Traffic
Genius, Rivalry, and Delusion in the Billion-Dollar Race to Go Viral
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Narrated by:
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Ian Putnam
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Ben Smith
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By:
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Ben Smith
About this listen
“Engrossing and suspenseful."—The New York Times
“Expertly pulls readers in.”—The Guardian
“Smith sharply chronicles the revolutionary moment.”—Financial Times
The origin story of the post-truth age: the candid inside tale of two online media rivals, Nick Denton of Gawker Media and Jonah Peretti of HuffPost and BuzzFeed, whose delirious pursuit of attention at scale helped release the dark forces that would overtake the internet and American society
If attention is the new oil, Traffic is the story of the time between the first gusher and the perceptible impact of climate change. The curtain opens in Soho in the early 2000s, after the first dot-com crash but 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, Nick Denton’s merry band of nihilists at his growing Gawker empire and Jonah Peretti’s sunnier team at HuffPost and BuzzFeed were building the foundations of viral internet media. Ben Smith, who would go on to earn a controversial reputation as BuzzFeed News’s editor in chief, was there to see it, and he chronicles it all with marvelous lucidity underscored by dark wit.
Traffic explores 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. People like Steve Bannon and Andrew Breitbart initially seemed like minor characters in the narrative in which Nick and Jonah were the stars. But today, anyone might wonder if the opposite wasn’t the case. To understand how we got here, Traffic is essential and enthralling listening.
©2023 Ben Smith (P)2023 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"“Engrossing and suspenseful . . . Can viral political content ever be valuable political content—and vice versa? Anxiety about this question haunts Smith, and this moral seriousness is what lifts Traffic above other accounts of adventures in start-up land.” —Virginia Heffernan, New York Times
“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’s account of the rise and fall of BuzzFeed and Gawker Media, the pioneering group of blogs run by Nick Denton, is an amusing story of New York ambition and hubris. But it has a deeper social significance: both the news business and politics were infiltrated by the clickbait techniques they developed. . . Smith sharply chronicles the revolutionary moment. . . [he] tells the story energetically, with plenty of insider gossip about the digital journalists who briefly became media stars (at least to a small circle of like-minded Manhattanites). But Traffic would be less worthwhile were it just a traditional narrative of the rise and fall of a business. Its insight lies in Smith’s reflections on how many of the techniques pioneered by Peretti and Denton have been absorbed into the mainstream. Everyone craves traffic now.” —Financial Times
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In Googled, esteemed media writer and critic Ken Auletta uses the story of Google's rise to explore the inner workings of the company and the future of the media at large. Although Google has often been secretive, this book is based on the most extensive cooperation ever granted a journalist, including access to closed-door meetings and interviews with founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, CEO Eric Schmidt, and some 150 present and former employees.
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Audio production could have been better
- By David on 11-12-09
By: Ken Auletta
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Rachel Maddow
- A Biography
- By: Lisa Rogak
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
- Length: 5 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Rachel Maddow has beaten the odds in a way that's novel in today's America: She uses her brain. In a world of banal and opinionated soundbites, she regularly crushes Sean Hannity's ratings thanks to her deeply researched reports. And in our highly polarized world, Maddow amiably engages the staunchest conservatives, while never hesitating to expose their light-on-facts defenses.
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Absolute Pablum.
- By mj on 02-03-20
By: Lisa Rogak
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Frenemies
- The Epic Disruption of the Ad Business (And Everything Else)
- By: Ken Auletta
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 12 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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An intimate and profound reckoning with the changes buffeting the $2 trillion global advertising and marketing business from the perspective of its most powerful players, by the best-selling author of Googled. Advertising and marketing touches on every corner of our lives, and is the invisible fuel powering almost all media. Complain about it though we might, without it the world would be a darker place. And of all the industries wracked by change in the digital age, few have been turned on its head as dramatically as this one has.
