On the Way to the Web: The Secret History of the Internet and Its Founders

On the Way to the Web: The Secret History of the Internet and Its Founders

by Michael A. Banks
Released July 2008
Publisher(s): Apress
ISBN: 9781430208693

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Book description

On the Way to the Web: The Secret History of the Internet and Its Founders is an absorbing chronicle of the inventive, individualistic, and often cantankerous individuals who set the Internet free. Michael A. Banks describes how the online population created a new culture and turned a new frontier into their vision of the future.

This book will introduce you to the innovators who laid the foundation for the Internet and the World Wide Web, the man who invented online chat, and the people who invented the products all of us use online every day. Learn where, when, how and why the Internet came into being, and exactly what hundreds of thousands of people were doing online before the Web. See who was behind it all, and what inspired them.

Table of contents

  1. Cover Page
  2. Title Page
  3. Copy Right
  4. Dedication
  5. Brief Contents
  6. Contents
  7. FOREWORD
  8. About the Author
  9. About the Technical Reviewer
  10. Preface
  11. Acknowledgments
  12. Introduction
  13. CHAPTER 1 Looking Back: Where Did It All Begin?
    1. In the Beginning ...
    2. Lo!
  14. CHAPTER 2 In the Money
    1. The First Online Content
    2. The First Information Superhighway
  15. CHAPTER 3 Making Contact with CompuServe
  16. CHAPTER 4 The Source
  17. CHAPTER 5 Dis-content and Conflict
    1. Videotex
    2. Growing Pains at The Source
    3. Customer Loyalty and Growth
    4. Usenet Newsgroups
    5. Microcomputer Bulletin Boards
  18. CHAPTER 6 Evolution
    1. Games
    2. Pirate Software
    3. Online Gaming
    4. Early File Sharing and User Publishing
    5. Chat
    6. Special-Interest Groups
    7. CompuServe Forums
  19. CHAPTER 7 Online Experiments
    1. Gateways
    2. New Kids on the Block
  20. CHAPTER 8 Trials and Errors
    1. Something Old, Nothing New
    2. Newspapers and Newsletters Online
    3. Consumer Movement
    4. Encyclopedias Online
    5. More Experiments
    6. Meanwhile, Back at the ARPA Ranch ...
  21. CHAPTER 9 The Second Wave
    1. DELPHI
    2. More Regional Online Services
    3. The First Dot-Com Bust
    4. GEnie
    5. AOL DNA, Part 1
    6. AOL DNA, Part 2: Gameline and Control Video Corporation
    7. AOL DNA, Part 3: Playnet
  22. CHAPTER 10 AOL Gestation
  23. CHAPTER 11 The Third Wave
    1. American People/Link (Plink)
    2. BIX (Byte Information eXchange)
    3. USA Today Sports Center
    4. The WELL
    5. Quantum Link (Q-Link)
    6. Trin-what?
  24. CHAPTER 12 In with the New, Out with the Old
    1. Great Product, Great Customers—Where's the Money?
    2. Great Expectations
    3. The Entrepreneur Who Wouldn't Go Away, Redux
    4. AppleLink–Personal Edition
    5. PC-Link
    6. Sour Apples
    7. The Competition Wakes
    8. Front Ends
    9. Another Online Casualty
  25. CHAPTER 13 AOL Evolves: Expansion, Integration, and Success
    1. Independence
    2. Promenade
    3. The Great Commingling
    4. AOL for PCs: DOS and Windows
    5. Planning Ahead
    6. Marketing AOL
      1. Carpet-Bombing America
  26. CHAPTER 14 Prodigy: The Flat-Rate Pioneer Who Just Didn't Get It
    1. In the Beginning ...
    2. Videotex Again?
    3. New & Improved
    4. Online Advertising?
    5. Prodigy Call Home
    6. Censored!
    7. "Of Course You Realize ... This Means War!"
    8. No, Not Spyware!
    9. "Didn't Prodigy Invent the Internet?"
    10. Files, Anyone?
    11. Turning On the Meter
    12. Chat, at Last
  27. CHAPTER 15 Moving to the Net
    1. International Expansion
    2. Apple Replay
    3. Opening Up the Internet
    4. Online Services and the Internet
    5. One Step Forward, Two Steps Back
    6. Where Are They Now?
  28. Afterword
  29. APPENDIX A Online Timeline
    1. 1945
    2. 1957
    3. 1960
    4. 1961
    5. 1962
    6. 1963
    7. 1964
    8. 1965
    9. 1966
    10. 1967
    11. 1968
    12. 1969
    13. 1970
    14. 1971
    15. 1972
    16. 1973
    17. 1974
    18. 1975
    19. 1976
    20. 1977
    21. 1978
    22. 1979
    23. 1980
    24. 1981
    25. 1982
    26. 1983
    27. 1984
    28. 1985
    29. 1986
    30. 1987
    31. 1988
    32. 1989
    33. 1990
    34. 1991
    35. 1992
    36. 1993
    37. 1994
  30. APPENDIX B Bibliography
  31. APPENDIX C Founders
  32. Index

Product information

  • Title: On the Way to the Web: The Secret History of the Internet and Its Founders
  • Author(s): Michael A. Banks
  • Release date: July 2008
  • Publisher(s): Apress
  • ISBN: 9781430208693