Title: The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual
Copyright © 1999, 2001 Levine, Locke, Searls & Weinberger.
With the development of technologies, the emergence of Internet is enacting powerful new forms of social organization and promoting knowledge exchange. As a result, markets are getting smarter, and more organized. Participation in a networked market changes people fundamentally and conversation between organization and the individual becomes more important than ever because the interaction between people is more frequent. The book pointed out the menace and opportunities companies will face in the new business era. They encouraged the idea that companies should come down from their Ivory Towers and talk to the people with whom they hope to establish relationships. In fact, they believed if a company does not belong to a community of discourse it will die.
Moreover, the authors not only pointed out the new business model that all companies should pay attention, but they also wrote ninety five practical theses for the companies to follow. In all theses, I especially like the seventh thesis. “Hyperlinks subvert hierarchy.” It is true. When people have questions, they barely ask managers and professors for helps, but they become to seek other opinion of the experienced people and rely heavily on these peoples’ service. For example, if I want to buy a new laptop, I would ask around first on Web pages, on newsgroups or via e-mail. I believe conversations on the Internet are most often about value and word of mouth is a very important reason I would buy this kind of laptop or not. Customers in the new era believe strangers’ opinion rather than believe the brochures, slogan and advertising of companies because we trust experienced people even they are strangers better than sellers. Before the emergence of Internet, we cannot help but trusting sellers and companies because we cannot find other people easily to have conversation with.
The most important idea this book pointed out is that customers pay more attention to conversation between themselves and companies than ever before. Therefore, companies need to talk to the people with whom they hope to create relationships. Otherwise, companies that do not belong to a community of discourse will fade out. To make a comprehensive survey of successful websites, I found that the key to succeed and make money is to listen the voice of networks. For example, in Taiwan, the most popular social networking website is “Wretch” which was built by four college students eight years ago. At the beginning, they do not have any capital and resource, but they saw the opportunities of supply because their friends always complained to them that there was no easy to use and free social networking website to let people share their picture and blog their lives. Therefore, these four students researched all the opinions of users on the Internet and then created a website that tries to satisfy all users’ needs. The website boomed very fast and has become the top social networking in Taiwan because they listened and consulted the voice of users to design the website. In 2006, Taiwan yahoo has acquired the website for US$ twenty two million. In regular business without the Internet involvement, there is no way that four young people can earn US$ twenty two million in eight years. In the new era of the technology, it is very common to see this same case：including Microsoft has acquired the Facebook and Google has acquired Youtube. They all make money in a short amount of time. In summary, if you can listen carefully the conversation of customers, you can take a good chance to make money. That is exactly the power of conversation on the Internet.
In this book, the most interesting point is that “people don’t know what the Web is for but people have adopted it faster than any technology since fire.” It is true. People take the Internet for granted at the first beginning until now. I still remember when I was an elementary school student, I almost did not use the Internet to handle hardly anything and I barely listen the word “the Internet”. Suddenly, the Internet boomed in few years and everyone uses it to solve many problems. Does the Internet have magic to let people accept it and make people addictive to it without any reason? I think the reason is the emergence of the Internet completely satisfies human needs. We all know that human needs are the root and source of the development of technologies and will be a key driver in where the Internet goes and how it is used in the future. One example of a human need is contact with other people because we do not want to feel lonely. From the emergence of the telegraph to the Internet, they all satisfy human needs. It makes the distance disappear because we are able to contact anyone around the world at anytime without any limitation. Magically, the Internet not only satisfies the positive aspect of human needs, but also it brings in the negative aspect including the ability to leave comments anonymously and it is easy to see a lot of dirty information. Because the Internet is a device which was designed for human needs, we can accept it faster than any technology since fire. In conclusion, where there is a demand, there is a supply.
Overall, I really enjoyed reading this famous and useful book. However, I disagree with it on some points. First of all, I want to challenge the authentication of the sixth thesis in the ninety five theses. The idea that “the Internet is enabling conversations among human beings that were simply not possible in the era of mass media such as newspaper and TV.” I personally think this thesis exaggerates advantages of the Internet and underestimates the power of mass media. For mass media, they still have conversation among human beings. Using TV programs as an example, there are many TV programs that provide audiences opportunities to call-in to express their opinion and to send message to vote which stars is the best. This model of communication also qualifies as conversation. Secondly, I also disagree with the definition of community in Chapter three. The author said that the definition of community is a group of people who care about each other more than they have to. I don’t think that the groups of the online community really care about each other. Maybe some parts of groups gather together because they care about each other, but the definition does not fit all groups of the online community. Most reasons people will go together to join the same community because they have the same habits, friends and thoughts not because they want to care about each other.
I have to say this book, while published in 1999, predicted precisely the trend of communication. It pointed out many important roles and brought up 95 practical theses that all companies which want to join the market of communication should follow. I really enjoyed reading this book and I believe their useful points keep inspire many managers and CEOs. The best way to use the last thesis in the book is as a conclusion. “We are waking up and linking to each other. We are watching. But we are not waiting.” Therefore, companies have to create relationship with their employee and customers as soon as possible and face their voice. Stop playing tick with them because they have their own conversation on the Internet right now. .
