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A capsule history of online news and information
systems
by David Carlson
© 1999-2003 All Rights Reserved
| Select a decade |
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| 1960s | 1970s | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s |
1995-99
| Year | U.K. | U.S. & Canada | Europe | Asia/Other |
| 1995 | Jan. 20: Mercury Center Web launches, complete with advertising. | Spain: at least 40,000 people have access to the Internet and some estimates say 200,000 Spanish people have access. | Aug. 24: Singapore's New Straits Times reports Asian newspapers such as the Singapore Business Times, Melbourne Age and Sydney Morning Herald have news available on the Web. | |
| 1995 con't |
Nando.net reports having 12 employees, 600 paying subscribers at $20 a month and some 7,700 users on 95 telephone lines. | Germany: AOL announces in February it will team with German media firm Bertlesmann to offer online services in Europe. | ||
| 1995 con't |
March: Chicago Tribune's first Web site, a classified ad service called Career Finder, ramps up. | Switzerland: CERN holds a two-day Web seminar for reporters. Some 250 European media attend. | ||
| 1995 con't |
March 24: Prodigy declares its first-ever profit, after cutting workforce to 550 from a high of 1,350. | |||
| 1995 con't |
April 19: Eight major newspaper publishing companies announce formation of New Century Network, an online advertising and content consortium. | Spain: In late March, “Avui” becomes the first Spanish daily to publish on the Internet. It is a paper from Barcelona, written in Catalan. Link | ||
| 1995 con't |
April: USA Today launches a direct-dialup service that actually is hosted on CompuServe. | |||
| 1995 con't |
The Pentium Pro processor is released by Intel. Speeds begin at 150 MHz. | |||
| 1995 con't |
StarNet from the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson debuts on the Internet. The Star also is an ISP. | |||
| 1995 con't |
May: More than 150 newspapers now have online editions, Quill reports. | |||
| 1995 con't |
Consumer online services (Compuserve, America Online, Prodigy) begin to provide limited Internet E-mail and USENET news. | |||
| 1995 con't |
June 10: Rupert Murdoch says he'll put all of News Corp.'s 130 papers online within two years. | Spain: “La Vanguardia” a Barcelona daily written in Spanish, launches "La Vanguardia Electronica de Barcelona," its Web edition in June. | ||
| 1995 con't |
Consumer online services experience 64% growth rate in 1995 and now reach 8.5 million members. | |||
| 1995 con't |
June 18: Minneapolis Star Tribune Online launches on Interchange. Screen shot | |||
| 1995 con't |
July: Microsoft launches its online service, the
Microsoft Network, or MSN. Charter subscriber pricing is $5.95
a month. Screen shot |
|||
| 1995 con't |
July 17: Washington Post's service, renamed Digital Ink, debuts on Interchange, which has been bought by AT&T. | |||
| 1995 con't |
July 31: Knight-Ridder closes its Information Design Lab in Boulder. It was founded in 1992 to spur development of a flat-panel interactive newspaper. | Spain: “El Diario Vasco,” a daily newspaper, starts a weekly edition on the Internet on Aug. 1. | ||
| 1995 con't |
August: Microsoft releases Windows 95. | |||
| 1995 con't |
Aug. 21: Gannett's USA Today begins offering its content free via the World Wide Web. | |||
| 1995 con't |
September: London's first cybercafe, "Cafe Internet," opens. | Aug. 28: StarText, the oldest newspaper BBS, announces it will begin a transition to the Web. | Spain: “ABC,” a national daily from Madrid, starts “ABC Electrónico” on the Web in September. Also “Diario 16 de Galicia” goes on the Internet this month. | December: Among Asian newspapers on the Web are: The China Daily, Utusan Malaysia, Kompas of Indonesia, Asahi Shimbun of Japan. |
| 1995 con't |
October: The Boston Globe launches Boston.com on the Web, a unique site bringing most Boston media online at a single site. | |||
| 1995 con't |
October: Careerpath.com, a joint jobs database, is launched by six major newspapers, the Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, San Jose Mercury News and Washington Post. | Spain: “El Correo Gallego” launches an Internet new site on Oct. 12. | ||
| 1995 con't |
