The Cluetrain Manifesto:
The End of Business as Usual By and
190 pp. New York:
Perseus Books. $14 (pb).
"Our culture has greeted the Web with such enthusiasm, even before we've understood what exactly it's for, because we believe it's returning something we miss deeply: our voices.... As we emerge into the new understanding, it is being revealed that this cultural change is in fact spiritual."
The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual was one of the first books to be written as a sequel to a Web site (www.cluetrain.com). Launched in March 1999, the Cluetrain Web site is a manifesto of 95 theses about markets as conversations—"people talking together, in their own voices, about what they care about." Authors Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger encouraged readers to sign the manifesto and send it on to others. In no time, they were approached about writing a book. The Cluetrain Manifesto is an expansion of the 95 theses, and was one of the bestselling business books of 2000.
