I used to love the Cluetrain Manifesto.
What was not to love? I was young and rather clueless, and with a rebellious streak. Here come The Beatles, and they said that the ways of the world were wrong, which was true, and that everything would change. Which was false.
Quite naturally, I hopped on the Cluetrain. It served me well for some time, so no hard feelings. And yet, it’s incredible how different things turned out to be!
We went from…
#62 Markets do not want to talk to flacks and hucksters. They want to participate in the conversations going on behind the corporate firewall.
(which was spot-on!)
to…
Companies doing that exactly, outsourcing their ‘conversations’ to PR agencies, flacks and hucksters and people in charge of ‘delivering’ the ‘right’ message.
And from…
#2 Markets consist of human beings…
#3 Conversations among human beings sound human…
#10 As a result, markets are getting smarter, more informed, more organized…
#17 Companies that assume online markets are the same markets that used to watch their ads on television are kidding themselves…
#89 We have real power and we know it…
#94 To traditional corporations, networked conversations may appear confused, may sound confusing. But we are organizing faster than they are…
to…
Brands using AI-generated influencers to promote products on social media [link].
(As if ‘real’ influencers were not bad enough)
The web is like the freeways in LA. It was great –– until everybody got there.