The 95 theses on the Cluetrain Manifesto page are true ideas that are largely in use in today’s new media world, as proved by the Web 2.0 chapter of the Journalism 2.0 article.

The Cluetrain Manifesto makes strong points that human conversation has evolved with the new Internet media market. Smaller and more informed markets are calling for honesty from larger markets, who need to lighten up. 

The Web 2.0 chapter attributes the evolution of these smaller markets to more action from users on all kinds of communication sites like Flickr, MySpace, and Google. MySpace and Flickr have reversed the traditional 1.0 model of Web sites because the content is user created to support the freedom to share while boasting decentralized authority. 

This change in the Web offers journalists new opportunities. Journalism 2.0 points out that news is a conversation, no longer a lecture. News sites like Digg are examples, since they’re comprised of news articles that users found on other sites and then posted on Digg. Journalists’ blogs are also good examples of news conversation; journalists can respond to comments online and even get new story ideas from their readers.

Former Seattle P.I. reporter John Cook has found user created applications for new media like tagging in photos and blogs to his advantage. As a journalist he can speed his work by tracking and finding information that readers of his topics find interesting.

The Cluetrain Manifesto urges companies to involve themselves in the direct online conversation that everyone else is already participating in. If they don’t, it’s their loss and it could be a big one. 

Through all of this communication I feel news will become more broadly defined. It’s not necessarily a negative change though. Readers have easier access to reporters, so they can make it obvious the type of news they want to read. By reading comments on their own stories, or by reading the kinds of stories that are posted on sites like Digg, it should become more clear to reporters the exact information that readers are looking for on news sites. 

The Cluetrain Manifesto has it right and we’re invoking the small business-minded ideas presented there through the highly personalized news media conversations of today.