Rating: 
Summary: Read this book!
Review: If your business needs a jolt, read this book. Sometimes a bit crass, but always making a point, the Cluetrain will become a classic among leaders of organizations who need to look out for their well being. The questions raised by the book have equal implications for the old value company as well as the dot coms. Doing business the way we have for the last 100 years will finally be undone. The old emperor truely has no clothes!
Rating: 
Summary: I'm Sorry...
Review: This book was incredibly naive and juvenile in it's tone and I just couldn't help but wonder if these guys have some kind of victim complex. They make a few interesting points, but the way the message is delivered (and I agree with most of the other negative review on this site in that the real messages could have been done in 20 pages) just makes you not want to listen. There is a real us/them tone to the whole thing... Reminds me of when I used to be a Teamster (no offense to my Union brethren...)
Rating: 
Summary: Hyperbolic, but with truth at its heart.
Review: I discovered the Cluetrain Manifesto through Wired magazine, visited the Cluetrain website, then bought the book. For maximum value, I recommend either visiting the site or reading the book, but not both -- they reinforce each other more through repetition than by complementing each other. The book contains some interesting anecdotes that can't be found on the site, and of course can be read on a plane or bus. There are some additional insights in the book, and things are covered in a little more depth. The fundamental message is a good one: consumers will find each other and interact more than ever (mostly thanks to the Internet/Web). As they do this, these conversations will seem more "real," "honest" and "authentic," and that will erode carefully prepared marketing messages, branding, positioning, etc. (which will be viewed for what they are -- BS) For companies to be successful, say the authors, companies have got to come to terms with this, and realize that well-connected consumers are immune to rhetoric, and in fact may rail against it. The hyperbolic book and manifesto may be overwrought, but there's truth at their heart, and they are entertaining reading. ("Magnificently overstated and yet entirely correct" it says on the jacket)
Rating:
Summary: Required reading for "marketers"
Review: which is to say, all business people. I hadn't known about the online Manifesto before reading this book, and I'm glad about that. Reading it with little context increased the impact that the authors ideas made on me. The book is strident, overwrought and hyperbolic. intentionally so, I hope. but i think the authors' style is an important part of the message. it works to make their points. "Marketing" will/should die. A businesses *constituencies* are aching to participate in an honest, direct conversation with their "company". While this may be intuitive to some, the principles of Cluetrain Manifesto are clearly not widespread in the market today, judging by all the Marketing, PR, and Communications we experience.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting but repetitive
Review: This book definitely opens up one's eyes to the way the internet is changing business and communication. It puts into words what many of us have understood, but up until now have been unable to articulate. The problem I have with this book is the tone that assumes that no one else is smart enough to have figured this out and their continual references to "scared middle-aged white men" is boderline militant feminism and racism. One last comment is the fact that they act like they have all the answers and the way current business is run is all wrong. Well companies have been doing pretty good long before this book came out, so they are doing something right. Lastly the way they promote openess to information amongst people and companies borders on communism. "Let information be free" they cry. Well why don't the authors donate the money they make from the book to the readers... Just a thought.
Rating: 
Summary: A double edged sword
Review: Does the internet and technology empower us personally as well as corporately? Yes it does. Does this book detail a new era in communication and convenience, as well as a new business model? Yes it does. This book puts a positve spin on our current technology, but ignores the other side of the sword. Before we all begin to jump up and down with overzealous enthusiasm, we should explore the dark side of where our future technology will take us.
Rating:
Summary: Medicine
Review: Like medicine, this book is good for you, despite tasting bad when going down. Essentially, it's a long, repetitive rant about business, commerce and formalness, making three key points (markets are conversations; genuine word-of-mouth is more effective than advertising; business communication is out-of-touch) over and over again. And again and again. For 200 pages. On and on and on. Bits of it make you want to punch the air and shout 'YES!', and other bits of it make you want to skip a few pages - and the anecdotal style is so short of examples you get the impression that the authors sat down in a room with some coffee and wrote it in a single session, straight from memory. As such, it's not much fun to read (you'll get bored quickly, and http://www.cluetrain.com/clues.html contains most of the best content), although that doesn't mean that it's 'bad' - think of it as a forceful guide to a new way of thinking and it works perfectly. entertainment. Essentially, it's a long, repetitive rant about business, commerce and formalness,
Rating:
Summary: Diatribe Equals Conversation?
Review: The commercialization of the internet for the masses largely done by the very businesses that the authors heckle and flame is really no more than a taking away of the internet from the academics and other elites who controlled it through about the mid-90s. This book is largely a diatribe against business, mass markets and mass media. Their writing is anecdotal, repetitive and frankly boring. The underlying theme and theses; however, is right on the mark. The internet will tend to flow power back in the hands of workers and consumers and take it away from the corporate, academic and government elites. Interestingly, it was the corporate elites taking it away from the academic and government elites that created this possibility. If you can get beyond the heckling and flaming style and tone their basic message is interesting. I wish they had focused more on how consumers and workers will use this new-found power and how it will transform and shape our society rather than a cynical tongue-lashing of corporate elites.
Rating:
Summary: Insightful but too soapbox-ish for me
Review: The book came out swinging! Pow! Strong statements and serious accusations about how "the man" wants to keep us all dumb. Ok, you've got my attention. But it never really stopped. I understand that the Internet is all about discussions... about disempowered folks trying to break free from corporate oppression. Now what? Maybe I would have found out if I finished the book. But I couldn't... it just became too difficult to hear so much ranting... almost yelling! It's bulletinboard roots style is showing. However, I would recommend this book to quite a few ex-managers I can think of.
Rating:
Summary: Ad nauseaum
Review: I get the point. I got the point at about the 35th entry in the 95 points. After that, reading this book was like listening to a Dennis Leary monologue. If my college English professor were reading this, he'd give it an F for 'Fluff'.
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