I’ve spoken before about how the Internet turns marketing into a conversation. Lots of people have. But it’s not a new idea. In fact, I was lucky enough to work with one of the people that figured it out first, although I frankly didn’t grasp the significance of what he was saying at the time.
Back in the mid-90s, I worked with Chris Locke, later one of the authors of the seminal book, The Cluetrain Manifesto
Later, Chris and his co-authors made “Markets are conversations” the first point of their 95-point manifesto. So why are we still talking about it now? Because it is finally happening.
The Cluetrain folks were visionaries. Back then, this conversational markets phenomenon affected only a few industries. Today, average people are participating in communities in many markets. Soon, rating a product or commenting on a blog will be as common as e-mail. And many more methods of customer participation will arise too.
Chris was absolutely right, of course. He warned you this was coming years ago. Luckily, you still have a chance to do something about it before the vision is totally realized.
