1 00:00:04,400 --> 00:00:07,800 Speaker 1: Welcome to text Tuff, a production from my Heart Radio. 2 00:00:12,039 --> 00:00:14,720 Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 3 00:00:14,880 --> 00:00:17,760 Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 4 00:00:17,840 --> 00:00:21,480 Speaker 1: and I love all things tech. It is time, once again, 5 00:00:21,520 --> 00:00:25,920 Speaker 1: my friends, for a tech Stuff classic episode. This episode 6 00:00:26,000 --> 00:00:31,360 Speaker 1: published October seventh, two thousand thirteen. I call it the 7 00:00:31,480 --> 00:00:36,240 Speaker 1: Prodigy Story. Yeah, we're gonna talk about online service providers, y'all. 8 00:00:36,520 --> 00:00:40,000 Speaker 1: So let's sit back and listen to this classic episode. 9 00:00:41,240 --> 00:00:44,120 Speaker 1: Ages ago, Chris and I did an episode about online 10 00:00:44,159 --> 00:00:47,120 Speaker 1: service providers, but this time we want to specifically look 11 00:00:47,159 --> 00:00:50,120 Speaker 1: at Prodigy, partly because it was one of the earliest, 12 00:00:50,159 --> 00:00:53,199 Speaker 1: in fact, depending upon whom you ask, the earliest online 13 00:00:53,200 --> 00:00:57,800 Speaker 1: service provider. Now, online service providers are different from Internet 14 00:00:57,840 --> 00:01:04,080 Speaker 1: service providers. So I'm gonna blow your minds out there, kids. 15 00:01:04,600 --> 00:01:06,759 Speaker 1: So you young uns out there, there was a time 16 00:01:07,360 --> 00:01:09,920 Speaker 1: when we did not all have access to the internet. 17 00:01:10,720 --> 00:01:14,920 Speaker 1: It was a terrifying time. Dinosaurs roamed the earth. Occasionally 18 00:01:14,959 --> 00:01:17,240 Speaker 1: you would go camping and an enormous guy in a 19 00:01:17,280 --> 00:01:20,200 Speaker 1: hockey mask would chase you around. The eighties were tough, y'all. 20 00:01:20,319 --> 00:01:24,200 Speaker 1: I actually do remember that time, dimly. I mean I 21 00:01:24,200 --> 00:01:28,320 Speaker 1: I was, you know, not necessarily eating all solid food yet, 22 00:01:28,400 --> 00:01:30,480 Speaker 1: and I could barely read. But I do, in fact 23 00:01:30,560 --> 00:01:33,000 Speaker 1: for call a time before the internet. I grew up 24 00:01:33,000 --> 00:01:35,800 Speaker 1: in that time, and uh, I bear the scars to 25 00:01:35,840 --> 00:01:39,360 Speaker 1: this day. Also, I don't read that much currently. But 26 00:01:39,440 --> 00:01:42,080 Speaker 1: at any rate, now we're talking about a time where 27 00:01:43,160 --> 00:01:46,959 Speaker 1: the computer revolution had really taken hold of. The personal 28 00:01:46,959 --> 00:01:52,360 Speaker 1: computers had already become a rising trend. It still was 29 00:01:53,320 --> 00:01:55,480 Speaker 1: kind of a rarity to find someone who owned a 30 00:01:55,480 --> 00:01:58,800 Speaker 1: personal computer. It wasn't like there were PCs everywhere, certainly not, 31 00:01:59,160 --> 00:02:02,960 Speaker 1: but they were certainly getting very popular in the mid eighties, 32 00:02:03,520 --> 00:02:06,360 Speaker 1: and more and more people were adopting them as the 33 00:02:06,440 --> 00:02:10,560 Speaker 1: price was becoming more affordable for the average household rather 34 00:02:10,600 --> 00:02:14,079 Speaker 1: than for hobbyists only. Right, right, So those those bleeding 35 00:02:14,200 --> 00:02:17,760 Speaker 1: edge technology adopters who somehow have the jobs that allow 36 00:02:17,840 --> 00:02:22,000 Speaker 1: them to to