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.