Cluetrain, Ten Years Later

By Abby Goldstein on Monday, June 15, 2009.

Back in 1999, the Internet was riding the wave of the dot-com bubble. Startup companies, with their foosball tables and cappuccino machines, peddled everything from grocery deliveries to pet supplies.

But not everyone thought the Internet should be a giant online shopping mall. Four technology insiders came together to argue that the Internet should be a place where people and companies can interact authentically - to share ideas, and not just promote products. They put together 95 reflections and predictions – an homage to Martin Luther’s protest – and called it The Cluetrain Manifesto. Ten years later, many of these predictions have come to pass, while others feel like aging dinosaurs of the web’s early days.

Tomorrow night, the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University will cast its eye back on The Cluetrain Manifesto to see how far we’ve come. Joining us from WBUR in Boston is "Cluetrain" co-author David Weinberger.

Cluetrain at 10: So How's Utopia Working Out for Ya?

(Photo by Fuschia Foot via Flickr/Creative Commons)

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