Robert Reid explores the history of the Net from a business perspective--how a communication system nominally built for national defense and in effect taken over by education and research came to erupt as the most important medium since television--and with greater speed and intensity than any communication medium ever. Each chapter examines the Web's business development through the story of one of its pioneers--including Marc Andreeson of Netscape, Mark Pesce of VRML, Jerry Yang of Yahoo!, Halsey Minor of CNET, and more. Its an exciting story of frantic activity in a whirlwind environment and of the individuals who rode the tornado to success.
From Library Journal
The origins of the rapidly evolving World Wide Web extend back only to late 1993. Reid, himself a veteran of web business ventures, describes how eight web pioneers and their businesses laid the groundwork for the web today. Drawing on interviews with founders and others, he chronicles the development of Netscape, RealAudio, the Java and VRML programming languages, I/PRO and web advertising, Yahoo!, HotWired, and CNET. Each of the book's eight main segments combines a company history with a biographical sketch of one of the company's entrepreneurial founders. The introduction by technology analyst J. Neil Weintraut clearly delineates the web's uniqueness as an efficient information medium. Despite several typos and the absence of documentation, this book is clearly written, providing good, solid information on an industry that is so new that details are sometimes hard to find. Highly recommended for both public and academic libraries serving readers interested in either the web or in doing business on it.?Lawrence R. Maxted, Gannon Univ., Erie, Pa.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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