Topspin™

This week’s Holiday Gift Guide (the second of four) is all about helping you become a better designer and online marketer. You’ll find resources for understanding revenue optimization, reporting, analytics, conversion, usability and information design. We’ve also thrown in a few general resources to broaden your horizons.

As with last week’s Gift Guide, this is by no means intended to be a comprehensive list, but rather a sampling of Topspin favorites. Please chime in with suggestions of your own.

• Beautiful Evidence - by Edward Tufte
• Google Conversion University
• Google Analytics
• Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics – by Brian Clifton
• Web Analytics: An Hour a Day - by Avinash Kaushik
• Web Design for ROI: Turning Browsers into Buyers & Prospects into Leads - by Lance Loveday & Sandra Niehaus
• Landing Page Optimization: The Definitive Guide to Testing and Tuning for Conversions – by Tim Ash
• Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition - by Steve Krug
• WEB Design: E-Commerce (Icons) – by Julius Wiedemann
• Taschen’s 1000 Favorite Websites - by Julius Wiedemann
• Things I have learned in my life so far - by Stefan Sagmeister

Gary Brotman

Topspin

With the holiday season in full swing, we wanted to share a few suggestions for gifts to give yourself and those close to you who have an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. The books and informational resources below are a few bodies of info we’ve found interesting and we hope you do too. Some are old, some are new, and we think there’s a ton of value in each. Whether you want to be a better marketer, a stronger business manager, a more creative artist, or you just want to know more about the evolution of the music business (and where it’s likely headed), we recommend you check out the goods below.

This is by no means a complete list of the best publications out there, nor is it in any particular order. It’s just a sampling. Have any comments about the list or suggestions for others? Please join the conversation and let us know.

• Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us - Seth Godin
• Meet the Millennials - Terry McBride
• CRM Bible - Pyinna
• Word of Mouth Marketing - Andy Sernovitz
• The Mansion on the Hill: Dylan, Young, Geffen, Springsteen, and the Head-on Collision of Rock and Commerce- Fred Goodman
• Confessions of a Record Producer: How to Survive the Scams and Shams of the Music Business- Moses Avalon
• The Problem With Music - Steve Albini
• 1,000 True Fans - Kevin Kelly
• Music Industry Survival Guide - Tunecore
• The Future of Music: Manifesto for the Digital Music Revolution- David Kusek and Gerd Leonhard

• Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy- Lawrence Lessig
• The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life- Richard Florida
• The Innovator’s Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth - Clayton Christensen
• Promises to Keep: Technology, Law, and the Future of Entertainment- William Fisher
• Fair Use: The Story of The Letter U and The Numeral 2 - Negativeland
• Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid- Douglas Hofstadter

This is the first of a few gift guides we’ll be publishing over the next few weeks so keep you eyes peeled for more.

Gary Brotman
Topspin

In Monday’s issue of The New York Times, media columnist David Carr gave readers a great overview of the grass-roots machine president-elect Barack Obama built by harnessing the power of online social networking – a machine that not only delivered the White House to him by a huge margin, but one that will no doubt have a hand in shaping policy and the overall role of the federal government.

By leveraging social networks and permission marketing best practices, Obama amassed a base of millions of dedicated supporters, all of whom willingly entered into what will be long and meaningful two-way conversations. And it all started with an equitable exchange of information for something of real value. This massive and energized support base was given a direct connection to the candidate, with the results being record-breaking fund raising and voter registrations, and an empowered electorate that will have a voice in the Obama administration.

“All of the Obama supporters who traded their personal information for a ticket to a rally or an e-mail alert about the vice presidential choice, or opted in on Facebook or MyBarackObama can now be mass e-mailed at a cost of close to zero. And instead of the constant polling that has been a motor of presidential governance, an Obama White House can use the Web to measure voter attitudes.”

What does this have to do with the music business? Everything! It’s the direct relationship between artists and fans (with nothing in between but the tools facilitating the conversations) that will drive this industry forward. The conversations start with something as simple as trading a free song download for an email address, and will evolve into long-term relationships in which fans are motivated and empowered to support their favorite artists through evangelism, patronage, and even feedback in the creative process.

Gary Brotman
Topspin