Traffic

his position running a high school computer lab in New Orleans. But, in fact, Jonah was on nike.com, looking at sneakers.

The company was letting shoppers customize shoes. Jonah chose a pair of size 10 Zoom XC USA running shoes and typed "fuck" into the white box where you could put a word of your choice. The site blocked it. To test how sophisticated the system was, he tried a different word: "sweatshop." It went through, so he charged the fifty dollars to his credit card and waited for his sneakers.

Instead, he got an email from Nike. His submission violated their policies-in particular, one against "inappropriate slang."

Jonah wrote back, noting that "sweatshop" "is in fact part of standard English," defined by Webster's dictionary as a "factory in which workers are employed for long hours at low wages and under unhealthy conditions."

He received another polite rejection. He didn't mind being a little annoying, obviously, and kept writing back. And after seven emails from Nike, Jonah made one final request: "Could you please send me a color snapshot of the ten-year-old Vietnamese girl who makes my shoes?"

That was the end of his correspondence with polite Nike customer service representatives. Jonah was pleased with his prank and, in particular, the line about the Vietnamese girl, so he put all the emails in order and submitted the exchange to Harper's Magazine, hoping he could reach what was then the pinnacle of success and attention for something like that: the Harper's Readings section, a monthly-print!-compilation of odd and timely documents. The magazine declined, so on January 15, he forwarded the email to ten friends. Some forwarded it from there-it was the kind of slacker anti-corporate joke that hit at the complacent end of the Clinton era. On January 17, Jonah's old roommate from New Orleans, Tim Shey, put the text of the exchange on his personal website, something people were star

discussion of the Huffington Post is especially telling as a study in haplessness. Along the way, he tells entertaining out-of-school tales of the early Facebook, the Drudge Report, Breitbart, and Twitter. Self-aware and self-critical, Smith allows that while all these entities helped create today s digital culture, it was often not for the better, even if Denton today voices hope for a Talmudic internet still to be made. There s no better history of the Wild West days of early social media than this one. Kirkus (starred review)

A riveting insider s look at the history of online news media . . . Smith s rigorous journalism and proximity to his subject imbue this with abounding insight, and the author s sharp eye for character gives it the feel of a novel. Sobering and captivating, this is an essential take on the 21st-century media landscape. Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Ben Smith's book Traffic, a story of rising and falling fortunes in digital media, is more than just an engagingly written page-turner. It's a hunt for the signal within the noise, the meaning within the online nonsense. It's both a great read and a search for something more substantial within the American political conversation. Ian Bremmer

Ben Smith is the Tom Wolfe of our digital age: the writer capturing what we lived through, what to make of it and best of all the drama of billion-dollar rivalries between nerds and delinquents. Traffic profiles the grifters, dreamers, geniuses and asshats who constructed the golden age of digital media. You should absolutely read this book. Charles Duhigg, bestselling author of The Power of Habit and Smarter Faster Better
 
This is a rollicking and fun, but also unnerving, chronicle of how the colorful characters at Gawker, BuzzFeed and other outlets invented the era of viral media and what the consequences, both bright and very ominous, have been. It s a joy to read, but it will also open your eyes to how hot medias have melted our democracy. Walter Isaacson, bestselling author of The Code Breaker

Traffic is the definitive account of the rise of digital media and the attention economy. The book is smart, entertaining and insightful. It reveals how technology and our shifting media landscape have forever transformed culture, politics, and the world we live in. It s a fascinating read and peek behind the curtain of how culture gets made. Having played a key role in the industry itself, Smith is an expert chronicler of the promise and the failures of digital media and tech giants. The book captures the highs and lows of the dawn of social media and the influencer world. You won t be able to put it down. It s authoritative, captivating, and a must read for anyone who cares about our information ecosystem. Taylor Lorenz, technology columnist, Washington Post

Ben Smith tells a true story of the internet, how for so many dreamers it ends in heartbreak. Here, in an edge-of-your seat narrative, we watch the gold-rush value of clicks, eyeballs, and unique visitors go to practically nothing for everyone else as Facebook takes it all. An honest, insightful, unsparing literature about the internet occupies a very sparse shelf, but Smith, both actor and acute observer in this tale, adds a likely classic to it. Michael Wolff, bestselling author of Fire and Fury and Burn Rate