Rating: 
Summary: will the real Tim Sanders please stand up? this book rocks
Review: ok, so we don't all agree @ the yahoo=land. I found this book to be a great read...the easy to understand rules are important because there is very little written about this space to distinguish brand from Internet branding. I really agree with the writers' viewpoints about distinction (autos.com, etc.) and think that it can help would be start ups avoid incredible mistakes.As an Internet professional, i also recognize the importance of a book providing hands on advice regarding today's decisions that impact tomorrow's brand. This book provides this in spades. My copy of the book is marked up with pull quotes that will certainly make it into my powerpoints, i appreciate the work and apologize for all other tim sanders of the world (and my world) that may not get the insight of this story. Tim Sanders Director, Yahoo! ValueLab San Jose, LA, NYC
Rating: 
Summary: some decent advice worth paying attention to
Review: One of the drawbacks of this book is that, while the authors stress the importance of being fast, first, and focused, they don't give a lot of advice on what to do if your site is superior but suffers from being second. (Ohmae, in THE INVISIBLE CONTINENT, might argue that being second -- take, for example, VHS over Betamax in a pre-internet market -- doesn't always spell defeat.) What the authors do do well here is to stress the importance of branding on the Internet. It's a message Al Ries has been writing on for some time, so the elevation of the issue here is no surprise. The authors in this book stress the importance of deciding whether your business's internet presence is mainly for distribution or if you plan to operate the business full-hog online. If the latter, you need to start from ground zero, the authors argue, and think about changing such things as your name to gain brand awareness. But little advice here on how to decide on an appropriate name. The broad ideas are here, but the specifics aren't...although I'm not sure the authors intended this so much as a step-by-step how-to book as one in which they laid down broad laws.
Rating: 
Summary: 175 Pages? How about some more info.
Review: Quick and easy to read, but come on, 175 pages? This all could have been done in a magazine article. I felt a little ripped off.
Rating:
Summary: Branding is interesting!
Review: Ries & Ries have put together a very interesting mosaic on this very interesting space called the internet. Whether a medium or a business the thought process you can develop from this book will help you miss many of the potholes out there. Fast, easy, funny and informative this book makes you think about things just alittle differently. Whats wrong with that?
Rating:
Summary: Can Save Billions for Internet Businesses and Investors!
Review: The 11 Immutable Laws of Internet Branding is a valuable guide for those who operate, work for, or invest in e-businesses. If this book had come out 3 years ago, billions would have been better invested. Perhaps the valuations of e-businesses would still be higher as well. Al and Laura Ries point out that companies seeking to do business on the Internet almost always get it wrong. And those errors begin with their choice of a brand name to use, the services they offer, the form those services take, and the technologies they plan to use. Basically, the authors make the now familiar argument (if you have read their earlier work) that there can only be one winning name in a category, that this name will be a proper noun or two rather than a common noun or two. The lousy examples they give of poorly selected brand names would be fairly humorous if it weren't for all of the money and lives being wasted in an obviously losing effort. One of the most persuasive arguments they make is that most categories will be dominated by one brand, and that brand will be the one with the best brand name (assuming some level of decent service), not necessarily the first entrant. Thus, Amazon.com is praised for having a good name while buy.com is hissed for a generic one. Yet everyone believes that being first on the Internet is the only issue for dominating a category. Wrong! Since their earlier work called for 22 Immutable Laws of Branding, I was pleased to see that the Internet is less complicated to brand correctly than a typical new product. The main reason for this is that the seller is dealing directly with the buyer, rather than through an intermediary like a bricks and mortar retailer. The most telling argument they make is that existing businesses have an important decision to make: To either turn the existing business into an Internet-based one (like Cisco, Dell, and Charles Schwab have done), or to create a new brand with an Internet business model to compete with the nonInternet business. Most businesses would benefit from carefully thinking through this point. The authors also argue that making your Web site more interactively valuable is critical to your success. If you notice that most Web sites aren't, you will soon be convinced that this is advice more people need to read and understand. This book points out the problem that many people are now operating Internet-based businesses who have little understanding of the fundamentals of how to succeed. This book will be a valuable contribution to the literature of how to solve that problem. The book is also valuable for its ability to point out the sources of stalled thinking when it comes to the Internet. The issues are more similar to existing businesses than different, despite all of the hype in the e-press.
