The Cluetrain Manifesto burst onto the scene in March 1999, with ninety-five theses nailed up on the Web. Within days, www.cluetrain.com had ignited a vibrant global conversation challenging sacred corporate assumptions about the very nature of business in a digital world. The Wall Street Journal called it “absolutely brilliant.” Soon, executives from Fortune 500 companies everywhere were lining up to sign-on to the Manifesto. This is the book that delivers on the buzz. The Cluetrain Manifesto is a wake-up call that says business as usual is gone forever. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter—and getting smarter faster than most companies. Today’s markets are conversations. Their members communicate in language that is natural, open, honest, direct, funny, and often shocking. Companies that aren’t listening to these exchanges are missing a dire warning. Companies that aren’t engaging in them are missing an unprecedented opportunity. The Cluetrain Manifesto is the culmination of this very real phenomenon. It shares powerful, firsthand experiences describing how Internet business differs radically from the corporate status quo. The fact is that employees are getting hyperlinked even as markets are. Companies need to listen carefully to both. Forget business as usual, The Cluetrain Manifesto marks the dawn of something bigger: Markets are becoming better informed, smarter, and more demanding of qualities missing from most business organizations These networked markets are conversations in which customers are intelligent human beings, not faceless demographic sectors Today, the organizational chart is hyperlinked, not hierarchical. Respect for hands-on knowledge wins over respect for abstract authority Corporations must transform themselves into organizations that establish a genuine culture with a perspective, a personality, and a point of view Linking conversations inside the company to conversations in the marketplace will create enormous new value for companies that are clued-in.

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180 pages too long....
I just finished reading this book, having checked it out from the library. I am glad I didn't buy it. I voraciously read business books, but this one was a chore, at best. The first 105 pages could be easily condensed down into 1 page at most, and perhaps even a single paragraph or a few bullet points that explain the basic premise: * The Internet will bypass any attempts at controlling your corporate message, so you might as well plan to talk to customers and allow them to talk with you. * "The Market" is "Conversations", so you need to participate in the "conversation". * Speak to customers in a "natural" voice, not corporate-speak. That was the first half of the book, in a nutshell. The remainder basically reinforced this, with continued exhortations on how one must "join the conversation", speak in a "natural voice" because that's what "markets" demand. I guess if you were the CEO or other top executive of a large firm, this book might be applicable. However, I am not. I am a sole proprietor who runs an internet retail operation. Perhaps I got so little out of it because I've already done what they're telling/advising folks to do, so much of it seems like a series of "well, duh!" internal comments. The other thing I don't like about the book is that examples are very few, IMO. Where are the success stories, apart from a notable example of Saturn or United Airlines (I think that's the airline involved...could be wrong). Overall, I'd say if you don't spend / haven't spent a lot of time on the Internet "conversing" (Internet forums, chat rooms, Usenet, etc.), then perhaps this book would be helpful. But I would advise to borrow it from your local library rather than buy it.