Ben Smith has played a role in so many of the key content start-ups over the years and has been on the front lines of the war for attention online. This book gave me some deep nostalgia for the early days of blogging networks but it also has strong insights into the ways that content, and by association, consumers of that content, have been monetized. Is there a better way to drive traffic and make revenue or will we forever be stuck in a loop of endless clickbait?

This was an entertaining, gossipy, and informative read. I found myself sharing what I learned from this book with those around me. I recommend it to fans of good and highly readable non-fiction.

An important piece of history that will appeal only to those who are passionate about the ways of the Internet. It is filled with names that most of us are not familiar with and some that have made public figures of themselves. Best read on a Kindle where you can search for names that have been mentioned, but that you have forgotten in the reading process. Author Ben Smith gives us a picture of the development of the Internet that could only be done by someone who has the patience to research the personal stories of those who fought and competed for the biggest number (traffic) of blog and newsletter readers who clicked on their sites. Someday somebody will put all this information into a cloud database and make it clickable for everyone who wants to write the next detailed history of some aspect of the Internet.