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By 1990 or so, there was a company in Ohio selling books on the Internet. They had the books.com address - until web browsers came along later, you just logged
by ableal 18y ago
By 1990 or so, there was a company in Ohio selling books on the Internet. They had the books.com address - until web browsers came along later, you just logged in through telnet on a 'curses' capable terminal. It worked OK, and they shipped books on time with low fees, internationally. They had good word-of-mouth on Usenet.
A couple of years later, amazon.com came along claiming "a river of a million books". I think the books.com address was sold to Barnes&Noble around 2000.
- blogimus 18y agoAnother case is that of EzGov and govWorks (see the documentary Startup.com) As I understand, govWorks started in 1998 (not sure which month), EzGov started in April, 1999. EzGov appears to have survived and grew to be acquired by ChoicePoint in 2005. govWorks filed bankruptcy in 2001. So as others here say, there is a lot more than just the starting date at play.