The Clustered World : How We Live, What We Buy, and What It All Means About Who We Are

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Summary: Useful look at how geodemographic clustering works
Review: Weiss gives an entertaining and well-written overview of how geodemographic profiling works. He explains the concept, compares the US profiling to other countries, and talks about its applications in marketing. Finally, he provides a breakdown of the 62 PRIZM clusters that existed at the time that the book was written. It may not be the book to learn about the US (but I don't think it's useless in that regard) but it's definitely the book to learn how marketers see the US.

Rating:
Summary: No More Mass Communications
Review: With "The Clustered World," Michael J. Weiss has rendered my degree in mass communications obsolete. Weiss does a great job of outlining the dozens and dozens of demographic groups that make up America and other countries today. I found lots of interesting demographic tidbits -- such as the existence of 400,000 gated communities in the U.S. (And here I had thought mine was an anomaly). I wish only to have read the detailed outline of each segment first to make it easier to keep track of them all. Otherwise, Weiss' book brought me back to my days in the college library, contentedly absorbing "American Demographics."