Niche

There's a new rule in business: forget about the general audience and instead stake out an identifiable niche.

Woolworths suffered from a lack of identity and found that low quality and low price wasn't enough. General Motors crashed as motorists failed to distinguish between cars in its range. Yet HBO, Moleskine and specialist media like The Economist have all succeeded by building their authority over narrow areas of expertise and cultivating passionate audiences around them — and their profits have mushroomed as a result.

This brilliant book is about a world in which anyone who tries to be all things to all people ends up doing nothing for anyone. It offers fascinating insights into how we behave when faced with a bewildering range of choice, why it's easier than ever before to find what we're looking for, and what happens when we all want to be different. From the author of Cyburbia comes a superb examination of how innovation and profitability are moving from the middle of the market to a series of tightly defined but globally scattered niches bound together by the reach of the net.

1. Out of the Whale
2. Target Practice
3. The Mole
4. The Hawk
5. The New Nesting Place
6. Birds of a Feather
7. Pigeon-holed
8. Cult-ivate

Pretty meaningless book. No interesting case studies, no real advice, no theoretical underpinnings and the practical ones seems to be mostly the authors wild dreams.

You can miss this one and feel no loss…