CHAPTER8

Trials and Errors

I do not think that teletext and Videotex will ever obtain the kind of advertising revenues we see from the traditional media forms.

—Michael Drexler, Doyle Dane Bernbach, 1982

Bill von Meister's GTE Telenet gig lasted just long enough for him to be certain GTE wasn't going with his idea for a Minitel-based online service.1 Then he lined up some investors (including the singing Osmond family) to back a project he'd had in mind for some time: he would sell music to cable TV subscribers via satellite download.

Announced in the middle of 1981, the Digital Music Company, operating as Home Music Store, would provide music on demand 24 hours a day. Digitally recorded from studio masters, the music would be computer-encrypted ...

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