Bit of online history:

Ziff-Davis was a publisher of magazines, mostly about photography, then computers when they came along. They ran some groups on CompuServe and other pre-Internet online services.

Recognizing that online experiences would be the Next Big Thing, and also having learned that the existing options like Prodigy sucked, Z-D embarked on a huge project to invent something new.

It used SGML, which became the parent of HTML.

It used stylesheets.

It used multitasking before Windows really could do it.

It used TCP/IP before Microsoft supported it.

It was not only going to host Z-D magazines, but also the Washington Post, the Star Tribune (Minneapolis), Gartner Group, and I think also some Connecticut newspapers. All paid content.

It was gorgeous, packed full of great ideas and great design work and custom fonts and offline functionality and ....

While Interchange was struggling with bugs and late delivery and servers that weren't up to snuff, the World Wide Web came along.

The Web was pathetic by comparison. Barely supported images and the simplest layout. No fonts. No forums, subscribeable packages, automated downloads, etc.

But the Web was open, free, and it worked. Unlike buggy Interchange.

Boom. In a matter of months it was over.

@online-news