The clue train stopped there four times a day
for ten years and they never took delivery.
-Veteran of a firm now free-falling from the Fortune 500

The Cluetrain Manifesto is not a business book, although that is probably where puzzled booksellers will shelve it. The original Manifesto surfaced in 1999 as a Web site dedicated to the proposition that "markets are conversations." In 95 bluntly worded theses (a nod to Martin Luther), the site ridicules conventional wisdom about marketing and corporate management. "Companies that speak in the language of the pitch, the dog-and-pony show, are no longer speaking to anyone," the Manifesto proclaims. "Most marketing programs are based on fear that the market might see what's really going on inside the company." Outmoded command-and-control management, the argument says, derives from "an overall culture of paranoia." Only by recognizing that information cannot be controlled, that the Web is a tool for community-building rather than broadcasting or advertising, and that customers want to be spoken to in a human voice can companies hope to stay relevant in the new economy, the Manifesto warns.