The Wild Frontier:
1985 - 1990
as America Online
The Internet bulletin-board system Quantum Computer Services acquires a new name, America Online (AOL), and focuses on recruiting a diverse, broad-based subscribership. From 1989 to 1998, AOL grows from its roots as an insignificant start-up with barely 100,000 members, to an industry leader with more than 14 million members.
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The founder of Quantum, Steve Case, claims he was born with entrepreneurial blood. His childhood venture, a lemonade stand, was profitable, as were four companies he founded while attending Williams College in Massachusetts. Graduating with a degree in business, he worked for Proctor and Gamble and Pizza Hut and gained valuable experience in the corporate world.
In 1982 Case bought a Kaypro personal computer, hoping to participate in the early world of online bulletin-board systems (BBS). He had a tough and costly time getting the equipment -- computer, modem, software, cable -- to work together, but when the system was rolling, he was thrilled to be able to reach out via computer from his home in Wichita, Kansas. His frustration with the difficulty of setting up his connection and his excitement to communicate with others outside his local community were experiences that likely influenced his ease-of-use focus, when he founded his own BBS a few years later.
Case moved to Virginia in 1983 to work for Control Video, a company planning to send Atari video games to customers' computers via modems and telephone lines. The company failed, but Case picked up the pieces and started Quantum Computer Services, a BBS for users of Commodore-64 computers. In 1985, Quantum began offering a graphical-user interface (GUI) BBS for PCs and soon expanded GUI services to Apple and Tandy computers. Implementing vigorous marketing schemes, Quantum was attempting to catch up and compete with existing online services and BBSs, such as CompuServe, the Source, Genie, Viewtron, and Prodigy. Quantum, with a few thousand subscribers, had a long way to go; Prodigy, a joint venture of IBM and Sears, already boasted more than a million members.
In 1989, Case gives Quantum a face lift, renaming it America Online, and continues to recruit members by appealing to a technically illiterate, mainstream audience. AOL expands its services to offer general Internet access in the early 1990s and grows quickly, gathering 4 million members by 1994. Through some troubling times in 1995 and 1996 -- service bottlenecks and crashes, dissatisfied customers and lawsuits -- AOL emerges scathed but still strong. With a single 1997 deal, AOL takes over CompuServe (and its 2.6 million members) and WorldCom, a telephone company with hundreds of miles of high-capacity line. And in 1998 AOL announces plans to swallow Netscape Corporation, makers of World Wide Web tools and software. AOL promises to be a dominant player in the next phase of online multimedia technology.
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The success of the WELL inspired the creation of many other virtual communities. One of them, the New York-based Echo, was founded by WELL member Stacy Horn in 1990. Echo is noteworthy not only because it has survived the onslaught of big services like America Online, but also because its users are forty percent female -- a remarkable achievement in male-dominated cyberspace. Here Horn answers questions about the making of a virtual community. Q: What was your first virtual community? What got you hooked? The WELL. Kathleen Creighton got me hooked. Someone on The WELL said something along the lines of "You suck," and I probably came back with the always snappy, "Oh yeah? Well, you suck," then Kathleen emailed me and said, "Will you just ignore that person already? They're an idiot." Virtual chemistry. I had made my first online friend. Q: What caused you to branch out from the WELL and start Echo? Their humor was very different than mine, there were almost no women, and few people from NYC. It made me homesick. Journalists wrote that I started Echo to provide a safe place for women on the Net. This was not the reason at all. I wanted to get more women on Echo to make Echo better. And safety is not an effective lure. Come to Echo, we're safe. That would be like hanging out a sign that said: BORING. Q: How did you secure the money to begin Echo? I used the severance pay I got from my employer. I tried to raise capital but I couldn't convince anyone that the Internet was going to be hot. I think this makes me the worst salesperson that has ever lived, ever. Q: How do you go about recruiting women? The most effective thing I did to get more women online was also the most controversial. I made sure that half the [conference] hosts on Echo were women. Cyber-affirmative action. The Echoids cried: Quotas! Tokenism! But I suspected that it mattered less how differently men and women communicate. What mattered was that there were so few of us. If we were a force, our style would be incorporated into the discourse of cyberspace. Q: If a financial "angel" were to show up with $100 million to improve Echo, what sorts of things would you do? First I'd tell them to keep most of it. Then I'd put in a new interface, upgrade the equipment, have a lot more face-to-face events, finally do some real marketing. Then I'd buy a nice new outfit with cute little black boots. |