ] "ChangeThis".] The website went live on August 14, 2004. [http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2004/08/changethis_is_n.html ChangeThis Is Now Live] "Seth Godin's Blog". August 14, 2004.] Tom Peters, Chris Anderson, and Guy Kawasaki all had manifestos featured on ChangeThis. [http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2005/05/whatever_happen.html Whatever Happened to ChangeThis?] "Seth Godin's Blog". "We featured authors as diverse as Tom Peters, Amnesty International, Chris Anderson, Hugh Macleod, George Lakoff and Guy Kawaski."] In July of 2005, ChangeThis was turned over to 800-CEO-READ, the leading distributor of business literature in the United States. [ [http://800ceoread.com/blog/archives/005756.html ChangeThis Returns] on 800-CEO-Blog. July 1, 2005] [ [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2005_Sept_12/ai_n15381970 Progressive "ChangeThis" Under New Stewardship] on bnet. September 12, 2005]

quidoo

In March of 2006, Godin launched Squidoo, a community website allowing users to create pages (called "lenses") for subjects of interest. [ [http://www.stonetemple.com/articles/interview-seth-godin.shtml Eric Enge Interviews Seth Godin] on Stone Temple Consulting. June 20, 2007] The site donates 5% of the profits to charity, and 50% to the lensmasters. Godin and Squidoo have been profiled on CNN and the Washington Post [Wong, Grace [http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/09/smbusiness/squidoo/ Make Money with Squidoo] "CNN". February 10, 2006] [ [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/05/AR2006010501846.html Squidoo] "Washington Post". January 8, 2006.] The site was given top prize in SXSW's community/wiki category. [ [http://www.viget.com/blog/squidoo_honored_at_10th_sxsw_interactive_web_awards Squidoo Honored at 10th SXSW Interactive Web Awards] on Vigit Labs. March 14, 2007] As of July 2008, Squidoo is one of the 500 most visited sites in the world. [ [http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/squidoo.com Traffic Details: Squidoo.com] on Alexa.com. Retrieved July 18, 2008]

Books

Godin is the author of 11 bestselling books; his "Free Prize Inside" was a Forbes Business Book of the Year in 2004,cite news
last =
first =
title = Forbes.com Business Book of the Year
publisher = Forbes
date =
url = http://www.forbes.com/business/2004/12/07/cx_da_bizbookslide_11.html?thisSpeed=25000
accessdate = 2008-05-25"] in its first two years of release, "Purple Cow" sold over 150,000 copies in more than 23 printings.cite news
last = Hogan
first = Ron
title = How to Succeed in Business (Books)
publisher = Publishers Weekly
date = 5/16/2005
url = http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA601439.html
accessdate = 2008-05-20"...reports that the two-year-old title has more than 150,000 copies in print after 23 printings"] "The Dip" was a Business Week and New York Times bestseller. [ [http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_41/b4053113.htm Business Week Bestseller List:] October 8th, 2007] [ [http://www.sptimes.com/2007/06/10/Books/Best_selling_hard_cov.shtml New York Times Bestseller List:] June 8th 2007] And Godin has called his free ebook "Unleashing the Ideavirus" the most "popular ebook ever written". [http://valleywag.com/tech/self_evangelism/how-the-top-self+branders-sell-themselves-256614.php Self-evangelism: How the top self-branders sell themselves]

Bibliography

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* " [http://www.sethgodin.com/ideavirus/downloads/IdeavirusReadandShare.pdf Excerpt online] " - Detailing the idea of Viral marketing
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ee also

*Malcolm Gladwell
*Robert Scoble
*Chris Anderson
*Timothy Ferriss

References

External links

* [http://sethgodin.com Official site]
* [http://sethgodin.com/sg/bio.asp Official biography]
* [http://sethgodin.typepad.com Seth Godin's Blog]
* [http://www.folksonomy.org/2007/05/interview_with_seth_godin/ Interview with Seth Godin]
* [http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4101280286098310645 Video → Seth Godin speaks at Gel 2006 (20 min)]
* [http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6909078385965257294 Video → Seth Godin speaks at Google (48 min)]
* [http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/28 Video → Seth Godin speaks at TED (17 min)]