Reviews
Players Ball: A Genius, a Con Man, and the Secret History of the Internet's Rise by David Kushner
a_chickletz's review against another edition
2.0
This book was an interesting read on the start up of the internet and porn/dating services.
You would be surprised on how much they had in common.
However, I guess the author isn't all that great to me? I've read more interesting/gossip-y tales. This guy just wrote it duly.
If you're interested in seeing the background of all this play out, read it. Don't go into it thinking it's something amazing.
You would be surprised on how much they had in common.
However, I guess the author isn't all that great to me? I've read more interesting/gossip-y tales. This guy just wrote it duly.
If you're interested in seeing the background of all this play out, read it. Don't go into it thinking it's something amazing.
maryannelouise's review against another edition
A tale of two terrible, boring, average men
chicagoliz's review against another edition
3.0
On the one hand, this was an entertaining and interesting read. But it felt like it was rushed and I somehow wanted more from it -- there seemed to be large pieces of background information that could have been included to provide a deeper, more nuanced, and more complete picture of what was going on and of the people who were involved. This felt more like I was reading a long magazine article, and again, while it was interesting, I kept thinking the story was being stretched -- the book is only 249 pages, but the font is large, there are blank pages between chapters, and there are numerous repetitions of things that aren't necessary (like saying things like, "He still felt like he was that boy from Skokie," which wasn't needed more than once, and seemed strange, given that the beginning of the book said that he had grown up in Lincolnwood, not in Skokie. So which is it?
I kept wondering, who the heck edited this? Right off the bat, the text stated that Lincolnwood, IL is an hour NW of Chicago. It is not. It is directly north of Chicago -- it BORDERS Chicago. It is about 10 miles northwest of the Loop, and it can take an hour to get there from the Loop during rush hour, but it is not an hour NW of the city itself. It's only NW of the Loop because of the physical geography -- the Lake would be directly north of the Loop. But, from the city, with which it shares a border, it is directly north.
Also, the book mentions that Kremen attended Northwestern University for undergrad, and then went to Stanford Business school for an MBA, but talks about an internship after freshman year at Stanford. Good Grief. There is no "freshman" year at a b-school. It's a 2 year graduate program.
In the end, this would be a great book to read on a plane -- it's entertaining, but it really needs a good editing job. I'm not sure, really, what this book is adding to our discourse -- the author writes at the end that there are two other books that deal with the saga of sex.com, and while I haven't read those, I'm not sure what this book adds if we already have books that discuss the long and involved saga of that url. I also questioned why, exactly, Kremen was so obsessed with getting back the domain name, rather than just accepting a large amount of money for it. The book, I guess, does go into this -- essentially that both Kremen and Cohen were obsessed with each other, and I suppose that is enough of a reason to accept, but it seems so ridiculous. The whole saga didn't really need the level of complexity that it eventually acquired. And, in line with the idea that this book would benefit from a deeper dig into the action, I kept wondering how (and why) Kremen would, for example, walk into a club and say he owned it because he had obtained a legal judgment. To actually effectuate a bona fide transfer of ownership would require additional proceedings, beyond a simple judgment against a defendant. And I suppose this must have happened, but it's never discussed or even alluded to.
In the end, a 4/7. The saga and the subject matter deserve a more in-depth treatment. (Which, again, may already exist.)
I kept wondering, who the heck edited this? Right off the bat, the text stated that Lincolnwood, IL is an hour NW of Chicago. It is not. It is directly north of Chicago -- it BORDERS Chicago. It is about 10 miles northwest of the Loop, and it can take an hour to get there from the Loop during rush hour, but it is not an hour NW of the city itself. It's only NW of the Loop because of the physical geography -- the Lake would be directly north of the Loop. But, from the city, with which it shares a border, it is directly north.
Also, the book mentions that Kremen attended Northwestern University for undergrad, and then went to Stanford Business school for an MBA, but talks about an internship after freshman year at Stanford. Good Grief. There is no "freshman" year at a b-school. It's a 2 year graduate program.
In the end, this would be a great book to read on a plane -- it's entertaining, but it really needs a good editing job. I'm not sure, really, what this book is adding to our discourse -- the author writes at the end that there are two other books that deal with the saga of sex.com, and while I haven't read those, I'm not sure what this book adds if we already have books that discuss the long and involved saga of that url. I also questioned why, exactly, Kremen was so obsessed with getting back the domain name, rather than just accepting a large amount of money for it. The book, I guess, does go into this -- essentially that both Kremen and Cohen were obsessed with each other, and I suppose that is enough of a reason to accept, but it seems so ridiculous. The whole saga didn't really need the level of complexity that it eventually acquired. And, in line with the idea that this book would benefit from a deeper dig into the action, I kept wondering how (and why) Kremen would, for example, walk into a club and say he owned it because he had obtained a legal judgment. To actually effectuate a bona fide transfer of ownership would require additional proceedings, beyond a simple judgment against a defendant. And I suppose this must have happened, but it's never discussed or even alluded to.
In the end, a 4/7. The saga and the subject matter deserve a more in-depth treatment. (Which, again, may already exist.)
karenika's review against another edition
2.0
2.5 stars
I read this because there were parallels to Billion Dollar Whale and Bad Blood and I was in my twenties for much of this story so I thought it would be interesting to read about all the craziness during the birth of the internet and domain registration craze. As it turned out, I think this book didn't end up being nearly as interesting as the other two. Maybe the author thought the salacious nature of the topic would be enough to carry the book, or the quirkiness of the main characters. But, for me, neither did the trick. I felt like the nuance, the richness of layers of research, and the depth was missing. It didn't turn out to be as interesting nor as insightful as I would have hoped.
I read this because there were parallels to Billion Dollar Whale and Bad Blood and I was in my twenties for much of this story so I thought it would be interesting to read about all the craziness during the birth of the internet and domain registration craze. As it turned out, I think this book didn't end up being nearly as interesting as the other two. Maybe the author thought the salacious nature of the topic would be enough to carry the book, or the quirkiness of the main characters. But, for me, neither did the trick. I felt like the nuance, the richness of layers of research, and the depth was missing. It didn't turn out to be as interesting nor as insightful as I would have hoped.
aprilbapryll's review against another edition
4.0
The premise of this was really interesting, but it went on for so long that I didn't get the ultimate resolution - did Kremen ever get his money from Cohen? The property rights of the internet legal battle was very interesting to me but I wanted to know more about who originally actually screwed up at the company who handed over the domain to Cohen in the first place, and why. It was amusing to listen to the audiobook and I don't know how George Newbern read it without giggling like a schoolboy at a lot of it.
smdamm's review against another edition
2.0
Honestly feel like the plot was pretty lackluster and I was just bored the whole time. I think the characters were interesting but not quite interesting to fill as many pages as they did. This could have been a pretty interesting article. I think they just stretched this story too thin.