Markets are conversations

Taking up from the previous post, I just went and checked out the ClueTrain manifesto, its a book now and found it lot more illuminating then when I first read it.

I remember reading the Cluetrain when it was a manifesto and not a book. Frankly, except that "markets are conversations" and was the only idea which I took from there. Its still the same but the major difference is that now I know the deeper meaning of the manifesto.

The main difference in the in-between years has been "participation". I have been using Yahoo groups, the most famous incarnation of the orginal conversational tools : Usenets. I created some groups and then made one really good one.

I also started participating in the new blog world. The RSS feeds, bloglines, Google News, Blogger and others made a major difference.

When I wanted to buy my Apple iBook for the MBA program the first place I went was to register in various communities on the net and ask the networked consumers. They provided me answers which was far better than Apples Website.

The conversations made all the difference.

It will be interesting to see how my Marketing course will be structured. Is the University focussed on the networked economy. Do they understand it?

If you have still not checked it out....check out the "future of business".