indulge their obsession with technology, they had 37 00:02:22,040 --> 00:02:24,200 Speaker 1: already gone through the first wave, and now it was 38 00:02:24,240 --> 00:02:27,000 Speaker 1: trickling down to everybody else. All right, we're talking about 39 00:02:27,000 --> 00:02:29,040 Speaker 1: the kind of the two eight six sort of days 40 00:02:29,160 --> 00:02:34,800 Speaker 1: is where Prodigy started kicking out. So during those times, 41 00:02:35,080 --> 00:02:38,440 Speaker 1: your computers, you know, the early early computers were really, 42 00:02:38,560 --> 00:02:42,840 Speaker 1: especially for personal computers, were just self contained devices. Right. 43 00:02:42,919 --> 00:02:45,919 Speaker 1: It was whatever software you had to run on that machine, 44 00:02:45,919 --> 00:02:48,320 Speaker 1: and that was pretty much it, which you would put 45 00:02:48,360 --> 00:02:50,720 Speaker 1: on the machine with fancy fancy uh five and a 46 00:02:50,800 --> 00:02:53,280 Speaker 1: quarter inch floppy disk. Yeah. Yeah, you wouldn't necessarily even 47 00:02:53,280 --> 00:02:55,320 Speaker 1: have a hard drive. You might just run it directly 48 00:02:55,360 --> 00:02:57,239 Speaker 1: from the discs. So, in other words, once that disc 49 00:02:57,320 --> 00:02:59,800 Speaker 1: was popped out, that was it. You didn't have program, 50 00:03:00,600 --> 00:03:02,960 Speaker 1: You just had your basic operating system, although you might 51 00:03:02,960 --> 00:03:06,799 Speaker 1: not even call it that um anyway. Eventually you started 52 00:03:06,840 --> 00:03:08,960 Speaker 1: seeing things like modems where you could do things like 53 00:03:09,040 --> 00:03:13,400 Speaker 1: connect to a local bulletin board system or bbs. This 54 00:03:13,520 --> 00:03:17,680 Speaker 1: was usually something that was hyper local, as in something 55 00:03:17,720 --> 00:03:19,800 Speaker 1: that would might be running the same city that you 56 00:03:19,880 --> 00:03:23,880 Speaker 1: live in, because in order to connect to most bbs is, 57 00:03:23,919 --> 00:03:26,640 Speaker 1: you had to dial a specific number, and usually it 58 00:03:26,680 --> 00:03:29,400 Speaker 1: was a it was a local number, yeah, because you 59 00:03:29,440 --> 00:03:33,000 Speaker 1: could dial into a BBS that's run in a state, 60 00:03:33,200 --> 00:03:36,240 Speaker 1: you know, twenty states away. But long distance charges at 61 00:03:36,240 --> 00:03:38,400 Speaker 1: the time were also such that that that it would 62 00:03:38,440 --> 00:03:42,680 Speaker 1: have been incredibly cost prohibited. Yeah, anyone, any kid who 63 00:03:42,760 --> 00:03:46,320 Speaker 1: experimented with connecting to bbs is might find out rapidly 64 00:03:46,400 --> 00:03:49,600 Speaker 1: from his parents or her parents that uh, it was 65 00:03:49,640 --> 00:03:54,320 Speaker 1: not the best idea to do that without parental agreement beforehand, 66 00:03:54,320 --> 00:03:56,480 Speaker 1: because you could rack up huge bills. I mean, this 67 00:03:56,560 --> 00:03:59,760 Speaker 1: is the era where long distance charges were a real thing. 