Rating:
Summary: Avoiding dotcom Doom
Review: The 11 Immutable Laws of Internet Branding is the most comprehensive Internet startup self-help guide available today. Al and Laura Ries' observations about the nature of e-commerce are insightful and thought provoking. This ground breaking book is a help to anyone in defining the objectives to pursue success in the world of business on the net and to realize the crucial differences in net business versus business in the real world.
Rating: 
Summary: Worth Reading for those in this field
Review: This book by Al Ries and Laura Ries is Good overall and is in lines with their previous works with similar titles. The author's style of writing itself is impressive with so many examples to prove the point or at least to convince the reader. Although at times I felt that the examples of extranet brands are more than internet brands and even wanted to know the sources of the Data the authors have quoted in various examples. An appendix of the same would have helped to make the book more credible and convincing! But definitely it is worth reading for all those in the field of Internet Marketing and Brands for it gives some invaluable tips.
Rating:
Summary: Most inane book I have ever read
Review: This book offers conclusory statements with very superficial, if any, analysis. For example, the authors argue that technologies tend to diverge, and not converge. For support, they say "[i]n biology, the law of evolution holds that new species are created by the division of a single species. Convergence, instead, suggests that the combining of two species will yield you a new one. Invaraibly in nature you see things divide and not converge. We have hundreds of varieties of dogs and hundreds of varieties of cats, but "very few" dogcats, or chickenducks, or horsecows." What?! I haven't the foggest idea how a system like technology controlled by humans has to do with biology, a system of nature. When there's human intervention, convergence occurs all the time - such is the case with many modern fruits and vegetables that have been bred by humans. And really,there are "very few" varieties of dogcats? I'm not aware of any. I'd be curious as to what the authors have to say about the trend towards bigger corporations, through mergers. According to the authors, these big corporation really shouldn't exist, because things diverge, and not converge. They also make the pompous statement that the purchasers of business.com could have saved $7,499,979 if they had bought the authors' book. The fact that they could claim credit for saying that a brand name shouldn't be generic is preposterous. That is one of the most basic tenet of branding. Of course, the authors does not discuss sex.com, an equally generic name, which has made $40 million in the course of a few years.
Rating: 
Summary: talk about a THIN book
Review: this book was a fast read, and that's not always a good sign. The author attempts to make sweeping statements like: Internet advertising will never work...and simply assert them. Give a few examples of how this is true. Ignore any studies (there have been about six major ones this year) that lay out the REAL case for/against. That's just the start. The point is that major points are proven in mere paragraphs (or so the author thinks). If you work in a brand department or are considering starting your first Internet business (ever)...this book won't be pedestrian. If you've ever read a legitimate work in this field like The Brand Mindset or anything by HBS...avoid this one, you won't finish it ...
Rating:
Summary: Start Improving Your Internet Business Skills Here
Review: This book won't grant you an MBA in Web Marketing. It won't replace sound business practices. It won't be 100% right in its predictions. It won't make you rich. It won't tell you how to make a better widget for your web site. "Ries & Daughter" provide Eleven (11) Laws by which you can judge any Internet business. These are helpful to investors, business owners, venture capitalists, designers, and stock option holders. Or if you just are interested in "the way things work" this book will be of interest. But why should you consider this book when there are so many other Internet business books? First, brand names are important. Look in your kitchen cabinets, the name of your car, etc. Look at the names of the web sites you frequently visit. A good brand name is an often overlooked part of building a business. This book's focus is Internet branding, something that is vitally important to every Internet web site and business. Second, Ries is a good brand. Ries is co-author of Positioning, the most important business book I've ever read. His two other Immutable Law books are also considered by many as classics. In other words, Ries as been talking about branding for sometime and that knowledge is an important component of this book. Third, 11 Immutable Laws is a good start. Another reviewer called it an "easy read." That is a high compliment since complex ideas get explained concisely without a lot of fluff. The book is full of examples and predictions. Names are named. I think the other books can wait until you read this. Fourth, it will give you an understanding about why you like some sites and not others. After you read one law, you might say, "That was obvious." Then that make you think about why the other laws are not obvious to you. That is learning. That is why I went back an re-read the first law. If you are not sure, then read the publisher's information and visit their interactive web site. But I'm biased. Ries and his former partner Trout are two of my five favorite authors. Regardless, I think anyone in the Internet business will find this a useful business tool. Right now I'm examining how our four current and two future Internet products comply with the 11 Laws. Certainly sparks some interesting possiblities.
| 