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Good; not for beginners
- By DV on 10-05-18
By: Ken Auletta
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Audience of One
- Television, Donald Trump, and the Politics of Illusion
- By: James Poniewozik
- Narrated by: Matthew Josdal
- Length: 11 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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In the tradition of Neil Postman's masterpiece Amusing Ourselves to Death, Audience of One shows how American media have shaped American society and politics, by interweaving two crucial stories. The first story follows the evolution of television from the three-network era of the 20th century, which joined millions of Americans in a shared monoculture, into today's zillion-channel, internet-atomized universe, which sliced and diced them into fractious, alienated subcultures. The second story is a cultural critique of Donald Trump.
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Enlightening, insightful, terrifying.
- By L Watson on 09-22-19
By: James Poniewozik
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What Would Google Do?
- By: Jeff Jarvis
- Narrated by: Jeff Jarvis
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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In a book that's one part prophecy, one part thought experiment, one part manifesto, and one part survival manual, internet impresario and blogging pioneer Jeff Jarvis reverse-engineers Google, the fastest-growing company in history, to discover 40 clear and straightforward rules to manage and live by.
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Shallow and one-sided
- By JimmiJ on 02-04-09
By: Jeff Jarvis
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The Filter Bubble
- What the Internet Is Hiding from You
- By: Eli Pariser
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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In December 2009, Google began customizing its search results for each user. Instead of giving you the most broadly popular result, Google now tries to predict what you are most likely to click on. According to MoveOn.org board president Eli Pariser, Google's change in policy is symptomatic of the most significant shift to take place on the Web in recent years: the rise of personalization.
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Now in the top 3 best books I've ever read
- By Brian Esserlieu on 05-26-11
By: Eli Pariser
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The Code
- Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America
- By: Margaret O'Mara
- Narrated by: Nan McNamara
- Length: 19 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Long before Margaret O'Mara became one of our most consequential historians of the American-led digital revolution, she worked in the White House of Bill Clinton and Al Gore in the earliest days of the commercial Internet. There, she saw firsthand how deeply intertwined Silicon Valley was with the federal government - and always had been - and how shallow the common understanding of the secrets of the Valley's success actually was.
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Mostly good, but also irrating
- By Rodney on 12-20-20
By: Margaret O'Mara
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Marvel Comics
- The Untold Story
- By: Sean Howe
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 17 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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The defining, behind-the-scenes chronicle of one of the most extraordinary, beloved, and dominant pop cultural entities in America’s history - Marvel Comics - and the outsized personalities who made Marvel, including Martin Goodman, Stan Lee, and Jack Kirby.
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It's as if this book was written for me!
- By Greg on 03-15-13
By: Sean Howe
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Broad Band
- The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet
- By: Claire L. Evans
- Narrated by: Claire L. Evans
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Women are not ancillary to the history of technology; they turn up at the very beginning of every important wave. But they've often been hidden in plain sight, their inventions and contributions touching our lives in ways we don't even realize. Vice reporter and YACHT lead singer Claire L. Evans finally gives these unsung female heroes their due with her insightful social history of the Broad Band, the women who made the Internet what it is today. Evans shows us how these women built and colored the technologies we can't imagine life without.
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Inspiring
- By Jean on 03-29-18
By: Claire L. Evans
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Technically Wrong
- Sexist Apps, Biased Algorithms, and Other Threats of Toxic Tech
- By: Sara Wachter-Boettcher
- Narrated by: Andrea Emmes
- Length: 5 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Buying groceries, tracking our health, finding a date: whatever we want to do, odds are that we can now do it online. But few of us ask how all these digital products are designed, or why. It's time we change that. Many of the services we rely on are full of oversights, biases, and downright ethical nightmares. Chatbots that harass women. Signup forms that fail anyone who's not straight. Social media sites that send peppy messages about dead relatives. Algorithms that put more black people behind bars.