68 00:03:59,800 --> 00:04:02,800 Speaker 1: I know that a lot of people today aren't even 69 00:04:02,560 --> 00:04:05,840 Speaker 1: that's not something they even think about because in most 70 00:04:05,840 --> 00:04:08,560 Speaker 1: cases you don't have a long distance charge anymore. About 71 00:04:08,560 --> 00:04:11,040 Speaker 1: once a month, I marvel at the incredible present and 72 00:04:11,080 --> 00:04:13,080 Speaker 1: the fact that I can call people all over the 73 00:04:13,080 --> 00:04:15,960 Speaker 1: country without having any without worrying about, oh, you know, 74 00:04:16,240 --> 00:04:18,240 Speaker 1: we've taught for five minutes, this is gonna cost me 75 00:04:18,279 --> 00:04:21,159 Speaker 1: twenty bucks or whatever. Uh and and they have not 76 00:04:21,279 --> 00:04:24,920 Speaker 1: said anything of value, so so at any rate, at 77 00:04:24,920 --> 00:04:27,880 Speaker 1: this time, that was pretty much it. And then there 78 00:04:28,440 --> 00:04:32,320 Speaker 1: became this idea of the online service provider away for 79 00:04:32,360 --> 00:04:36,280 Speaker 1: companies to create services that would open up brand new 80 00:04:36,279 --> 00:04:41,280 Speaker 1: opportunities for consumers. And it was before the Internet had 81 00:04:41,400 --> 00:04:44,440 Speaker 1: rolled out to being something that the general public could access, 82 00:04:44,520 --> 00:04:47,240 Speaker 1: so be sure, but but you know, people were looking 83 00:04:47,279 --> 00:04:50,680 Speaker 1: for a way to provide service to you know, to 84 00:04:50,800 --> 00:04:54,799 Speaker 1: a consumers who wanted to communicate and be two companies 85 00:04:54,839 --> 00:04:57,720 Speaker 1: who wanted to sell more stuff, give give companies an 86 00:04:57,720 --> 00:05:01,039 Speaker 1: outlet to sell more stuff. Right, So so this was 87 00:05:01,440 --> 00:05:04,280 Speaker 1: this was the idea, like instead of instead of the Internet, 88 00:05:04,279 --> 00:05:06,960 Speaker 1: think of the Internet, it's it's the network of networks, right, 89 00:05:06,960 --> 00:05:09,960 Speaker 1: It's all these different computers. They're connected together, and lots 90 00:05:10,040 --> 00:05:13,200 Speaker 1: of different types of communication goes across the Internet, from 91 00:05:13,320 --> 00:05:17,600 Speaker 1: email to file transfers to web traffic. All of that 92 00:05:17,720 --> 00:05:20,919 Speaker 1: stuff is going on across the Internet. An online service 93 00:05:20,920 --> 00:05:24,000 Speaker 1: provider is more like a very small network. It's not 94 00:05:24,080 --> 00:05:26,479 Speaker 1: a network of networks. It is a network in which 95 00:05:26,960 --> 00:05:30,280 Speaker 1: you use your computer to dial into a host computer, 96 00:05:30,760 --> 00:05:33,760 Speaker 1: and the host computer serves up all the information on 97 00:05:33,839 --> 00:05:36,159 Speaker 1: it that it has. So, in other words, instead of 98 00:05:36,200 --> 00:05:38,680 Speaker 1: having access to everything in the world, you just have 99 00:05:38,760 --> 00:05:42,240 Speaker 1: access to whatever the host computer has on it. Uh 100 00:05:42,279 --> 00:05:45,599 Speaker 1: and online service providers did this in different ways. So 101 00:05:45,800 --> 00:05:49,360 Speaker 1: let's talk specifically about Prodigy. To talk about how it 102 00:05:49,400 --> 00:05:52,760 Speaker 1: came to be, you have to look back at nine four. 103 00:05:54,800 --> 00:05:58,200 Speaker 1: That's when a couple of tiny companies IBM was one 104 00:05:58,240 --> 00:06:02,200 Speaker 1: of them, uh Sears was another, and CBS was a third, 105 00:06:02,240 --> 00:06:06,640 Speaker 1: formed a joint venture they called trend texs Now, this 106 00:06:07,480 --> 00:06:11,560 Speaker 1: trend Text venture was specifically meant to provide something called 107 00:06:11,800 --> 00:06:15,400 Speaker 1: video text services, And you might all wonder what the 108 00:06:15,440 --> 00:06:19,320 Speaker 1: heck video text is because it's not a term that 109 00:06:19,400 --> 00:06:23,160 Speaker 1: you see today really, But this was a technology that 110 00:06:23,200 --> 00:06:26,760 Speaker 1: would allow you to connect a terminal. So it could 111 00:06:26,760 --> 00:06:28,320 Speaker 1: be a computer, or it could just be a very 112 00:06:28,360 --> 00:06:31,160 Speaker 1: specific terminal made for this purpose, or even a television 113 00:06:31,200 --> 00:06:34,920 Speaker 1: with special yea. Yeah, so you have one of these 114 00:06:34,920 --> 00:06:38,200 Speaker 1: things that connect to a phone line and then can 115 00:06:37,960 --> 00:06:44,440 Speaker 1: call into a centralized computer to get content that way. Now, 116 00:06:45,560 --> 00:06:48,360 Speaker 1: the this is sort of a predecessor to the kind 117 00:06:48,360 --> 00:06:51,880 Speaker 1: of modems that we would see uh later on, although 118 00:06:51,920 --> 00:06:55,080 Speaker 1: at this time in the in the early eighties, a 119 00:06:55,200 --> 00:06:58,279 Speaker 1: modem was something that very few people had. It was 120 00:06:58,440 --> 00:07:00,760 Speaker 1: certainly something that was used in commerce shell purposes. You 121 00:07:00,800 --> 00:07:04,280 Speaker 1: had companies using it like IBM certainly had plenty of modems, 122 00:07:04,800 --> 00:07:08,000 Speaker 1: but your average computer owner did not have a modem 123 00:07:08,000 --> 00:07:10,360 Speaker 1: at this time. They certainly they also were not part 124 00:07:10,520 --> 00:07:13,440 Speaker 1: of a standard computer like there was a time where 125 00:07:14,000 --> 00:07:17,119 Speaker 1: you would get an internal modem like a dial up modem, 126 00:07:17,160 --> 00:07:19,800 Speaker 1: and you would just plug a phone cord into the 127 00:07:19,840 --> 00:07:22,840 Speaker 1: back of your computer and from that to the outlet 128 00:07:22,960 --> 00:07:26,680 Speaker 1: in your wall. Before that, you had external modems that 129 00:07:26,680 --> 00:07:29,240 Speaker 1: would connect to a port in your computer and then 130 00:07:29,400 --> 00:07:33,160 Speaker 1: you would connect your telephone connection to the external modem. 131 00:07:33,200 --> 00:07:36,520 Speaker 1: That's the kind I had, of course, yeah, I I 132 00:07:36,520 --> 00:07:38,160 Speaker 1: do also want to mention this is the same year 133 00:07:38,240 --> 00:07:42,200 Speaker 1: that um IBM introduced the portable PC weighing a mirror 134 00:07:42,240 --> 00:07:45,920 Speaker 1: thirty pounds or what's that like fourteen kilos, Yeah, something 135 00:07:45,960 --> 00:07:49,520 Speaker 1: like that. So you're talking about portable depending upon your 136 00:07:49,560 --> 00:07:53,240 Speaker 1: upper body string. Uh So, so that was that was 137 00:07:53,280 --> 00:07:56,920 Speaker 1: kind of the life of the times. UM the entire 138 00:07:57,000 --> 00:07:59,560 Speaker 1: video text thing was doing a little bit better in Europe. 139 00:08:00,000 --> 00:08:03,120 Speaker 1: There were a bunch of countries that already had something 140 00:08:03,200 --> 00:08:06,800 Speaker 1: like this, but it was really the first time this 141 00:08:06,840 --> 00:08:08,960 Speaker 1: whole trend text thing was really the first time that 142 00:08:09,040 --> 00:08:12,280 Speaker 1: had been rolled out for commercial use for customer use 143 00:08:12,400 --> 00:08:14,559 Speaker 1: for the United States and the US. Yeah. In fact, 144 00:08:15,000 --> 00:08:20,040 Speaker 1: the