What I mean by that, is who were the first batch of companies that started selling virtual accounts to end line users?? Is there some kind of a timeline anywhere? :)

I'm pretty sure Al Gore founded the first webhosting company. This was most likely in the weeks - months following his invention of the actual internet.

Originally posted by VurtKonnegut
I'm pretty sure Al Gore founded the first webhosting company. This was most likely in the weeks - months following his invention of the actual internet.
He was a busy bloke indeed. :emlaugh:

I would say they were the 1st ISPs .. AOL, UUNET, etc ...
But I miss the days when I ran a BBS from my one home telephone line and it was more then enough to keep me in business ...

Yeah i would say it was probably the ISP's.

Originally posted by HingyGuy
I would say they were the 1st ISPs .. AOL, UUNET, etc ... It was ISPs, but local dialup providers who began to add hosting to their set of services. It certainly wasn't AOL, which doesn't deserve to be called one of "the first ISPs," by the way. They, as with the other online services (Compuserve, Prodigy) was late to the scene, not even providing regular access to the Internet until 1995. I was as late; my first site went up in 1995, hosted at a fairly large NYC provider.

Originally posted by VurtKonnegut
I'm pretty sure Al Gore founded the first webhosting company. This was most likely in the weeks - months following his invention of the actual internet.

Hehe, that's classic stuff. I hope Al Gore does run again in 2004 for that very reason, I miss his "embellishments", and then getting caught.

Remember when he recalled his mother singing him to sleep with the song "look for the union label"? Then someone noted that he was 27 when the song was written... lol... classic

Originally posted by VurtKonnegut
I'm pretty sure Al Gore founded the first webhosting company. This was most likely in the weeks - months following his invention of the actual internet.
I believe that was "discovered" not "invented", as when he turned on his new computer and said "Come here Honey and see what I just discovered."

Actually, Al Gore never said he invented the Internet. He said this:

"During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet."

Granted, that could have been a better-constructed sentence. But it's true that, while in Congress, Gore played a major role in pushing through several initiatives that advanced the technology behind the Internet. Of course, the Internet had been "invented" long before Gore was in office, but he played a significant role in allowing it to become what it is today.

Vint Cerf, often called "the father of the Internet" himself, says this on the subject: The Vice President was among the first of the members of Congress to recognize the importance of the Internet and his interest as far back as 1986 (to my certain knowledge) led him to sponsor legislation and to speak favorably about optical networks, high performance computing, and led to programs such as the National Research and Education Network program, the Next Generation Internet program and so on.
[...]
His remark was almost certainly a slip of the tongue, because he'd be quite correct to say "I helped create the Internet" - because of his work to provide an environment of support for research, technology transfer and ecommerce initiatives so fundamental to the Internet today. Cerf's full comments are on his site at uunet: http://www.worldcom.com/uunet/be/resources/cerfs_up/internet_history/q_and_a.xml#question_11

I have spoken with some of the original employees of webhosting.com, I am pretty sure they are one of the original ones although probably not the first.

Just look at some of the domain names and that will give you a good clue.

Vint Cerf's opinion on the matter is completely moot. He said "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." Sorry, he did not.

Al Gore's lies, or "embellishments" as the media likes to call them, is well known and extremely well documented as well as fairly prolific. Many of them dating way back, and noted by his party peers, such as when Mike Dukakis in 88 told him, "If you want to be president of the United States, you
better start by being accurate." Or Bill Bradley asking him, "When you don't tell the truth as a candidate, how
can people trust you to tell the truth when you are president?"

I would list them here if not for the fact it's really unrelated to the original post.

[topic drift]

Originally posted by MDJ2000
Al Gore's lies, or "embellishments" as the media likes to call them, is well known and extremely well documented as well as fairly prolific. I wouldn't disagree with that at all -- he's a politician and is far from alone there. However: in a discussion of someone else's inaccuracies it's a good idea to be accurate oneself, but almost every discussion of Al Gore and Internet begins with the statement that Gore said that he "invented the Internet." It's an inaccurate statement; that's not what he said. In the interest of accuracy, I presented the exact quote.

In the further interest of accuracy, I presented a summary of the role that Gore really played. Cerf knows as much about that as anyone, and as someone about whom the statement "he was one of the creators of the Internet" would have at least a grain of truth, his opinion is of interest.

[/topic drift]

Some of the pioneers/older ones:
digiweb, clever.net, colossus.net, pair.com
:)

- John C.

Wow, I got an educated response! No offense, but I find that growing more rare around here these days.

I understand your point, but I think you're parsing words here. I give most people including VurtKonnegut (Great nick BTW) the credit that he's more than likely aware of what Gore actually said word for word. I'm not going to expect him or anyone else to post a link or footnote to the exact quote everytime they make a joke.

The bottom line is, what he actually said was inaccurate, misleading and insinuating that he actually had something to do with creating the internet. What he "meant" to say doesn't mean anything.

Be very careful with playing that "interest of accuracy" position to a tee, people will parse words with you all day long, as anything can be left open for interpretation.

