Zuckerman was one of the first staff members ofTripod.com, one of the first successful "dot com" enterprises, where he worked from 1994 to 1999. There, he was in charge of the design and the implementation of the website, which at that time marketed content and services to recent college graduates. The business model of this website was exclusively based on advertising. After one of the website's major advertisers complained that one of theirbanner advertisements had appeared on a page that celebratedanal sex, Zuckerman imagined a way to associate an ad with a user's page without putting it directly on the page. His solution was to open a new dedicated window with only the ad in it. While Zuckerman claims having only written the code to open a new window, he is credited as the inventor of thepop-up ad.[8]
He won the MIT Technology Review "Technology in the Service of Humanity" award in 2002 for his work onGeekcorps.[11] Zuckerman has been a senior researcher at theBerkman Center for Internet and Society, where he is also a long-time fellow. His work at the Berkman Center has included research into global media attention,[12][13] as well as the co-founding ofGlobal Voices in collaboration withRebecca MacKinnon. For some years he was also a contributing writer forWorldchanging.com, where he served as president of the board of directors.
In April 2006, after the detention ofGlobal Voices bloggerHao Wu by Chinese authorities,[14] Zuckerman and MacKinnon ran a blog dedicated to platforming Wu's sister in her campaign for his release.[15]
In 2011, he was named byForeign Policy magazine to its list of top global thinkers, in which he stated theBest idea is "The world isn't flat and globalization is only beginning, which means we have time to change what we're doing and get it right".[16] Also in September of that year, he became the director of the MITCenter for Civic Media.[17]
Zuckerman was an Open Society Global Board member, and also sits on the board of directors ofUshahidi,[18]Global Voices,[19] and the Ghanaian journalism training nonprofit, PenPlusBytes.[20]
He was interviewed in the 2015 web documentary about internet privacy,Do Not Track.[21]
On July 1, 2016, Zuckerman was appointed Associate Professor of the Practice in Media Arts and Sciences at MIT.[3]
In 2019, revelations of Media Lab directorJoi Ito's connections withJeffrey Epstein, a convictedsex offender, shed light on the extent of monetary gifts from Epstein to the Media Lab and Ito's startups outside of MIT. Zuckerman resigned from his position[22] as director of the MITCenter for Civic Media, in protest of the Media Lab's involvement with Epstein.[23] He joined the faculty of theUniversity of Massachusetts at Amherst in April 2020.[6][24]
^Zuckerman v. Meta Platforms, Inc., 3:24-cv-02596, ECF No. 43, page 1 (N.D. Cal. November 22, 2024) ("Professor Zuckerman’s request for declaratory relief is not ripe for adjudication and seeks an unconstitutional advisory opinion."), archived from the original on March 5, 2025.
