Seth Godin on the Hobby Economy

Seth Godin has lately climbed high on my Required Web Reading list. He's nominally a marketing guru of some sort, but I think he's at his best when he's riffing on general business themes. His main point is usually the same, and fairly predictable: you should strive to be great, and if you suck (and especially if you hate your customers) you are doomed. But he delivers it with enough style, and with enough truly thought-provoking examples, that I always go back for more. One of his newer riffs is on the hobby economy:

What the web is doing, though, is exposing lots of avenues for people to use to find satisfaction (but not necessarily cash).

As I sit here contemplating a notion to build a loss-making publishing empire, I catch the full resonance of this. Anyway, check it out. And bookmark Seth, you should stop in there at least once a week if you care at all about modern business and/or the Web. He's at http://sethgodin.typepad.com/. (Aside: Eurified American that I am, I can't decide how to pronounce his last name. Seth, if you're reading this, post an audio sample!)