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Pretty good but not complete
- By Casey on 10-29-17
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Sinking in the Swamp
- How Trump's Minions and Misfits Poisoned Washington
- By: Lachlan Markay, Asawin Suebsaeng
- Narrated by: Holter Graham
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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An eyewitness account of Donald Trump's clown car of lieutenants and lackeys who have polluted the corridors of power with their unprecedented awfulness. Two of Washington's most meddlesome reporters take listeners on a deep dive into the murky underworld of President Trump's Washington, dishing the hilarious and frightening dirt on the charlatans, conspiracy theorists, ideologues, and run-of-the-mill con artists who have infected the highest echelons of American political power.
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Fascinating writing!
- By CBesserman on 02-28-20
By: Lachlan Markay, and others
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No Better Time
- The Brief, Remarkable Life of Danny Lewin, the Genius Who Transformed the Internet
- By: Molly Knight Raskin
- Narrated by: Christine Marshall
- Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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No Better Time tells of a young, driven mathematical genius who wrote a set of algorithms that would create a faster, better Internet. It's the story of a beautiful friendship between a loud, irreverent student and his soft-spoken MIT professor, of a husband and father who spent years struggling to make ends meet only to become a billionaire almost overnight with the success of Akamai Technologies, the Internet content delivery network he cofounded with his mentor.
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An Overlooked Hero of 9-11
- By Jean on 05-27-16
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Never Eat Alone, Expanded and Updated
- And the Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time
- By: Keith Ferrazzi, Tahl Raz
- Narrated by: Richard Harries
- Length: 13 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
In Never Eat Alone, Ferrazzi lays out the specific steps - and inner mindset - he uses to reach out to connect with the thousands of colleagues, friends, and associates on his contacts list, people he has helped and who have helped him. And in the time since Never Eat Alone was published in 2005, the rise of social media and new, collaborative management styles have only made Ferrazzi’s advice more essential for anyone hoping to get ahead in business.
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Couldn't finish
- By book smart on 05-01-16
By: Keith Ferrazzi, and others
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Alibaba's World
- How a Remarkable Chinese Company Is Changing the Face of Global Business
- By: Porter Erisman
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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In September 2014, a Chinese company that most Americans had never heard of held the largest IPO in history - bigger than Google, Facebook, and Twitter combined. Alibaba, now the world's largest ecommerce company, mostly escaped Western notice for over 10 years, while building a customer base larger than Amazon's and handling the bulk of ecommerce transactions in China. How did it happen? And what was it like to be along for such a revolutionary ride?
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Not bad
- By Daniel on 09-12-15
By: Porter Erisman
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What listeners say about Traffic
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- robert b seyfarth
- 05-28-23
Social media good or bad
Smith’s explanation of internet potential for doing good and bad seems very even handed. Because he was deeply involved in the development of the internet as we now experience it, his story rings true to me.
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- Kevin
- 06-06-23
Ruined by Narrator
Doesn't do a great job of introducing you to the characters/personalities - so I feel like it relies on someone who has even a passing familiarity with the people it talks about.
But truly ruined by the Robotic mono-tone narration that invites your mind to wander while listening.
I struggle to keep focused on this.
I'm sure this book would garner more stars from me had I read it, or had a better narrator been utilized.
I would return it if I could - because I know I will not finish it.
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- Christopher R. Kuhns
- 06-11-23
a classic race to the bottom outlined in detail
a useful expose how two new internet news reporting companies lose their virtue through intense competition. it seemed one or the other media reporting company might choose to focus on if it leads, it succeeds. as it turned out, both focused on base case: if it bleeds, it leads. as it turns out, traffic goes to the venerable NY Times, who takes the high ground and drafts quality forces to win share. well written and useful insight.
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- Jenny Jenkins
- 05-14-23
How We Got From the Blue Dress to the Proud Boys
Ben Smith tracks how we went from the optimistic “the Internet brings us together” early 2000s to our state of polarized vitriol. An important story where it’s clear it wasn’t only Facebook that moved fast and broke things.
