The Cluetrain Manifesto is a work of business literature collaboratively authored by Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger.

The Cluetrain Manifesto was written and first posted to the Web in March 1999[1][2] by Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger.

The work asserts that the term "cluetrain" stems from an anonymous source speaking about their former corporate employer: "The clue train stopped there four times a day for ten years and they never took delivery."

Historically, the authors state, the marketplace was a location where groups of individual gathered and talked to each other (thesis 1): they would discuss available products, price, reputation and in doing so connect with others (theses 2–5.)

The ninety-five theses as initially posted to the web received positive reviews in mainstream publications such as the San Jose Mercury News[4] and the Wall Street Journal.

Vocal adherents included technically oriented people, who were adept in building websites, writing blogs and making themselves heard on the Internet.

"[10] It is also considered a foundational text in the field of conversational marketing;[11][12] Advertising Age proclaimed in 2006: "the grand vision outlined in 1999's 'Cluetrain Manifesto' is now coming true.

John C. Dvorak, for example, dismisses the work as a product of "lunatic fringe dingbat thinking that characterized the Internet boom" and rebukes its adherents for their "apparent faith in this odd vision of an idealistic human-oriented internetworked new world/new economy.