I originally wanted to talk to Mike Slade about Starwave, the innovative company that launched some major names onto the web, including ESPN.com, ABCNews.com, MrShowbiz.com, and after an eventual sale to Disney, put together the pieces that eventually became the Go.com portal play. But Mike is one of those guys who has had such a varied and interesting career, I couldn't help but go into other eras of his career. The dude worked at Microsoft in the early 1980s. He worked at NeXT in the early 90s...
Sep 05, 2016•1 hr 5 min•Transcript available on Metacast We've spoken a lot on this show about Netscape and the "Browser Wars," but there's a key angle to this story that we haven't had the chance to delve into yet. While Netscape was out in California creating Navigator, there was another company, Spyglass, that had licensed Mosaic's browser code and was attempting to build a business around web browsers at the exact same time. Spyglass helped bring browsers to market before Netscape did, and even went public before Netscape's famous IPO. And one mor...
Aug 28, 2016•56 min•Transcript available on Metacast Summary Joel Johnson has spent nearly his entire professional career, working in digital media. He went from being an anonymous online commenter to being an early editor of Gizmodo, to eventually becoming editorial director of Gawker Media. Essentially, Joel was there from the very beginning when blogging began to "go pro" and evolved into modern media as we know it today. Joel recounts the history of the blogging "industry," Gawker Media especially, and gives us his own perspective on where dig...
Aug 08, 2016•2 hr 45 min•Transcript available on Metacast Summary Steve Sasson was the inventor of the world's first digital camera. Because it's hard to imagine modern life without digital photography, it's maybe easy to forget what a marvel it really is. And Sasson has been front and center for the entire digital photography revolutions. In this episode, he recounts for us the sort of skunkworks project that led to the first digital camera, recalls the long gestation the technology had within the company that developed it, Kodak, and toward...
Aug 01, 2016•1 hr 8 min•Transcript available on Metacast Quick, special announcement of a book, based on the podcast, coming from Liveright (W.W. Norton) in 2018. Regular episode to come next monday... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Jul 25, 2016•11 min•Transcript available on Metacast Summary Jeff Wilkins was the co-founder and first CEO of CompuServe, perhaps the original consumer online service. Jeff recounts for us CompuServe's founding in 1970, the launch of it's consumer-facing service in 1980, and all of the innovations that CompuServe brought to life: the first commercial email product; the first newspapers online; the first airline listings; and most interestingly, CB Simulator, the grandaddy of all chat apps in the world. We even revisit the famous AOL CD carpet-bomb...
Jul 05, 2016•55 min•Transcript available on Metacast Special Note: We’re testing something new this week. You can read a full transcription of this episode here . Everyone’s favorite, friendly neighborhood Venture Capitalist, Hunter Walk, discusses four amazing segments of his career: Late Night With Conan O’Brien, Second Life, Google Adsense and YouTube. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information....
Jun 12, 2016•1 hr 14 min•Transcript available on Metacast Summary Ken and Roberta Williams were the founders of the legendary PC gaming company Sierra Online . Assistant Professor of Digital Media in the School of Literature, Media and Communication at Georgia Tech , Laine Nooney, joins the show to discuss the history and legacy of Sierra Online. You can find out more about Laine's work at her website, LaineNooney.com and by following her on Twitter at Sierra_OffLine . Pictures of Ken and Roberta Williams: Picture 1 Picture 2 A screencap fr...
Jun 05, 2016•1 hr 13 min•Transcript available on Metacast Mark Selcow and Matt Glickman were the founders of BabyCenter.com. The story of BabyCenter is a combination of several themes we've discussed on this show: creating community as a strategy for building a sustainable audience, attempting e-commerce in the 1990s, and, most interestingly, we get into an in-depth discussion of their experiences of the DotCom bubble. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information....
May 30, 2016•1 hr 2 min•Transcript available on Metacast Summary Larry Kramer was the founder of MarketWatch.com. He’s also been the President and Publisher of USA Today and he’s currently interim CEO of TheStreet.com. We talk to him about creating a brand like MarketWatch in a space dominated by powerful incumbents like The Wall Street Journal, CNBC and others. But we also hear what it was like to work in the legendary Washington Post newsroom in the 1970s and 80s, as well as what it takes to bring success to modern media properties like USA Today in...