Smith provides a full history of the rise of Internet sites and social media fueled by the imperative to generate “traffic.”Fascinating how the first viral moments of “is the dress blue or white?” gave way so quickly to the conspiracy theories et al. Learning how Jonah Peretti mined Pinterest for cute puppy pictures with the most likes for Buzzfeed lists along the lines of 25 Puppies You Will Love will make you cringe to recall just how many such lists you once clicked on, masterminded by a cynical Peretti.
Smith is very forgiving towards the protagonists who set the tone and pace at Gawker and Buzzfeed whose “irreverence” very early on were clearly destructive powers. Smith owns up to what he missed — that the right wing fringe figures sharing the same world have turned out to be more central to our society’s story than he is.
But he doesn’t dwell on how his compadres could have made better choices much earlier on. It’s great that Nick Denton of Gawker turned into a better man. But even at the height of Gawker, it was clear that the site was a reprehensible presence that made life worse for basically everyone, including those who took pleasure in the snark and schadenfreude of it all. Peter Thiel was an avenging demon. But his subsidizing Hulk Hogan’s suit was no more sneaky and destructive and an abuse of power than many of the things Gawker approved of. Smith’s view that Hulk Hogan could not have afforded the lawyers to pursue his suit against Gawker and hence we live in a world where a pissed off billionaire can bring down a site does not credit Hulk Hogan’s case. Thiel, who I loathe, is not solely at fault. By Smith’s argument, people whose privacy was invaded by Gawker could not have afforded to sue Gawker at its height and just had to accept their lives being ruined because Gawker was too powerful to go up against. So who was sneaky and abusive of power in those cases?
I also hope never to spend much time with Jonah Peretti ever again. It seems that if he had had a less libertarian anything-goes view of how to use and gin up traffic, and more willingness to show the world how virality worked, and how sites courted traffic as the ultimate goal, we would have benefited as a society.
The book’s narrator did a good enough job but I found his reading oddly monotone and unmusical. Even though I wanted to hear more of the book, I had to take a break after an hour or so because the narrator became a bit tedious. Don’t want to be snarky about the reader but — maybe this isn’t the best use of his talents, and writers need good readers for their books.
All in all, I recommend this book. It’s important and the only one I can think of that really shows how we got here, even though the way out, if there is one, is by no means clear. For starters, I’m going for a walk in the woods without my phone.
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- J E
- 05-15-23
WHY THIS NARRATOR??
Great story, well written, but AS ALWAYS an atrocious narrator. Like, come on Audible. Up the narrator game!!
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1 person found this helpful
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- BG
- 06-09-23
Iconic, but wish Ben Smith read it
Amazing book if you are interested in digital media and it’s larger effects and history. Wish Ben Smith had done the reading himself though!
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- C. Thompson
- 05-13-23
fascinating and binge worthy
I found this book incredibly easy and exciting to listen to. so much new and interesting information.
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- Matt Carroll
- 08-10-23
Horrifying
A dismaying portrayal of an industry searching for the lowest common denominator, reveling in and living for absurd images and concepts (what color is the dress) and spending countless hours and billions of dollars merely to enable time wasting, but doing so as a professional objective.
One must ask what is wrong with intelligent people who would devote their lives to such meaningless endeavors or writing about them. Greed? Deficient character or values? It is hard to say.
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- Isaac M Rosen
- 06-04-23
Dry in parts
Ben Smith’s writing is good but there are some significant lulls. And the narrator’s cadence was grating, seemingly uninterested. Did enjoy the history, particularly of gawker.
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- Josh
- 07-20-23
Really good book for history. Authors bias is far too evident in the 2nd half
Fun listen. Lots of interesting history. Spends a lot of of the 2nd half of the book focused almost exclusively on the far right, which has its place, but could be a bit more balanced
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