Sunday June 05, 2005

The Cluetrain Manifesto

The Cluetrain Manifesto, Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls, David Weinberger, ISBN 0-7382-0431-5, ~190 pages.

I'd poked around the website long ago when this was fresh. But I never read the book (I don't find reading online to be all that comfortable¹). The basic idea of bringing humans in closer contact so that (market) conversation can be more real is interesting to me but doesn't seem all that ground breaking. Personally I think the aggressive "street" (not as in wall) style of writing doesn't enhance the message. A little bit of grittiness helps contrast the writing to that of the suit world. But the rest of it manages to obscure the real message of the book. That is really a contradiction for a book which focuses on human communication.

¹I say that, but recently I've become addicted to Safari. The difference is that I use Safari for reference works and introductions that I am unlikely to read again. While I now know that The Cluetrain Manifesto fits into the second bucket it wasn't obviously so until I was partially through the book. ( Jun 05 2005, 10:53:10 PM PDT ) Permalink Comments [0]