November: The Arizona Republic launches Arizona Central on AOL, months after opening its first Web site with lodging, golf and dining guides rather than newspaper content. | Germany: CompuServe shuts access to some 200 Internet newsgroups after German prosecutors charge it with distributing pornography. | ||
| 1995 con't |
Nov. 20: Microsoft Network hits 500,000 subscriber mark. | August: Germany.net is launched as a free, advertising -supported ISP. | ||
| 1995 con't |
Editor & Publisher reports there are about 330 newspapers online: 38 BBSs, 45 affiliated with AOL, Prodigy or CompuServe and 230 on the Internet. | August: Online newspaper services worldwide: U.S. 208, Europe 56, Latin/South America 16, Canada 16, Asia 11, Australia/New Zealand 5, Africa 2, The Middle East 1. | Asia boasts 11 online newspapers, mostly on the Web. | |
| 1995 con't |
November: AOL-Germany launches in partnership with publisher Bertelsmann, AG. | |||
| 1995 con't |
November: Microsoft releases Internet Explorer 2.0, its first serious Web browser, and gives it away free in challenge to Netscape's Navigator. | Spain: “El Diario Vasco,” already offering a weekly Web edition, starts a daily Web edition. | ||
| 1995 con't |
December: AOL passes the 4 million subscriber mark. | Spain: Europa Press news agency announces a project to publish on the Internet. To develop it, they make an alliance with Telefonica. | ||
| 1996 | January: AOL launches its service in the UK. It attracts 150,000 subscribers by April 1997. | Jan. 21: The New York Times on the Web opens to the public. Registration is required, but access is free to U.S. residents. | France: AOL launches its French service in March. | |
| 1996 con't |
January: The UK is said to have about 200 ISPs who share about 100,000 users. | January: AT&T announces it will close Interchange, which it bought from publisher Ziff-Davis in 1995 for $50 million. | Luxembourg: Europe Online declares bankruptcy on Aug. 2 with $40 million in debts and 25,000 subscribers. | |
| 1996 con't |
February: Chicago Tribune announces it turned a profit in 1995 with Chicago Online, its AOL service, which now has 201,000 subscribers. | France Telecom says it will provide Internet access anywhere in France for the cost of a local call. | ||
| 1996 con't |
February: AOL hits the 5 million member mark. | |||
| 1996 con't |
March 14: Chicago Tribune launches its full-newspaper Web site. | |||
| 1996 con't |
April: NAA reports about 175 North American dailies are currently available on the World Wide Web. About 775 publications are available online worldwide. | LeMonde, France's largest daily, launches its Web site. | ||
| 1996 con't |
May 1: The Associated Press begins beta testing "the Wire," its proprietary Web site viewable only through a member newspaper's site. | Spain: “El País,” Spain's leading daily newspaper, launches its first site on the World Wide Web on May 4. | ||
| 1996 con't |
May: Wall Street Journal launches its Interactive Edition, a pay Web site. Cost: $49.95 a year. | |||
| 1996 con't |
May: UK Modem sales rise 66 percent to 4.51 million units in 1996. | May: Prodigy is sold to International Wireless Corp. for an estimated $200 million. IBM and Sears have invested about $1.2 billion. | ||
| 1996 con't |
June 15: The Washington Post and Minneapolis Star Tribune launch Web sites as their Interchange offerings ramp down. | France: Paris boasts 15 cybercafes by June 1. | ||
| 1996 con't |
June 30: AOL releases its Version 3.0 software. Rates are $9.95 for 5 hours per month or $19.95 for 20 hours. Extra hours are $2.95 each. | |||
| 1996 con't |
July: San Jose Mercury News announces it will leave AOL and concentrate on its Mercury Center Web efforts. | Spain: Europa Press and its partner Telefonica launch a Web site. | ||
| 1996 con't |
July: Microsoft and NBC partner and launch a cable TV channel and online news service called MSNBC. | |||
| 1996 con't |
Aug. 7: Overwhelmed with traffic, AOL crashes for nearly a whole day. It is nicknamed "America Offline." | September: CompuServe claims more than 800,000 users in Europe, mostly in Germany, France and Britain. | ||
| 1996 con't |
September: AOL, its stock having split three times in three years, moves trading to the New York Stock Exchange. The price hovers around $2, but begins to climb. | |||
| 1996 con't |
