The loudest message from The Big Fed Fez is that the site should be about the customer not the developer, marketer or business manager. There is some good commentary on customer segmentation and how to address customer segmentation. Another useful idea is trying different approaches and measuring the results of each. There are plenty of products that make this approach feasible and the results make the effort worth while. One of the most important activities is measuring is establishing a baseline.
The Big Red Fez is a quick read, but has many useful ideas and concepts. If you are an engineer, marketer or business owner manager this book provides useful insights into building a great customer experience.
There are already lots of books out there about HTML and basic web design, and this book won't teach you how to write code or adjust the RGB settings of your graphic files. The Big Red Fez is the book to read after you have learned the technical nuts-and-bolts (or hired them out to someone else) and you are ready to focus on making your site more profitable.
The book's methodology is to examine various real ecommerce sites, and point out their flaws and strong points. While this may sound simple, Godin's insights are extremely perceptive. Everyone who has ever planned or built a commercial website will recognize at least one of their own mistakes in the Big Red Fez.
Most of all, I like the practical tone of this book. It was written in the aftermath of the Internet bubble. Most of us inevitably absorbed some of the overblown pretenses of the Internet boom years (ex: a focus on flashy multimedia content). The Big Red Fez is therefore a good debriefing for the entrepreneurs and marketing execs who are ready to move forward into the "New" New Economy.
While this book is in no means comprehensive, it is a small invenstment into the future of your web site and business. At $10 and only a half hour read you only need 1 good example to make the book worthwhile!