May 22, 2016•1 hr 25 min•Transcript available on Metacast Summary Marc Tarpenning, along with Martin Eberhard, was the cofounder of Tesla Motors back in 2003. But before that, Tarpenning and Eberhard were also the cofounders of NuvoMedia, which produced one of the world's first ebook devices, the rocket eBook. So, for the first part of the episode, Mark recounts the story of NuvoMedia and then about 25 minutes in we begin the founding of Tesla, in my opinion, perhaps the most amazing startup story of the last 20 years. See acast.com/privacy...
May 15, 2016•1 hr 23 min•Transcript available on Metacast Summary Tom Rielly was the founder of PlanetOut, the largest LGBT website and community of the 1990s. Tom recounts the unique impact the web and online technology had on the LGBT community and, prior to that, remembers the early days of the Mac industry. But of course, Tom is best known today for his work at TED, where he is director of Community as well as the TED Fellows program. So we get some interesting TED history as well, especially how posting TED Talks online has transformed the&nb...
May 09, 2016•1 hr 24 min•Transcript available on Metacast Summary What more do I need to say? Joey and Carl are back for round two. You can visit the Suck archives here . See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
May 02, 2016•1 hr 25 min•Transcript available on Metacast Summary I can't be sure about this exactly, but I would hazard to say Rafat Ali is possibly patient zero when it comes to taking a blog and turning it into a real, 21st century media company. Before the Huffington Post, before TechCrunch, even, maybe, kind of, before Gawker, Rafat founded PaidContent in 2002. He later sold it to the Guardian Media Group in 2008. Today he is the CEO of Skift.com, a media vertical in the travel industry space. Rafat has such an amazing story: an imm...
Apr 25, 2016•2 hr 32 min•Transcript available on Metacast I know it’s a bit beyond our usual chronology of 90s-era technology, but car tech has come up so much in recent episodes, that I thought it was high time to learn more about the history and future of automotive tech. Electronic vehicles, Tesla, autonomous vehicles, but also, basic recent car tech advances like navigation systems and the like. So, to help me with that, I spoke with Mike Dushane, a 20 year web veteran, like myself, but also a veteran of Automobile Magazine, Car and Driver and, gen...
Apr 10, 2016•1 hr 18 min•Transcript available on Metacast Summary Matt Kursh was a part of the pre-web Silicon Valley frenzy for pen computing that we’ve spoken about several times on this show. Matt is kind enough to give us an in depth look at that mini-bubble and explains how it happened and how it paved the way, in a roundabout way, for modern handheld devices. Matt was also involved in several Microsoft initiatives in the 1990s, including the pioneering local site Sidewalk and MSN.com at the height of the portal era. See acast.com/priv...
Mar 21, 2016•1 hr 7 min•Transcript available on Metacast Summary To celebrate our 100th episode, we’re taking a special look at one of the foundational legends of the technology industry. It’s about the man who invented the modern disc operating system (the OS) and the concept of the software platform. That man was Gary Kildall. And the question we examine in this episode is, why is Bill Gates the richest man in the world, and not Gary Kildall? Could things have turned out differently? In this episode we use audio from the following documentaries: Tri...
Mar 13, 2016•2 hr 39 min•Transcript available on Metacast Summary Carl Steadman and Joey Anuff were the founders of perhaps the most influential of the early web content sites, Suck.com. If you’re unfamiliar with Suck, you’re about to get a taste of why so many of us have been such big fans for so long. If you’re a longtime follower of the adventures of Joey and Carl, then get ready for some of that old time stuff, for the first time in 20 years. You can visit the Suck archives here . See acast.com/privacy for privacy an...
Feb 28, 2016•2 hr 39 min•Transcript available on Metacast Summary Rob Lord was the founder of the Internet Underground Music Archive all the way back in 1993. This would become the first website devoted to the distribution of music via MP3 downloads, and very much paved the way for a lot of what came later. Before almost anyone else, Rob had a vision that digital would be the future of music distribution, and he has pursued that vision throughout his career, which includes such music related startups as N2K, Muse.net and the Songbird player. We’ve actu...
Feb 24, 2016•57 min•Transcript available on Metacast Summary Most of you will know Chris Fralic as a partner in the VC firm First Round Capital, here in New York City. But Chris was also heavily involved in two key companies that we’ll be talking more about over the next year, Half.com and del.icio.us. Chris gives us the history and context for those two innovators, and shares stories from an interesting career, stories that range from competing against Michael Dell to sell computers to launching TED Talks online. As an added personal historical b...
Feb 14, 2016•54 min•Transcript available on Metacast Summary I wanted to speak to Quentin Stafford-Fraser because he was involved in the first “web” cam. I say “web” in quotes because, it wasn’t technically on the web, but, well, you’ll understand the distinction when you listen. But Dr. Stafford-Fraser has been involved in so many things, right up to the present day, that I couldn’t help but ask him about the rest of his fascinating career. So, come for the webcam stuff, but stay to hear about studying computer science under the founding legends ...
