The Word of Mouth Manual: Volume II, by Dave Balter

I have finally finished reading The Word of Mouth Manual: Volume II, by Dave Balter, and offer my readers my opinion of this book.

I liked many of the anecdotes (aforementioned Tickle Me Elmo marketing story) and for the most part, enjoyed the pithy book, which was easy to read. Mr. Balter must have one heck of a sense of humor, as it was easy to see his droll humor in many parts of the book.

The most interesting part of the book for me was the chapter devoted to the revamp of the prize structure. It was nice to finally gain a grasp of what was going through their heads when they decided to chuck the old (more lucrative) system in favor of the new system, which just got rolled out about two months ago (Shaloha). Though he admitted that the so-called pests were actually still beneficial to BzzAgent in a way, it was clearly unfair to the rest of the agents who didn't sit around 24 hours a day and type up false reports just to earn points, sit on them, and then take campaigns later and nab all of the good prizes. I didn't get many prizes from BzzAgent under the old system; a juicer, a gaming pack, some cutting boards... but I did donate to charity a few times out of frustration because there was never anything for me there to redeem for that I had enough points for or that was something I would have wanted anyway.

Even though the Bzz reward program is less lucrative (Mypoints - 50 points doesn't buy anything!) I do feel that in the long-term, it will separate the wheat from the chaff. It will no longer be lucrative to file endless reports just for the sake of gaining points to grab high value items. Instead, if you do bzz more than two reports required per campaign to maintain your standing, you are obviously doing it for the love of Bzz.

The Word of Mouth Manual: Volume II, by Dave Balter would be an interesting read for those involved in marketing, business owners (small, medium or large) and of course, us Bzz Agents!