Why is Seth Godin's stream of consciousness posted here so frequently? What he writes is not coherent, not noteworthy in any way and is below the level of an average comment on HN.
"I'll let you in on a little secret. I didn't really write this book. I paid a ghostwriter to do it while I took a vacation to Tahiti. Then my publisher slapped my name on the front so it would sell more copies.
"...Just kidding. But you reacted differently to this book, didn't you, knowing that I didn't write it. You thought you were getting one of Seth Godin's books, but instead, you got one by an anonymous ghostwriter. It changes the story you tell yourself about why you bought the book, and that changes how you think about your purchase.
"That's the power of marketing."
Anyone remember Alanis Morrisette's song Ironic? It wasn't ironic at all - everything she sang about was just bad luck. But that was the meta-irony: she'd written a song called Ironic that wasn't irony at all.
I think a lot of Seth Godin's writing is the same way. The "product" is crap. But it's exceptionally well-marketed crap, so people spread it around anyway. The message is in the medium, not the message itself. Look at it as meta-writing.
I see that in a lot of his writing. This article was a barely coherent stream-of-consciousness. And yet here it is on the front page of Hacker News. You commented on it. I commented on it. I may've ascribed meaning to it that wasn't even there in the first place. But that's the point. He got people talking.
Same goes for his FastCompany article that's currently #1 on Hacker News. He took a risk, just as he advised people to do. He spoke on topics that he's not competent in, with a perspective that's just different enough from mainstream views to get people talking. And it worked - his article is #1 here. People talk about it. It got published in a major magazine.
Look at what Seth does, not what he says. What he says is almost always pure drivel. But it's pure drivel that works.
I think you shouldn't excuse drivel just because it works. What happened to doing things well for the sake of doing them well? Just because Seth is good at what he does, just because Scoble and Arrington are good at arousing attention, doesn't mean we should look to them for inspiration.
The only point of Seth's post is to remind you of the principles from his books. It's not meant to say anything new, and it's not supposed to mean anything to you if you haven't read his books.