05215cam a2200601 i 4500 23761488 BJBSDDR 20250304154909.0 ta 240702s2023 nyu e b 001 0deng 2024440285 GBC383147 bnb 021039684 Uk 9780593299753 hardcover 0593299752 hardcover 9780593299777 paperback 9780593299760 electronic book (OCoLC)on1345221355 DLC eng rda DLC OCLCF BDX CCPLG OCL FHP WRF DLC eng pcc n-us--- PN 4867.2 S643t 2023 Smith, Ben (Journalist) 40937 Traffic : genius, rivalry, and delusion in the billion-dollar race to go viral / Ben Smith. New York : Penguin Press, 2023. 343 pages ; 21 cm. text txt rdacontent unmediated n rdamedia volume nc rdacarrier Men lcdgt Americans lcdgt Journalists lcdgt Includes bibliographical references (pages 307-324) and index. The bet -- Traffic control -- Black people love us -- Drudge -- Contagious -- Valleywag -- Plateau -- Sideboob -- $5 a view -- Girly Gawker -- Politics -- Digging Obama -- $100 million -- Unique visitors -- Breitbart dot com -- Dicks -- Sold -- News feeds -- The scoop -- LilyBoo -- Upworthy -- Benny -- Disney -- The dress -- $850 million -- Dinosaurs -- Gawker on trial -- Sentiment -- The dossier -- Exile -- Down arrow -- Meaningful social engagement -- Layoffs -- Baked Alaska -- Conclusion. "The origin story of the Age of Disinformation: the candid inside tale of two online media rivals, Jonah Peretti of HuffPost and Buzzfeed and Nick Denton of Gawker Media, whose delirious pursuit of attention at scale in the first two decades of the 21st century helped release the dark forces that would overtake the internet and American society. If attention is the new oil, Ben Smith's Traffic is the story of the time between the first gusher and the impact of climate change. The curtain opens in Soho in the early 2000's, in that brief moment after the first dotcom crash and before Google, Apple, and Facebook exploded, when it seemed that New York City rather than Silicon Valley might become tech's center of gravity. There, within a few square blocks, Nick Denton's merry band of nihilists at his growing Gawker empire and Jonah Peretti's sunnier crew at HuffPost and Buzzfeed were building the foundations of click-bait media. It was tech's age of innocence: the old establishment might have been discredited by the Iraq War, but digital news would facilitate the spread of truth. Progressive activists were first to the scene, and for a while it seemed they were the scene. After all, didn't they get Barack Obama elected? Ben Smith, who would go on to earn a controversial reputation as Buzzfeed's editor-in-chief, was either there or talked to everyone who was, and in his trademark fashion, he chronicles it all with marvelous lucidity scored with dark wit, sparing no one--and certainly not himself. Denton and Gawker were seen at the time as the black hats, but in Smith's hands the story is much more nuanced: yes, Denton's ideology of radical transparency was problematic, but at least he had an ideology. Jonah Peretti survived long after Denton's Gawker perished because his focus on clicks was relentlessly content-agnostic. But as with the proverbial sorcerer's apprentice, unintended consequences began to gain momentum. At the heart of Traffic is one of the great ironies of our time: the internet, which was going to help the left remake the world in its image, has become the motive force of right populism. As Smith and his colleagues and rivals thought they were inventing digital media, other figures, flickering around the margins of their story, had different designs. People like Steve Bannon and Andrew Breitbart and Gavin McInnes and Chris Poole, the creator of 4chan, all seemed like minor characters in the narrative in which Nick and Jonah and crew were the stars. By 2020, any reasonable observer might wonder if the opposite wasn't the case. To understand how we got here, Traffic is essential and enthralling reading"-- Provided by publisher. Peretti, Jonah, 1974- 40938 Denton, Nicholas, 1991- 40939 News Web sites United States. Web sites 40940 Digital media Economic aspects United States. Medios digitales Aspectos económicos Estados Unidos 26690 Internet industry United States. Industria del Internet Estados Unidos 590 Internet Social aspects. Internet Aspectos sociales 1307 Disinformation. Desinformación 19128 7 cbc pccadap 2 ncip 20 y-gencatlg lcc BK dpf 122820 122820 0 0 lcc 0 0 HU BJB BJB HU 2025-02-12 0 PN 4867.2 S643t 2023 00000173311 2025-02-12 00:00:00 1 2025-02-12 BK