the concentration in Europe would mean that uh, companies 145 00:08:20,040 --> 00:08:23,480 Speaker 1: like Prodigy in America Online would end up sort of 146 00:08:23,520 --> 00:08:27,760 Speaker 1: foregoing any kind of penetration attempts in Europe because it 147 00:08:27,800 --> 00:08:33,280 Speaker 1: was already substated. UM and CBS had did a did 148 00:08:33,320 --> 00:08:36,160 Speaker 1: a trial of video texts in a three with a 149 00:08:36,240 --> 00:08:38,480 Speaker 1: T and T in about two households somewhere in New 150 00:08:38,559 --> 00:08:40,559 Speaker 1: Jersey just to see how much interest there would be, 151 00:08:40,760 --> 00:08:43,160 Speaker 1: and there was a lot. So that is why CBS 152 00:08:43,240 --> 00:08:46,960 Speaker 1: was involved. Sears was you know, if you're saying why 153 00:08:47,040 --> 00:08:49,840 Speaker 1: was Sears and Roebuck involved in this internet a venture, 154 00:08:50,040 --> 00:08:53,559 Speaker 1: it's because Sears had the complex billing system and the 155 00:08:54,120 --> 00:08:57,000 Speaker 1: customer base like the mail order customer base. Sure. Yeah, 156 00:08:57,000 --> 00:09:01,080 Speaker 1: the Sears catalog is like a legacy right to retail. 157 00:09:01,120 --> 00:09:03,200 Speaker 1: Not only that, but Sears itself has had a long 158 00:09:03,280 --> 00:09:06,600 Speaker 1: history in being involved in electronics. In fact, for a while, 159 00:09:07,000 --> 00:09:09,240 Speaker 1: if you wanted to buy a computer that you would 160 00:09:09,280 --> 00:09:11,760 Speaker 1: either go to a very specialized computer store or you 161 00:09:11,760 --> 00:09:14,640 Speaker 1: would go to a Sears would buy your computer there. Yeah. 162 00:09:14,880 --> 00:09:18,920 Speaker 1: And IBM actually in contemporary literature people were talking about 163 00:09:18,920 --> 00:09:23,640 Speaker 1: IBM being the most surprising company of the three, which 164 00:09:23,679 --> 00:09:25,559 Speaker 1: doesn't make any sense to me. But but but their reasoning 165 00:09:25,559 --> 00:09:28,600 Speaker 1: behind calling it that was that they had been really 166 00:09:28,679 --> 00:09:32,920 Speaker 1: only hardware with a tiny bit of software involved up 167 00:09:32,960 --> 00:09:35,559 Speaker 1: until then, and so now they're trying to create an 168 00:09:35,600 --> 00:09:38,559 Speaker 1: infrastructure that would essentially be a lot of software. So 169 00:09:39,160 --> 00:09:43,000 Speaker 1: nine four, this partnership is founded. But it wasn't all 170 00:09:43,080 --> 00:09:47,000 Speaker 1: smooth sailing. They did some you know, some pilot testing 171 00:09:47,120 --> 00:09:50,080 Speaker 1: and and in general, it just looked like it wasn't 172 00:09:50,120 --> 00:09:51,760 Speaker 1: really catch gun. It might have been ahead of its 173 00:09:51,800 --> 00:09:53,839 Speaker 1: time in the United States, or may have just been 174 00:09:53,840 --> 00:09:56,800 Speaker 1: the execution that didn't match people's expectations. At any rate, 175 00:09:57,240 --> 00:10:00,360 Speaker 1: it didn't get adopted as quickly as all three parties 176 00:10:00,400 --> 00:10:04,240 Speaker 1: were hoping. And one of those three parties, CBS, decided 177 00:10:04,280 --> 00:10:07,720 Speaker 1: to say see you later, alligators and drop out of 178 00:10:07,760 --> 00:10:10,319 Speaker 1: the partnership. Yeah, that was in That was a six, 179 00:10:10,360 --> 00:10:13,040 Speaker 1: did you say, Yeah? And so then a eight um 180 00:10:13,200 --> 00:10:16,880 Speaker 1: series and IBM decided to stick with it. They doubled down. Yeah, 181 00:10:17,120 --> 00:10:20,760 Speaker 1: they invested four and fifty million in startup. Yeah, so 182 00:10:20,800 --> 00:10:22,880 Speaker 1: which is that was an eight? So if we are 183 00:10:22,960 --> 00:10:26,480 Speaker 1: just for inflation, that's what eight hundred and sixty million. 