Originally posted by Brad@RackMy
I have spoken with some of the original employees of webhosting.com, I am pretty sure they are one of the original ones although probably not the first.

Just look at some of the domain names and that will give you a good clue.

Why is their domain name registered Feb 1, 2002? Was it sold or transferred in a re-registration fashion?

Best.Com was the first really successful "virtual Web host for $20" places. In fact, pair.com was registered there before we had our services up and running (Jan 11, 1996). They were eventually Borg'ed, after going through a really nasty time of trying to run on SGI machines.

I originally hosted some FTP sites with rahul.net back, oh, in 1993 or 1994. There were relatively few ISPs who were hip enough to let customers do this, and those ISPs were the first to adopt Web hosting (the bigger ISPs totally missed out on this).

It's hard to say where was the first place an average user could pay commercially to have a Web site appear, however. Most early sites were simply at Universities and no one was thinking of commercial usage just yet.

Kevin

ps Edit typo.

Wow, I got an educated response! No offense, but I find that growing more rare around here these days.

Rare? Threatened with extinction, i think. Notice how few people respond to someone that makes a lucid statement. There are some sharp folks here, of course, just couldn't help agreeing with you.

Originally posted by HingyGuy
I would say they were the 1st ISPs .. AOL, UUNET, etc ...
But I miss the days when I ran a BBS from my one home telephone line and it was more then enough to keep me in business ...

Yeah those were tha days!! I had the busiest BBS here in Athens... those were the good times

Originally posted by sigma


Why is their domain name registered Feb 1, 2002? Was it sold or transferred in a re-registration fashion?

Best.Com was the first really successful "virtual Web host for $20" places. In fact, pair.com was registered there before we had our services up and running (Jan 11, 1996). They were eventually Borg'ed, after going through a really nasty time of trying to run on SGI machines.

I originally hosted some FTP sites with rahul.net back, oh, in 1993 or 1994. There were relatively few ISPs who were hip enough to let customers do this, and those ISPs were the first to adopt Web hosting (the bigger ISPs totally missed out on this).

It's hard to say where was the first place an average user could pay commercially to have a Web site appear, however. Most early sites were simply at Universities and no one was thinking of commercial usage just yet.

Kevin

ps Edit typo.

They were bought and sold a # of times ... the company originally started as dynamicweb.net which was originally registered in October 97.

Inquent bought them out in 99 or 200o and then i think inquent was bought out after that.

Whether they were the first or not I dont know... but you could probably hunt down Jesse Rasch... He could tell you how many were in business when he started up.

Incedentally, if the stories are right, he started this in his first year of College as a thing for friends .....

Originally posted by MikeM

They were bought and sold a # of times ... the company originally started as dynamicweb.net which was originally registered in October 97.



October 97? Read the rest of this thread please :) January 96 for pair; probably early 95 for Best.com and Clever.net. Webcom used to claim 1994 - at least their domain name registration supports that.

Kevin

ahem...

Just read the websites man:
********** coined the term "Multi-Domain Hosting"
Elite Web Hosting is the first company to offer 60-day guarantee SoftTelTrade coined the term "NT and Unix hosting"
(weird how much "coining" is going around)


Several years back Webcom said straight up they were the world's first web hosting company, I just can't find that stupid interview

LOL... that sarcasim is even more effective with the name ****ed out :D.

Originally posted by JayC
It was ISPs, but local dialup providers who began to add hosting to their set of services. It certainly wasn't AOL, which doesn't deserve to be called one of "the first ISPs," by the way. They, as with the other online services (Compuserve, Prodigy) was late to the scene, not even providing regular access to the Internet until 1995. I was as late; my first site went up in 1995, hosted at a fairly large NYC provider.

1st company i heard to do that were pipeline and netcom... correct me if i am wrong... but really i think that 1st to do web hosting for big businesses were same companies who own huge colo. places now... like above.net he.net uunet etc... correct me if my thoughts are wrong...

Hey,

Run some of these domains thru the http://archive.org/ website and see how far back they go.
Also, you can see how some of these sites have progressed in site layout designs. Scary.. ;)

Kevin

According to Catalog.com, they were the first company in the world to offer SHARED hosting, in 1994.

http://www.catalog.com/v2/about_us.html

Originally posted by Kevin2001
Run some of these domains thru the http://archive.org/ website and see how far back they go.
Also, you can see how some of these sites have progressed in site layout designs. Scary.

Here's an interesting site to run through Archive.org:

www.persiankitty.com

Careful, adult content.

Oh, and want to know what the first domain name ever registered was?

symbolics.com

Here's a link to some other early-registered names:

http://www.1angle.com/Fun_Facts.htm

The first web space I ever had and used was the freebie space AOL gave me when I first went online in 1995. So I would agree ISP's were first. On a quick side note I just got a come back CD from AOL 2 weeks ago...I haven't used AOL since 1997! That some pretty good marketing! I'll probably be in that database forever!

I remember when AOL wasn't even an ISP. Those were the days...

Hey :wavey:

lol ;)

isnt there a database of all webhosts somewhere (Older) so that we can check? :D