The Cluetrain Manifesto

And they'll chime in and tell their story. Your story.

Chat

Chat gets a bad rap. The Web canard says all chat sessions degenerate into conversations about sex within five minutes.

It ain't so. Because it is immediate — taking place in realtime — chat can enable conversation that feels more genuine, more substantial, and more human than any other Net channel.

The aspect of chat that still amazes me is that it can compress distance, enabling globe-spanning conversation in a visceral, obvious way. E-mail can connect people over the same distances, but it doesn't trigger the sense of wonder I experience when I see words appearing on my screen typed live by someone half a world away.

Here's a snippet of chat conversation between two friends. The chat session was set up following an international artists workshop held in Tblisi, Georgia, and ran for several months.

Belt is in London, Annie in Tblisi.

    Belt: — Just Entered The Room —

    Belt: hello is anyone there?

    Belt: its Belt here...

waiting for a full gas bottle so I can get warm...

    Annie: — Just Entered The Room —

    Belt: drinking tea, wondering how to make a living...

(london transport has just gone up again! £3.80 for a travel card now... don't know how people manage it!

    Annie: 50 tetri in Tbilisi hey?

    Belt: crazy,...

what do you think of the euro? and custard pies!!

    Annie: I guess theres no difference in some way... is it cold in London?

    Belt: well its not so cold, just dark...

how about there? are you still snowed in?

    Annie: whats that about... over here its snowstorms deep snow, ploughs the airports shutdown

    Belt: will you be able to get back?

    Annie: spending time face up to snow flakes lying in bed of white sparkly comfort...

making snow angels... have you ever made a snow angel?...

tis all new to me

    Belt: I remember making snow angels on dartmoor, face up to the sky lying on the cold ground... 

    Annie: I hope to fly Thurs get in Friday...

but apparently theres another storm on the way... its incredibly beautiful, esp.

on the industrial landscape of the lake (which looks like the sea... huge)

    Belt: it was like trying to fall off the earth...

.sounds incredible... immense landscapes.

I haven't seen the sky since Mirzaani

    http://www.devoid.demon.co.uk/generator/chat4.htm 

One definition of community is a group of people who care about each other more than they have to.

This isn't a business exchange, even remotely. It is conversation, the verbal glue binding people separated by geography into a community.

Chat's important to us corporate types because it's a medium where it's almost impossible to operate within the old rules. Because chat is a "live" medium, there's little leeway for faking a voice, for a sophist approximation of a person.

You can adopt a new persona, but you're going to need to button it all the way up and live it, or we'll be able to tell there's someone else underneath. Chat is CB radio on steroids.

It's immediate and unwashed. If you can't type and think at the same time, you're in deep weeds.

We can't broadcast, can't message, can't spew corporate pabulum in a chat environment. If business could successfully integrate chat into its marketing universe, companies would be on their way to shaking off some of the mass-media shackles separating them from customers.

One of the more interesting uses of a chat service has been to provide live customer support for Web sites without resorting to expensive telephone call centers.

Liveperson.com is selling a service using a pop-up chat client connected to a 24/7 call center to provide live, on-the-spot support to Web customers. Each support rep can field up to four simultaneous chat sessions.

Customers get an immediate, interactive support person to answer their questions.

    Constantin: Hi there, rick.

What can I help you with today?

    rick: Hi Constantin. Could you tell me if your service can work with query string tokens instead of cookies?

    Constantin: Can I just clarify what you are asking...

are you looking to track users using querystrings

    rick: No, I need a solution that works even if a person refuses to accept cookies, or if their firewall/browser rejects cookies.

    Constantin: or are you referring to being a user and receiving a cookie when you begin to chat

    rick: Yep. 

    Constantin: If you hold on one second I can find out for you...

    rick: Great. Thanks.

    Constantin: I'm sorry but it is not possible right now to offer the service without sending cookies

    rick: Ah. Is it planned?

    Constantin: Just a moment please...

    Constantin: Not at the present time

    rick: Ok. Thanks for taking the time.

    Constantin: Thanks for visiting 

There's none of the hit-or-miss multiday waiting we get with e-mail support, no phone cost to the customer or vendor. Commerce sites have reportedly been experiencing dramatically increased sales from the high-touch attention they can give their customers.

Web Pages

The Web lets us look into other people's lives in an intimate way. It enables us to see people as they are, close up.

Have you ever been browsing for information, read an interesting page, followed the author's name link, and tripped through his personal pages, read his badly written poetry, looked at pictures of his dog, cat, family, friends, and trip to the Bahamas?

For instance, while brow-sing slashdot.org, I read a comment from Chris Worth, followed a breadcrumb trail to www.chrisworth.com and was captivated by his personal Web phantasmagoria — including a cogent comparison of users of Microsoft productivity tools to frogs in pots of heating water, and a scary little piece about his view of helicopters.

Another time, I searched for how-to information about a software program I was installing, found an article written by Glenn Fleishman, clicked on his byline link to www.glenns.org and was engrossed in his story of how he fought Hodgkin's disease and won.