Rating: 
Summary: Can I get my money back?
Review: This repetative, poorly written book was a waste of money, offering little in the way of useful insights. In the book, the authors constantly slam Corporate America for overpromisinng and undelievering -- which is exactly what this book does. The dust jacket promises much, but this book never delivers anything valuable.
Rating: 
Summary: Quite thought provoking
Review: While this book was a little too earnest and revolutionary for my taste, I no longer rate books on their overall style, delivery, etc... If I get one or two ideas that turn on a lightbulb in my head, that's good enough for me. And this book more than did that. This book was like music for the soul. I had long ago realized I was burned out on empty, disingenuine sounding marketing rhetoric and that the idea of conducting business without decency and ethics just did not work for me. So this book was like balm for the soul in that it a) reassured me I was far from alone in the deaf ear I had developed toward 'marketsy speak" b) convinced me that a new age of business is dawning - one that will promote honesty in how an average company conducts its affairs internally and externally and one that will restore dignity to the average worker. The book left me feeling very optimistic.
Rating: 
Summary: Useful Examples of How to Build Trust Consciously
Review: I had trouble rating this book. While I agree with a large percentage of what the book has to say, I also felt that the authors did not address the full extent of the issues they are raising. In addition, the book is organized like a cross between a Web site bulletin board and a series of monologues with Internet examples. As a result, the book has little internal structure, is much more repetitive than necessary, and creates a lot of energy without successfully channeling that energy.Here's my rating scheme. 5 stars for useful thoughts. 3 stars for being incomplete in discussion. 1 star for writing style and organization. Nevertheless, I do recommend you read the book. It strikes hard and relatively effectively at the kind of unemotional, dissociated, everyone-look- out-for-number-one thinking that amoral executives can be guilty of. Unfortunately, the book also slams the methods along with the lack of trustworthy purposes. For example, anything aimed at the subconscious mind gets condemned in this book. Unfortunately, one can communicate better by addressing both the conscious and the subconscious mind at the same time (that is what branding is all about). The Cluetrain authors seem to think that all subconscious communications cannot be trusted. I agree that they have to be watched carefully, or influence can be smuggled into our lives that doesn't belong there. The best part of the book is its many ways of communicating how trust can be developed. The Internet isn't really going to develop properly until levels of trust among individuals and companies can be expanded, based on proper skepticism about the possible hidden agendas. Extended conversation is certainly a great help in this regard. Reputation is another way. Certification by some external process is yet another way. I felt that the authors lacked openness to other ways that trust can be built. For example, I suspect that when most of us are using video on the Internet, our ability to see the other person will give us many more clues about how much we can trust what is going on. The authors make a great case for less constrained communication. Obviously, with more sources and information, understanding will develop faster. Also, we will be more interested in communicating with people than with very polished messages. The work on complexity science and chaos theory could have been successfully invoked here but were not. The biggest missing element of this book is what we as individuals (both as consumers and employees) should be doing differently to create this environment of increased trust through communication. That would have made more sense than aiming the writing and the original manifesto at those who are communications challenged. If you like the ideas in this book, I recommend that you consider other books that will give you guidance on how to implement the concepts behind the manifesto. The Soul at Work is very good on the subject of trust building. Simplicity is a fine source of ideas for how to get rid of obstacles between people. In the meantime, do read and enjoy this book in the spirit of the untamed Internet.
Rating:
Summary: Ugh
Review: Ignore what you've heard. I suspect that at the dawn of the next century, when they discuss the follies and hubris that surrounded the Net Set just before the stock crash of early April, The Cluetrain Manifesto may merit its own footnote as the most concise example of what went wrong. One should naturally be suspicious of the marketing efforts for a book on marketing. Obviously, right? But nine out of ten people that I asked about Cluetrain recommended it without ever having read a page. When I actually brought it home, what I found was, in equal measure, recycled thinking, poorly supported thinking, and thinking that simply hadn't come with the appropriate scrutiny. If the authors had not been so (justly, I might add) famous, it's doubtful that this mess would have seen print, let alone mention in the NYT Review of Books. The one or two genuinely interesting ideas -- cited in every single review, so I won't bother mentioning them here -- are strictly inapplicable to real life. I'm hard pressed to think of a reason to buy Cluetrain, particularly when there are so many other, more compelling works on the market. Unless, of course, you want a keepsake from the turn-of-the-century follies.
Rating:
Summary: Some interesting thought but repetitive content
Review: There are some interesting thought in this book, but the content is repetitive among the four authors. I think it would be more appropriate to have the content condensed and published in a magazine. But I do enjoy the blunt writing style and there are some interesting thought about the role of marketing in the past and future of the business world.
Rating:
Summary: An intellgient read for intelligent human beings
Review: You've undoubtedly been to the website and seen and read the manifesto. The book is an expansion of the 95 or so 'commandments' targeted towards corporate America and how they perceive their customers (and the public as whole). I wasn't disappointed by the book, however, I expected the book to further expand on the ideas that are posted on their website. However, what you will get is a collection of anecdotes and examples that support, rather than extend, the principles outlined in the ClueTrain Manifesto. Regardless, this book is a valuable tool, make that a bible, that every corporate slave should read and begin to incorporate into his or her views towards the people he or she is dealing with on a daily basis. Also, this is a necessary read for those in the marketing or advertising fields as it will remind them of what exactly they're here to do: to communicate more effectively. Better yet, to be able to carry a conversation for longer than five minutes without a cosmopolitan in one hand. Read the book and be in touch with how business should be doing business.
Rating: 
Summary: Resistance is futile !
Review: I loved the writing style of this book...but more important, I LOVED the message. Blowhards beware ! The cluetrain is pulling into planet earth, so either re-learn to acutally have something substantial to say...or remain silent. The faux communication that this book attacks is EXACTLY what I've always found really frustrating about working for one of the largest technology companies to yet exist, the false impression that management can control communication positively with the market. This book is impossibley overstated while being right on the mark. If you think you understand what the internet is...I think this book will add some distinctions to your view. Join us..resistance is futile !
Rating:
Summary: Turning Marketing on its Head
Review: Read this book, then read this book again. If you think the world we live in is still about big companies spoon feeding us what we want...WAKE UP! The web has changed everything and these four authors offer clear insights about how to cope. Throughout the Cluetrain, you will read things that somewhere deep inside you already knew to be ture, but corporate America has fought hard to supress. Buy this book and help put the future of your company and career back on track.
Rating:
Summary: Ranting, repetitive, naive
Review: The only thing worse in this book than the thinking is the writing. This is 'Wired' at its earliest, headiest and most childish. In fact it was Kevin Kelly, the editor of 'Wired' whose writings in the early nineties were naive, perhaps, but fresh and challenging. But now that's just old hat. The world has moved on. At precisely the point where the 'new economy' has to get real and start thinking about serious issues of business models, legal framework, and value creation, these authors treat us to an incoherent and intellectually lazy diatribe about how everything's different. And Kelly at least was eloquent: this book is repetitious, loose and amateur.
Rating:
Summary: Pardon me while I get a new AOL account.
Review: For anyone who was actually around when IRC was just starting to take off c.1993, this book from its onset takes on a tone that reeks more of an AOLer than someone who even knows what it's like to dialup to a unix box. There were some interesting conclusions about the nature of relationships in B2C, but nothing deep or inspiring. The writing style is more like a rant than an actual intellectual discussion. Sentences and ideas are strung together like something out of Walden Pond. Skip the book and get a subscription to Fast Company or something.
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