Super Crunchers
Sorry about infrequency of posting…. To be perfectly honest, I have been working on a lot of stuff that I won’t share because it is either ultra proprietary or just pretty dull. I made a decision at the very start not to post just for the sake of posting…
I was walking through a bookstore the other day and ran across a book written by one of my favorite Forbes columnists named Ian Ayres (sure wish they would have an article in each issue). The book is called Super Crunchers and although it has very little actual math in it, it is about how people from all walks of life from advertising to politics to medicine are using math and large data sets to make decisions.
One of the things I loved most was that he actually named the book by buying adwords on a few relevant keywords with the proposed names of the book as the title for the ads and then measuring CTR to determine what got the best response.
The book is less about the math and more about the ideas and implementation based upon math. I think it is like $20 bucks retail and $16 or so if you are an Amazon freak. As you probably already know, it is my opinion that if you are not testing you should not be in the business of online marketing.
If you are serious about this business, you will not learn a single thing about online advertising, but you might make a few million dollars from the brainstorms and idea that come from this. Which makes it a must read in my book.
September 16th, 2007 at 7:33 pm
Is it bad that I get excited when Random Musings shows up on my feed reader? Its even better to see that I’m picking up books that other people are reading.
September 17th, 2007 at 2:05 am
The last 5 books that I have read have been recommendations from random blog posts just like this. Not once have I been let down. Such faith do I have in bloggers book recommendations that I have just ordered this.
Thanks for the tip!
September 17th, 2007 at 3:40 am
thanks for the tip! Book will be ordered!
September 17th, 2007 at 8:47 am
headed off to Borders now. Nothing I like better then a good read. If you nightstand doesn’t have a book on it you’re doing something wrong.
September 18th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
I’m with S1ick on this,
I am such a loser, because I was scanning down my feedreader, and did a double take on the title while I figured out if that was the blog I was thinking about (”I thought he was dead…”) I then said, “sweet” and clicked. Nobody should ever get that excited about a blog post. Ever…
September 20th, 2007 at 6:54 pm
“One of the things I loved most was that he actually named the book by buying adwords on a few relevant keywords with the proposed names of the book as the title for the ads and then measuring CTR to determine what got the best response.”
I’ve heard the author, Tim Ferris, of the “Four Hour Workweek” did the exact same thing using Google AdWords. Even his subtitle was a tested/proven part of the winning CTR ad.
The book Mr Ferris authored is *far* from being a recipe for working just four hours a week, but presumably the title had more believability than something entitled “The Four Minute Workweek”.