Reading Raph Koster's thoughts on marketing in games vs the web, I can't help but be slightly confused. I don't disagree at all with the basic statement - that marketing (on the web the same as anywhere) is primarily about understanding what the customer wants, and that product designers should also be all about that. Nor could I ever disagree that metrics wouldn't play a huge part in providing that understanding - after all, that's what I've been preaching myself for as long as I remember (though only a couple of years in terms of customers).

I guess what I'm confused about is: who could have ever thought it could be different? Has anyone ever met a product designer or a marketing specialist who didn't at least claim to understand who the customers are and what they want? Now, you can of course say some of them don't know what they're talking about, but I could say the same thing about many members of other professions as well. Of course their job is to understand the customer's desires and come up with the best ways to address those in a way that generates healthy business.

And that's also where the professions diverge: yes, there's plenty of overlap as well, especially on the web where every action is nearly instantly measurable, and many product changes are trivially implemented. Even so, talking to both marketing and product design people (and not being an expert in either myself), I see a whole lot of difference in the approach and tools for the activities as well. You could try to do both at once, but apart from very small projects or businesses, I can't see how you could possibly spend enough time on both subjects to really produce the best results.

No, they're not the same. Not on the web either.