This 2007 publication written by David Meerman Scott ( The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly) is not a technical manual that goes into detail about the ins and outs of marketing and PR. It's really geared toward the novice or intermediate without much of a general background in the above mentioned categories. Scott's reputation precedes him; however, I don't know much about him beyond what I've read in this book and snippets elsewhere such as on the internet. Nevertheless, if you're a novice in the field of online marketing and need some good general insight into what's out there on the World Wide Web and how to use these tools, this is a good place to start. But if you're entrenched in online marketing or the new age of marketing, you're probably already quite aware of how to market using these techniques. And you're quite aware that interruption marketing, such as that on television, is now pretty much ignored by most if not skipped over if prerecorded with a DVR or paused and then skipped. Advertisements in magazines, billboards, radio, and of course TV are ineffective because of their overexposure. Really, who's influenced to buy by these advertisements anymore?

Like I said, if you're in business and you don't know much about these techniques that have been around for some years and are looking to advertise more effectively, more directly, not just pump money into unproductive or untraceable results, then this book is for you. It's all about connecting to the customer now. There needs to be greater awareness of and interaction with the customer to get beyond him or her merely ignoring your useless interruption advertising. So if you don't know much about how to do that with podcasting, viral marketing and online media (blogs aren't the end all and cure all that Scott purports) then this is a good jumping off point. If you need more specific information, hell, just go online and start shopping. There's thousands of internet marketers just waiting for you to learn so they can earn.