The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual. Levine, Locke, Searls & Weinberger

The advent of the Industrial Age did more than just enable industry to produce products much more efficiently.
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The economies of scale they were gaining in the factory demanded economies of scale in the market.
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So the customers who once looked you in the eye while hefting your wares in the market were transformed into consumers. In the words of industry analyst Jerry Michalski, a consumer was no more than "a gullet whose only purpose in life is to gulp products and crap cash." Power swung so decisively to the supply side that "market" became a verb: something you do to customers.

The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual. Levine, Locke, Searls & Weinberger

The first markets were filled with people, not abstractions or statistical aggregates; they were the places where supply met demand with a firm handshake. Buyers and sellers looked each other in the eye, met, and connected. The first markets were places for exchange, where people came to buy what others had to sell -- and to talk.
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For thousands of years, we knew exactly what markets were: conversations between people who sought out others who shared the same interests. Buyers had as much to say as sellers. They spoke directly to each other without the filter of media, the artifice of positioning statements, the arrogance of advertising, or the shading of public relations.

The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual. Levine, Locke, Searls & Weinberger

Las compañías que intentan "posicionarse", necesitan adoptar una posición. Idealmente relacionada con algo que realmente le importe a su mercado… Los mercados inteligentes encontrarán proveedores que hablen su mismo lenguaje… Las comunidades humanas se basan en el diálogo – conversaciones humanas acerca de inquietudes humanas… Para hablar en una voz humana, las empresas deben compartir las preocupaciones de sus comunidades… Pero primero, deben pertenecer a una comunidad.