October: The Associated Press launches AP Online, a wire service to provide content for online newspapers. | Luxembourg: Europe Online comes back as a non-profit corporation on Oct. 10. | ||
| 1996 con't |
Oct. 21: Microsoft announces it will relaunch MSN with some content free to Internet users and "TV-like" content "channels." | Internet connections expand 300 percent in Brazil during 1996. | ||
| 1996 con't |
Oct. 30: AOL breaks the longtime consumer online service business model by announcing flat-rate pricing: $19.95 per month for unlimited access. | Germany: T-Online is Europe's biggest online service with 1.2 million users. It grows by 20,000 plus each month. | ||
| 1997 | February: Several states threaten to sue AOL because subscribers can't get through. AOL, plagued by busy signals, agrees to give refunds to millions of users. | Prodigy creates Africa Online, the largest ISP on the continent. | ||
| 1997 con't |
March: The queen unveils the royal Web site, www.royal.gov.uk | April: Largest consumer online services are AOL, 8 million, CompuServe, 5.3 million, Microsoft Network, 2 million, and Prodigy, 1 million. | April: Prodigy launches its service — with Internet access — in Shanghai on mainland China. | |
| 1997 con't |
April 15: Prodigy announces it will focus on being an Internet service provider and ramp down its consumer online service. | Germany: T-Online, Deutsch Telekom's online service, boasts 1.2 million members. | ||
| 1997 con't |
Sept. 8: Worldcom buys CompuServe for $1.2 billion and, in a complex deal, AOL ends up with CompuServe's content and its 2.6 million users. | |||
| 1997 con't |
Microsoft releases Internet Explorer 4.0 in stepped-up challenge to Netscape, whose share of browser market slips for the first time to less than 66 percent of users. | |||
| 1997 con't |
October: U.S. Justice Department sues Microsoft alleging it is a monopolist. | |||
| 1997 con't |
Nov. 14: The Pulitzer prize board opens the public-service prize competition to articles published online - but they must be entered on "a single CD-ROM." | |||
| 1997 con't |
November: America Online hits the 10-million subscriber mark. | |||
| 1998 | Feb. 10: America Online announces it will raise its monthly fee $2 to $21.95 for unlimited access. | High-definition television, or HD-TV, rolls out in Japan. Sets can cost $10,000. | ||
| 1998 con't |
April 13: Microsoft says it will shut down the Irish section of MSN and tells subscribers to sign up with Ireland OnLine. | February: AOL buys CompuServe for an undisclosed price.. | Internet access finally is allowed by the government of Tunisia in North Africa. | |
| 1998 con't |
June 25: Months behind schedule and plagued by an antitrust lawsuit, Microsoft releases Windows 98. | |||
| 1998 con't |
July 14: New York Times ends charges to overseas users of its New York Times on the Web. | The number of newspapers written in Spanish has increased 41% in the last year, from 230 to 325, according to Spain's “El Pais.” Some 93 are in Mexico and 54 are in Spain. | ||
| 1998 con't |
Number of Internet users in Spain: 2,247,000, according to "El Pais." Number of daily accesses of Spanish online newspapers: 150,000. | October: PubliNet, Tunisia's first cybercafe, opens in Tunis, but access to some sites is mysteriously blocked. | ||
| 1999 | January: America Online says it has added 4 million members in a single month, taking its total to 14 million. | |||
| 1999 con't |
February: One-quarter of U.S. newspaper Web sites are said to be profitable at E&P's Interactive Newspapers '99 conference. | |||
| 1999 con't |
March: America Online buys Netscape Communications, the company whose browser first popularized the World Wide Web. AOL stock hits $73.50. | |||
| 1999 con't |
June 1: Napster, a music file sharing service, is founded. It operates until 2001 when it is shut down by court order. | |||
| 1999 con't |
The New York Times says it will discontinue its @Times product on America Online. | |||
| 1999 con't |
Nov. 5: After a year-long antitrust suit, a federal court finds that Microsoft has a monopoly. | |||
| 1999 con't |
Nov. 10: Chicago Tribune says it will stop producing its AOL edition, concentrating on its Web presence. It continues, however, Digital Cities Chicago on AOL. |
| Select a decade |
||||
| 1960s | 1970s | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s |