Which hosts have been around for the longest?

http://verio.com/ :D

We started in '98. A lifetime ago in this industry. :)

Cheers

Gary

Originally posted by Editor
We started in '98. A lifetime ago in this industry. :)

Cheers

Gary
G'day Gramps. :D ;)

- Dellhost
- Verio
- Easyspace

Dellhost? Yeah, right. It was formed in 2000 from Dell I believe, much later than the majority of the market. I know of a few, but I would say OLM is probably one of the oldest, as they started when web hosting was really starting to exist and that is where big hosts such as *****, and many others started there as resellers.

Curtis

Originally posted by NexDog
http://verio.com/ :D

They were organized in early 1997 (domain registered Dec 1996).

Earlier would be pair (Aug 95), clever.net (re-registered, but probably 1995), hiway (late 1996?), he.net (1995?), netmar (1995?), etc etc. And of course many ISPs were doing a little Web hosting in 1994 or thereabouts, a natural development from things like FTP site hosting earlier than that (rahul.net).

Kevin

Possibly Addr.com, A friend of mine has hosted with them since 1999. So I guess they may be older than that.

CommuniTech.net has been around for a long time, their domain was registered in March 1997. My company is much younger, started in 1999 and took on the name Atlanta Web Host in 2000.

Best regards,
Frank Rietta

Digiweb - May 1995 (We hosted with them in June 1995)
clever.net - late 1995 (hosted with them in late 95)
colossus.net - late 1995 (hosted with them in early 96)

:)

Here's a page WorldCom had back in 1996
http://web.archive.org/web/19961226203733/http://www.worldcom.com/
It's a bit beat up due to it's age lol but interesting to note: WorldCom hosts Web sites for some of the world's leading companies, including Lotus' site for the Domino Web Developer's Conference. I _think_ "browsing" really began to boom in 1993. So anyone actually in the business since then would be in the "old category". I found a site claiming to be in hosting since 1993 but could find no older pages for them and their domain wasn't registered until 2000 so I don't know...

Here's a page from 1996 for "webhost.net"
http://web.archive.org/web/19961231104654/http://www.webhost.net/

Here's an old one for http://www.superb.net from 1996 as well...
http://web.archive.org/web/19961223131301/http://www.superb.net/
Superb was founded in 1996, but claims that Superb's management team has been involved with web hosting since 1993.

Quite a few of us started our own hosting companies in 1997/1998 as that's when I believe it really began to boom and high speed lines became "affordable" via collocation. My sites were hosted with ProWebSite in 1995/1996 but they have since sold out.

Prior to me hosting with a real "web host" I had sites hosted by my dial-up provider. The earliest page I could find from them is located at http://web.archive.org/web/19970618234507/http://www.pig.net/ which is pretty much what it looked like most of the time :P

But alas..... Let us not forget:

Founded in 1987, UUNET is recognized as the first commercial Internet service provider.

-- For the record if I may be so bold.. FutureQuest started in Jan of 1998 -- I think that makes us "middle-aged"

pair.com

From Pair's web site... pair Networks was founded at a time when truly reliable Web hosting was hard to find. Since January 1996, ... http://www.pair.com/pair/advantages.html

Another one not to be forgotten... America Online, Inc., based in Dulles, Virginia, is the world's leading Internet online service, with over 9 million members worldwide. AOL, founded in 1985, offers its subscribers a wide variety of interactive services including electronic mail, Instant Message features, entertainment, reference, financial information, computing support, interactive magazines and newspapers, as well as easy access to all the services of the Internet. Ok I stop now :D

Ok I lied...I can't help myself!

From 1996 http://web.archive.org/web/19961022173245/http://www.geocities.com/

Geocities was founded in 1994

I _really_ need to go back to work now!

webhosting.com

Originally posted by Deb
America Online, Inc., based in Dulles, Virginia, is the world's leading Internet online service, with over 9 million members worldwide. AOL, founded in 1985, offers its subscribers a wide variety of interactive services including electronic mail, Instant Message features, entertainment, reference, financial information, computing support, interactive magazines and newspapers, as well as easy access to all the services of the Internet.

Hmmm. I don't think this counts. They didn't start out as an "internet" company. They were more like a giant BBS. They didn't even support web browsing until 1995 or so. The only thing that they offered that was internet related was e-mail. I think they may have had newsgroup access, but their proprietary reader was awful.

I think Interland.net is one of the oldest that I know. One of the first ones I used was HostingSolutions.net. They had three servers then, and they have three servers now!

I think geocities ranks up there. I remember when their service first came out. I signed up right away cause they had banner ads all over prodigy.

My X-Files Fan Site soon found a home @ geocities.

I think each user got like 2 megs of space.

;)

Zach

Hypermart.net was founded in '96

"Founded in 1996, HyperMart became part of the Go2Net Network in 1998 and merged with InfoSpace in October 2000."

oldest viewable page: http://web.archive.org/web/19981205110215/http://hypermart.net/

I started with hypermart in '98 I believe.

They purchased their domain August 25 1997.

We've been in business since 1991, and in the web hosting business since late 1996. BurstNET is one of the few remaining privately owned hosting companies that has been around that long...most have sold out or merged, etc...

Sean R.
BurstNET

A lot of hosting companies seem to have emerged around 1995, when the world wide web became popular. A local ISP around here started in 1995, and they do hosting for local businesses.

*****

I thought Verio started off in Inflow. The dates sure don't show that though.