Guy Kawasaki
Remember when Tom Cruise was fun and not so insane? That's Guy Kawasaki, the venture capitalist who blogs about getting people excited about a product and achieving astounding growth. Unlike some other self-marketers, he's got real chops; Guy is known as the father of corporate evangelism thanks to his work marketing the Macintosh to developers. He's also self-effacing and positive.

Guy's bio is so well-written that he manages to pump himself up while still seeming humble. It's like listening to an Obama speech. Of course, it could all be carefully manufactured, but I'd like to think not. I found the following sentence most telling — a line that's so over-the-top it has to be sincere: "I wonder how I came to deserve such a good life."

Seth Godin
Photo: J. Parks
The man's a branding machine. His logo is his own bald head. Seth Godin has written eleven marketing books, including Purple Cow, his term for that special something that makes a brand memorable. (Critics would say the term he's looking for is "gimmick.") As blogger Eran Globen noted, Seth is not only great at selling himself; he excels at selling the audience to themselves. Eran says:

Before presenting his ideas, Seth buys his audience's agreement: "The two giant marketing wins I want to outline; you know what they are but I wanna describe them." This simple statement - you already know what I'm about to tell you, it's not news to you, and so, of course, it's true.

Seth's bio feels much more like marketer-speak than Guy's, but it's still effective. Seth piles on his credentials. "Unleashing the Ideavirus is the most popular ebook ever written." "Purple Cow was a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller." "He was recently chosen as one of 21 Speakers for the Next Century by Successful Meetings." It's not warm and fuzzy, but it's solid self-marketing.

Jason Calacanis
Photo: Dave McClure
I compared this blog mogul (who sold the Weblogs, Inc. network to AOL for $25 mil) to Ari Gold, but I was too late — Jason already compared himself to the fierce fictional Hollywood agent and to his counterpart. Here's his pitch to Amanda Congdon after the vlogger left the show Rocketboom.

You're a star baby... it's time to be treated like one. Ask the other stars who work with me how I treat my talent and I think they'll all tell you that I fight and fight for my people like a rabid dog. (sort of like the Ari/E combo on Entourage, if you will).

Yes, he sounds ridiculous. Yes, he's so easy to parody. Quite wittily, too. And yes, he's so crazy and laughable, and yet so successful, that he's impossible to hate. (One of Jason's many "frenemies" is a former competitor: Valleywag's publisher and current editor, Nick Denton.) He's unabashed about everything; his life is a spectacle. And he knows how to get an idea out and drum up reactions. Now he's even posted rules for how to get a reaction from him — the man is training his fans to act like him. Guess it could be worse. We could be hearing from one of these:

The two failed self-culters
Two other bloggers have tried to market themselves: Robert Scoble and Steve Rubel. The former is...well...former. He used to be an evangelist for Microsoft. He used to be a top blogger. And he used to be relevant. Now he's just a dude who interviews Silicon Valley businesspeople for the PodTech video network. Sadly, he still feels entitled to attention, so he throws a fit when he feels ignored. The result: Robert Scoble is a pretty awful brand.

The brand of Steve is not too hot either. The PR exec wants to come across as a straight shooter — but when he recently insulted PC Magazine, he got smacked by his bosses at Edelman (whose clients would probably like to continue appearing in the magazine) and promptly, embarrassingly apologized. Rubel's attempts at branding — like his embarrassing Superman photo — just make him look like a goofball. Rubel is supposedly Edelman's foremost blog expert, so it's also embarrassing that they didn't consult him for the Wal-Marting Across America blog. The blog ends with an apologetic explanation that, oh yeah, Wal-Mart sponsored the whole thing.

Honorable Mentions
Other than Seth, Guy, and Jason, successful self-branders include Jeff Jarvis, the creator of Entertainment Weekly with some old-media cred behind his new-media theories; Hugh MacLeod, the marketer who feels more like a commissioned artist; and Merlin Mann, the tech/productivity writer also known as That Phone Guy.

Nick Douglas writes for Valleywag, Prezzish, and Look Shiny. If he was better at self-branding, you'd already know what those are, right?

While we're a little weary of the book's cover, which out-deranges Chucky, the maniacal doll with a penchant for serial killing, Godin's blog offers up some novel plebe analogies relating Starbucks to blogging and why he's just so fond of the word "awkward." (Anyone care to guess?)

All things considered, after reading the "Free Stuff, Self-Promotion, and Repetition" post where Godin nearly sounds sincere while apologizing for having to sell himself for the umpteenth time, we were thinking this regurgitated material (the book is made entirely of old blog posts) might have been made more palatable with a Starbucks run. (Wait...damn that sneaky blog marketing stuff!)

The TypePad-Godin Lovefest climaxes on August 22 with a tryst brought to you via Skype. After that, Godin will be back to his full-time job — namely, soliciting more compliments to add to his About page.

— Beth Gottfried

Chat with Seth Godin, author of Small is the New Big [TypePad]

The word-of-mouth agency is offering its "agents" — volunteers who work for points and prizes — free electronic excerpts from the book. Read that carefully: BzzAgent is giving away something people already got for free. That's the definition of brilliant marketing.

To be fair, BzzAgents might win signed copies of Seth's book. Penguin hopes that these agents will recommend the book to friends.

So go ahead, sign up as a BzzAgent and you too can be Seth Godin's imaginary friend.

Small is the new big [Penguin Books on BzzAgent]

• A guide to Unix becomes the new summer beach read for a topless sunbather in Greece. [NSFW: Flickr]
• A journalist overheard explaining how to pad an article: "But one thing is clear: I have three more paragraphs to fill." "It remains to be seen whether I can meet wordcount."
• Yahoo's photo sharing site Flickr, it turns out, made a simple way to import pics from other services. But co-founder Stewart Butterfield says that management decided to can it 'cause it was too "lame, and mean, and competitive in a bad way." Good thing you got bought, wimp. [Flickr forums]
• Web 2.0 cynic Eran Globen thrills at marketer Seth Godin's ability to sell Google themselves. "You guys have built something for the ages," Seth told Googlers in New York — in 2006 — about decisions made by different people in 1999. All marketers are liars, indeed. [Hellonline]
• Dear Macromedia founder Marc Canter: If you promise not to write free verse and call it a limerick, I'll promise not to make a Flash animation and call it an interface. [Marc's Voice]

Forget the meaningful message about the revolution against the TV-Industrial Complex; watch this thing for Seth's slides. His Powerpoint Fu is better than Larry Lessig's, man. And, by the way, he sold his dot-com to Yahoo in '98.

UPDATE: Having some refresh problems right now that interrupt the player. You can watch the video uninterrupted on this page.

Highlights:
Google has the juice...that Minute Maid...is missing. No, seriously, that's all that metaphor's riding on. Maybe Seth has a minimum slide limit.
"People want to touch the hem of your coat" when you say you work at Google. Nice casual Jesus comparison.
At some point, you wonder why those two projection screens are so close together. Maybe Larry and Sergey are in the back with stereogram glasses.
Seth Godin hates cats. Just a good thing to know, in case, I don't know, if you try to sit one on his head or something.
So about a third of the way in, Seth has compared Google to Fancy Feast catfood and X-ray glasses. This is beyond commentary; let's just watch the rest quietly.
Except for that "Flipping the Funnel" thing. Kinda weak, eh? But stick around for the purple cow.

"All Marketers are Liars" - Seth Godin speaks at Google [Google Video]