An Internet for the People: The Politics and Promise of craigslist

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How craigslist champions openness, democracy, and other vanishing principles of the early web Begun by Craig Newmark as an e-mail to some friends about cool events happening around San Francisco, craigslist is now the leading classifieds service on the planet. It is also a throwback to the early internet. The website has barely seen an upgrade s

Reviews

Lingel astutely reveals the visions and values at the heart of an influential yet understudied platform that has pursued a different path than the data-aggregating, advertising-oriented giants that get almost all the attention these days. The book will change how we think about internet platforms in general.--Thomas Streeter, author of The Net Effect: Romanticism, Capitalism, and the Internet
Lingel fills a gap in current scholarship by providing both a historical and ethnographic account of craigslist, a site that has attained almost mythological status in the popular history of the web. This comprehensive, interdisciplinary, and lucid book is a model for how internet research should be done.--Siva Vaidhyanathan, author of Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy
To understand contemporary fears, anxieties, and fantasies about the internet, people need to understand craigslist, a site that embodies a set of 1990s values about the internet that seem alien today. In An Internet for the People, Jessa Lingel offers a rich examination of craigslist, including both its strengths and flaws. This insightful book connects the past to the present in order to inform those who care about the future.--danah boyd, author of It's Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens

Author Bio

Jessa Lingel is assistant professor of communication at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of Digital Countercultures and the Struggle for Community. She lives in Philadelphia.