Feb 08, 2016•1 hr 11 min•Transcript available on Metacast Summary Paul Sagan has had a long and illustrious career, which includes: 1) stints working on the Full Service Network, that interactive tv initiative in Orlando Florida that we've mentioned several times in the past, as well as 2) being a key member of the team that developed Pathfinder , one of the very first professionally produced content sites on the world wide web. He was also heavily involved in the development of another company we've mentioned previously , Akamai Technologies, whe...
Feb 01, 2016•46 min•Transcript available on Metacast There's a certain romance surrounding dorm room startups. From Microsoft, to Dell, to Facebook, there's something about the audacity of building a company before you even get your degree that catches the imagination. The title for the first of the Dot Com dorm room startup probably goes to Tripod, which was founded all the way back in 1992 by Bo Peabody. Bo recounts how Tripod stumbled upon one of the earliest antecedents for what today we would call social media, and gives us an amazing analysi...
Jan 10, 2016•48 min•Transcript available on Metacast SummaryToday we’re going to talk a bit about alternate Internets. In previous episodes, we have outlined how, going back to the 1970s and 80s, early experiments with networked computing and online services began using a technology called Videotex. So, I wanted to dig deeper into these experiments to look at them as valuable precursors to the world wide web and the modern Internet. It is unlikely, for various technical reasons, that videotex could have evolved systems that could have challenged t...
Jan 03, 2016•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast Summary Dale Dougherty was the organizer of the world’s first ever web developers conference, the World Wide Web Wizards Workshop in July of 1993. This was where Tim Berners-Lee and Marc Andreessen first met. Dale is also the man who coined the term “Web 2.0” when he organized the first Web 2.0 Summit. But Dale was also the co-founder of the web’s first ever commercial website, Global Network Navigator, or GNN. Today, Dale is probably best known as the founder of Make Magazine, Maker F...
Dec 14, 2015•57 min•Transcript available on Metacast Summary If you'll remember in Episode 32 , we explored the early digital media startups like Salon, Slate, Suck, Pathfinder, etc. One site that was mentioned, but did not get a lot of detail in that episode was Feed Magazine (aka, Feedmag.com, or Feed). The reason I couldn't go into much detail is because secondary sourcing about Feed is difficult to come by 20 years on. And that's what I was absolutely delighted to make contact with Stefanie Syman. Stefanie, along with Steven Johnson ...
Dec 07, 2015•46 min•Transcript available on Metacast Summary I don't think very many people, twenty years ago, would have imagined that maps, location technology and the like would prove to be so strategically important and structurally integral to the Internet and modern technology as we're coming to know it. One person who might have had the vision was Barry Glick, founding CEO of MapQuest. Barry was there in the early days when maps and computers first met, and he has stayed in the location tech industry through the emergence of GPS, mobil...
Nov 20, 2015•1 hr 11 min•Transcript available on Metacast Summary Tom Hadfield was the founder of Soccernet, which is still the premiere soccer (football!) website in the world. But just as the title says, Tom began Soccernet when he was twelve or thirteen. So, certainly, Tom takes the cake, out of anyone we’ve spoken with so far, for having been in the Internet Game his entire life. Tom tells us the unique story of Soccernet’s founding and how it ended up with ESPN. As a bonus, since Tom is the first person we’ve spoken to from outside of No...
Nov 09, 2015•46 min•Transcript available on Metacast Summary: In the early 1990s, Brad Silverberg was one of the key champions of the Internet within Microsoft. As the first ever Senior Vice President of the Internet Platform and Tools Group, he essentially led Microsoft’s efforts to embrace the Internet and the Web beginning in late 1995. As the senior Vice President of the Personal-Systems Division, Brad also led the development of Windows, from the launch of Windows 3.0 through Windows 95, which he helped establish as Microsoft’s greatest ever ...
Nov 02, 2015•45 min•Transcript available on Metacast Summary: One of the big trends of recent years in the tech space has been the rise of delivery startups like Instacart and Postmates and the like. In a way, this is a resurrection of an idea, if you remember famous 90s startups like WebVan, Peapod and Kozmo.com. So, I thought it would be interesting to speak with someone who founded a delivery startup back in the 90s. Tim DeMello was the founder of Streamline, a delivery startup which actually predated the dot-com era. We talk to Tim about the e...
Oct 26, 2015•24 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
