A review by chicagoliz
The Players Ball: A Genius, a Con Man, and the Secret History of the Internet's Rise by David Kushner
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.)