Commentary

Early Days

Chatting with a couple amateur Internet "historians" last night -- and they offered some interesting tidbits about too former linchpins in the early "online communication" days: CompuServe and Prodigy.

Turns out CompuServe was purchased by H&R Block, looking ahead to online tax transactions, back in 1980. And Prodigy, launched four years later in 1984, was a co-venture between Sears, IBM and CBS. (CBS dropped out in 1986 as the company divested non-broadcast assets.)

In 1990, CompuServe led with 600,000 subscribers; Prodigy was at 400,000. (More details for both on Wikipedia.)

But soon AOL triumphed over both until ... ?

 

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