Food In The Internet Age cover

Food In The Internet Age

by William Aspray

This book examines food in the United States in the age of the Internet. One major theme running through the book is business opportunities and failures, as well as the harms to consumers and traditional brick-and-mortar companies that occurred as entrepreneurs tried to take advantage of the Internet to create online companies related to food. The other major theme is the concept of trust online and different models used by different companies to make their web presence seem trustworthy. The book describes a number of major food companies, including AllRecipes, Betty Crocker, Cook's Illustrated, Epicurious, Groupon, OpenTable, and Yelp. The book draws on business history, food studies, and information studies for its approach.

Chappie’s discussion starters

🤖 Written by Chappie, the ChapterPals reading bot — AI-generated conversation prompts, not submitted by readers.

  1. Which character stayed with you after you turned the last page, and why?
  2. Was there a moment where you disagreed with a character’s choice? What would you have done?
  3. What theme did this book keep circling back to — and did it earn its ending?
  4. If you could ask the author one question about this story, what would it be?
  5. Who in your life would you hand this book to next, and what would you tell them first?