Crossing the Chasm ^{2nd Ed.}

Crossing the Chasm is a business phenomenon — a landmark book that defines and models a pattern of market development. Since the first edition was published in 1991 thousands of leading high-tech brands have come to rely on Geoff Moore's insights into each stage of the Technology Adoption Life Cycle.

None of the proven success principles has changed. Companies are gambling fortunes and countless hours of technical talent on marketing technology products, and too many fail when they don't need to. The new item — whether a new generation of computer, a digital video disk or a cellular phone - is greeted rapturously by a few adventurous consumers only to fizzle out in the wider marketplace. The huge success of a handful of high-tech products doesn't even begin to balance out the failure of the rest. Now that more and more products are high-tech it is essential for marketing professionals to understand exactly why the current model for high-tech marketing just isn't working.

But if the principles of winning in high-tech markets remain unchanged the context has altered beyond recognition. Now, with years of invention to build on, new high-tech products are less likely to be clearly differentiated. The marketplace is absorbing the technology in gulps, for a while letting one company come to the fore, but substituting another should the first company stumble. Even more seismic though is the complete shift of communications infrastructure to the Internet. This new edition of Crossing the Chasm brings marketers right up to date with these dramatic developments.

• Part I: Discovering the Chasm
• Introduction: If Bill Gates Can Be a Billionaire
1. High-Tech Marketing Illusion
2. High-Tech Marketing Enlightenment
• Part II: Crossing the Chasm
  
3. The D-Day Analogy
4. Target the Point of Attack
5. Assemble the Invasion Force
6. Define the Battle
7. Launch the Invasion
• Conclusion: Leaving the Chasm Behind

A classical book that needs to be read for what it is. This is the updated second edition, but I expect it will be old very soon, as well. Interesting tó see where a lot of people get their marketing ideas from, especially in the IT industry (which is what this book really is concerned about).

I have to admire Moore, as his claim to fame is having named a few segments of the Bell Curve and written a book on how to get from one to the other…