The Cluetrain Manifesto: 10th Anniversary Edition [Hardcover]

Rick Levine (Author), Christopher Locke (Author), Doc Searls (Author), David Weinberger (Author), McKee Jake (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 30, 2009 | ISBN-10: 0465018653 | ISBN-13: 978-0465018659 | Edition: Anniversary Edition

The Cluetrain Manifesto began as a Web site (cluetrain.com) in 1999 when the authors, who have worked variously at IBM, Sun Microsystems, the Linux Journal, and NPR, posted 95 theses about the new reality of the networked marketplace. Ten years after its original publication, their message remains more relevant than ever. For example, thesis no. 2: “Markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors”; thesis no. 20: “Companies need to realize their markets are often laughing. At them.” The book enlarges on these themes through dozens of stories and observations about business in America and how the Internet will continue to change it all.

With a new introduction and chapters by the authors, and commentary by Jake McKee, JP Rangaswami, and Dan Gillmor, this book is essential reading for anybody interested in the Internet and e-commerce, and is especially vital for businesses navigating the topography of the wired marketplace.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Fast Company
“You might not agree with everything these Web provocateurs say…but you will ignore their ideas at your own peril.”

Wall Street Journal
“The pretentious, strident and absolutely brilliant creation of four marketing gurus who have renounced marketing-as-usual.”

Multichannel Merchant
“A book written early enough to not even contain the word ‘blog,’ but more relevant now than ever.”

The Gazette (Montreal)
“The reason [this book] is still so attractive for businesspeople is that the four authors are, primarily, tech guys…so their thoughts are pure, focused and very different from business-oriented authors.”

Library Journal
“A weighty work that gets at the heart of the matter: the powerful impact the Internet has had and will continue to have.”

The Star (South Africa)
“Almost 10 years ago [this] seminal book…set out to examine the challenges to business that the internet posed…Well into the first decade of the brave new 21st century, it is clear that the changes these prophets spoke of are irreversible.”

Harvard Business Review
“While others work on turning the Internet into the perfect medium for reaching traditional business goals, these four Net-philes hope cyberspace will give commerce a ‘human voice’”

The Miami Herald
“One of the best, most eye-opening books I ever read about marketing…as potent and relevant now as it was when it came out.”

Review

Fast Company
“You might not agree with everything these Web provocateurs say…but you will ignore their ideas at your own peril.”

Wall Street Journal
“The pretentious, strident and absolutely brilliant creation of four marketing gurus who have renounced marketing-as-usual.”

Multichannel Merchant
“A book written early enough to not even contain the word ‘blog,’ but more relevant now than ever.”

The Gazette (Montreal)
“The reason [this book] is still so attractive for businesspeople is that the four authors are, primarily, tech guys…so their thoughts are pure, focused and very different from business-oriented authors.”

Library Journal
“A weighty work that gets at the heart of the matter: the powerful impact the Internet has had and will continue to have.”

The Star (South Africa)
“Almost 10 years ago [this] seminal book…set out to examine the challenges to business that the internet posed…Well into the first decade of the brave new 21st century, it is clear that the changes these prophets spoke of are irreversible.”

Harvard Business Review
“While others work on turning the Internet into the perfect medium for reaching traditional business goals, these four Net-philes hope cyberspace will give commerce a ‘human voice’”

The Miami Herald
“One of the best, most eye-opening books I ever read about marketing…as potent and relevant now as it was when it came out.”

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books; Anniversary Edition edition (June 30, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465018653
• ISBN-13: 978-0465018659
• Product Dimensions: 5.9 x 1.2 x 9.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #299,041 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #93 in Books > Computers & Technology > Internet & Web Culture > E-Commerce

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars `We are watching but we are not waiting.' August 13, 2009

By J. Cameron-Smith TOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

This book was originally published in 2000, when the potential of the Internet was becoming apparent to many traditional businesses and managers. At that time, many were seeing the Internet as replacing traditional markets (at least in some areas) and millions were starting to explore the knowledge potential. Smart search engines were starting to reshape the way in which many of us obtained instant information.

That was at the end of last century: is this book still relevant today?

Yes, and no. For many of us, world-wide connectivity is still new enough that we have not fully embraced the rules of engagement For others, unfamiliar with a different way of doing business, much of what is written in this book will seem obvious and self-evident. But is it?

