On the Way to the Web: The Secret History of the Internet and Its Founders

On the Way to the Web: The Secret History of the Internet and Its Founders is an absorbing chronicle of the inventive, individualistic, and often cantankerous individuals who set the Internet free. Michael A. Banks describes how the online population created a new culture and turned a new frontier into their vision of the future. This book will introduce you to the innovators who laid the foundation for the Internet and the World Wide Web, the man who invented online chat, and the people who invented the products all of us use online every day. Learn where, when, how and why the Internet came into being, and exactly what hundreds of thousands of people were doing online before the Web. See who was behind it all, and what inspired them.

Table of Contents Looking Back: Where Did It All Begin? In the Money Making Contact with CompuServe The Source Dis-Content and Conflict Evolution Online Experiments Trials and Errors The Second Wave AOL Gestation The Third Wave In with the New, Out with the Old AOL Evolves: Expansion, Integration, and Success Prodigy: The Flat-Rate Pioneer Who Just Didn't Get It Moving to the Net