Bringing Nothing To The Party: True Confessions Of A New Media Whore

The Age

Saturday November 8, 2008

Reviewer, Thuy On

Bringing Nothing to the Party: True Confessions of a New Media Whore

Paul Carr

Hachette, $32.99

PAUL CARR USED TO BE A journalist whose job entailed hanging around cocky young IT entrepreneurs and writing about their various get-rich schemes and multimillion ventures until one day he decided he wanted to be a participant, not a mere spectator.

Motivated simply by the lure of money and fame, he started up a hybrid internet and publishing company specialising in rather risque web-to-print publications, followed by a site that allowed city dwellers (specifically Londoners) to share miscellaneous information about their town. Bringing Nothing to the Party is a very entertaining, voyeuristic account of Carr's journey to achieve dot com success by becoming "a new media whore".

The book is full of flagrant namedropping. There's even more shameless gossip about the endless rounds of boozy socialising, otherwise known as peer networking that Carr found himself engaged in - necessary to make the right contacts to raise capital for one's start-up company of course.

What's great about this expose of the incestuous web of cyberspace opportunists is that you don't have to be a computer whiz to enjoy it; Carr keeps the technicalities to a minimum, and his breezy, witty, honest narrative brings plenty of chuckles to the party.

© 2008 The Age

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