Much of this book is about the conversations that occur continuously in the virtual world. The spontaneity of these conversations; their breadth and instantaneous coverage is now a given. Good news and bad is disseminated instantly. Product recommendations (good and bad) can be published by anyone with an Internet connection. Of course, not all aspects of these instant connections are good. The virtual world has its own demons.

I reread this book to remind myself of where we were a decade ago (or last century, if you prefer). I also wanted to check whether the potential of so many interconnected conversations was becoming reality. My answer (there are surely others) is yes. The conversations of connectedness are changing both the business we do and the way in which we do it.
Is it still worth reading, or rereading, this book? Yes. Perhaps the ideas could have been condensed for easier digestion, but there is something in the enthusiasm of the delivery that is also part of the message.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Are You Listening to Your Customers? August 4, 2009

By MR CM Grenier

Format:Hardcover

The Cluetrain Manifesto was originally hosted as a website by four employees who respectively worked at IBM, Sun Microsystems, the Linux Journal, and National Public Radio (NPR). These four IT and social experts wrote "The Cluetrain Manifesto: the end of business as usual" and created a paradigm shift in the way businesses view customers, ecommerce and the Internet. Authors Christopher Locke, Rick Levine, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger convincingly illustrate that the freedom of expression provided by the Internet will force businesses to listen and conversate with customers on a real level or face business extinction.

The book contains a list of 95 theses. Below are my favorite 10 from the list:
1. Markets are conversations
2. Markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors
7. Hyperlinks subvert hierarchy
12. There are no secrets. The networked market knows more than companies do about their own products. And whether the news is good or bad, they tell everyone
18. Companies that don't realize their markets are now networked person-to-person, getting smarter as a result and deeply joined in conversation are missing their best opportunity
24. Bombastic boasts - "We are positioned to become the preeminent provider of XYZ" - do not constitute a position
50. Today, the org. chart is hyperlinked, not hierarchical. Respect for hands-on knowledge wins over respect for abstract authority
60. Markets want to talk to companies
74. We are immune to advertising. Just forget it.
75. If you want us to talk to you, tell us something. Make it something interesting for a change.

The heiarchical mass marketing mediums like TV ads, billboards, and planted Press Releases are rendered virtually useless because customers don't want to be interrupted and they no longer believe in a one-way business conversation. Customers can compare prices across tens of thousands of stores with a click of a mouse. User feedback and peer reviews speak truth to corporation's product and service quality claims. And activist groups are creating tribes of followers to challenge the PR statements written by tenured media relations experts.

The book encourages companies to allow employees at all levels to speak openly with customers, answer questions and personally respond to issues and complaints on blogs, email and forums. The authors contend that the traditional command and control management of employees that restricts open employee interaction with customers will ruin a company in the post web 2.0 world.

The Cluetrain Manifesto is guide for doing business in a world with thousands of collaborative social platforms in existence today and will exponentially grow tomorrow.

I personally attended Church with Doc Searls, before Dr. Searls moved to teach at Harvard, and heard Doc share that 'markets are conversations'.

11 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars don't miss it.. June 16, 2009

By Nuzhet Algunes

Format:Hardcover

We are living the times of change. A critical 20 years of period, which we can call "a transition period from industrial age to information age".

Within that transition, people are changing. By all means. Their consumption patterns, their reactions to life, expectations from life.. Everything is changing.

And of course their attitude to business and brands is changing.

Most of the brands that are in our lives, keep trying to communicate with us with the industrial age formula of marketing, which is unfortunately obsolete right now.

World is changing, so must the brands. This is inevitable.

Cluetrain manifesto, when first published in 1999 was a revolutionary book. Looking at the pages after 10 years, I can see how visionary the book and its content was.

In 1999, it was talking about "networked societies and its impacts on brands, as well as simple and effective recipes for brands on "how to adopt themselves to the new networked language".

Today, after 10 years, we are talking about facebook, twitter, like they came out from nowhere, and we are trying to find ways "to get in to that networked conversations with our brands"..

Thats the reason why, I was very happy to see the 10th anniversary edition on amazon. Hope it will be read by more and more marketing professionals.

Cluetrain Manifesto is a must have for every marketeer, who wants to move himself/herself & his/her brand to the new world of marketing.