What is a meatball sundae? It's something messy, disgusting and ineffective, the result of combining two perfectly good things that don't go together. Meatballs are the basic staples, the things people need, the stuff that used to be marketed quite well with TV and other mass market techniques. The topping is new marketing: MySpace, websites, YouTube, and all of the magic that CEOs wish would shine atop their companies. The problem? New marketing is lousy at selling meatballs. When confronted with the myriad opportunities presented by new marketing, people usually ask 'How can we make this stuff work for us?' This, as Seth Godin explains in his remarkable new book, is exactly the wrong question. Mapping out 14 trends that are completely remaking what it means to be a marketer — and by extension transforming what we make and how we make it — Godin shows how the question for any thriving 21st century business must be: 'How can we alter our business to become an organization that thrives on new marketing?' Meatball Sundae is an essential guide to the fundamental shift taking place in the marketing and business world, and shows you how to align your business to it.

From the author of the business bestseller Permission Marketing, the man Business Week called the 'Ultimate Entrepreneur for the Information Age' comes a book of essential truths about building a better website. Everyone who surfs the web knows that some sites are better than others. Now marketing guru Seth Godin identifies and illustrates the crucial guiding principles behind creating websites that satisfy visitors and keep them coming back for more. Once upon a time it was believed that web surfers had plenty of time, knew exactly what they wanted, and made considered decisions with each click. Before long, however marketers asserted that surfers that surfers were busy, ill-informed and impatient. Data would later reveal that the marketers were right. Thus, according to Seth Godin, anyone building a website should think of every visitor as a monkey — in a big red fez. Monkeys want to know one thing: Where's the banana? If the banana isn't easy to see and easy to get, the monkey is as good as gone. Expanding upon this premise, Godin uses real-life examples to explain why no website sould try to be all things to all visitors, how and why the mantra 'customers first' applies to websites, why it's incredibly important to think proactively about serving online customers, and more. Packed with wisdom and practical applications, The Big Red Fez is an essential tool for anyone involved in the web.