184 00:10:26,640 --> 00:10:29,480 Speaker 1: That's a lot of money. That's so many dollars. Yeah, 185 00:10:29,520 --> 00:10:34,040 Speaker 1: so huge, huge investment here. And that's when they actually 186 00:10:34,080 --> 00:10:39,000 Speaker 1: created the company that's called Prodigy Services Company. Now, don't 187 00:10:39,040 --> 00:10:41,720 Speaker 1: get too used to that name, because one of the 188 00:10:41,760 --> 00:10:43,680 Speaker 1: things we can talk about with Prodigy, and we will 189 00:10:43,720 --> 00:10:46,959 Speaker 1: talk about is the fact that their name changes every 190 00:10:47,000 --> 00:10:52,160 Speaker 1: few years. Yeah, it usually retains the term Prodigy. That's 191 00:10:52,200 --> 00:10:57,319 Speaker 1: about it. But that's it. Yeah. So Prodigy Services Company 192 00:10:57,400 --> 00:11:02,440 Speaker 1: is formed to oversee the trend texts uh technology, and 193 00:11:02,520 --> 00:11:06,160 Speaker 1: by June of the entire project changed its name to Prodigy, 194 00:11:06,200 --> 00:11:08,280 Speaker 1: So I mean they no longer talked about Trient Tech. 195 00:11:08,400 --> 00:11:09,880 Speaker 1: Trent text was a thing of the past. It was 196 00:11:09,920 --> 00:11:14,800 Speaker 1: now rolled into Prodigy and that launched in eight and 197 00:11:14,840 --> 00:11:20,079 Speaker 1: it became the world's first consumer based online service provider. Now, 198 00:11:20,160 --> 00:11:23,600 Speaker 1: at the time, IBM had made an estimate. They looked 199 00:11:23,640 --> 00:11:26,520 Speaker 1: at all the households in the United States and they 200 00:11:26,679 --> 00:11:30,400 Speaker 1: estimated how many households out there would have computers that 201 00:11:30,440 --> 00:11:33,880 Speaker 1: would actually be sophisticated enough to run the Prodigy software. 202 00:11:33,920 --> 00:11:36,839 Speaker 1: And when I say sophisticated enough, it's not that the 203 00:11:36,880 --> 00:11:43,160 Speaker 1: project software was this mind bending, amazing looking uh software. 204 00:11:43,720 --> 00:11:46,840 Speaker 1: You it was a visual interface, which was which was 205 00:11:47,160 --> 00:11:49,840 Speaker 1: a new thing. It was a huge improvement over local bbs. 206 00:11:49,960 --> 00:11:52,280 Speaker 1: Is that we're all text based, right, so there were 207 00:11:52,360 --> 00:11:55,040 Speaker 1: there were graphics involved, but they were very simple graphics. 208 00:11:55,080 --> 00:11:58,400 Speaker 1: And uh, we'll try to effect. Lauren found a great 209 00:11:58,440 --> 00:12:01,480 Speaker 1: commercial just before the podcast that she shared with us, 210 00:12:01,480 --> 00:12:03,200 Speaker 1: so we'll we'll try and put that up on the 211 00:12:03,200 --> 00:12:05,760 Speaker 1: Facebook page and link it to Twitter as well, so 212 00:12:05,800 --> 00:12:08,880 Speaker 1: that you guys can see what Prodigy look like when 213 00:12:08,920 --> 00:12:12,600 Speaker 1: it launched, because the commercial actually comes from this era. Yeah, 214 00:12:12,640 --> 00:12:16,800 Speaker 1: but you know, six machines were just coming out. They 215 00:12:16,840 --> 00:12:20,160 Speaker 1: had several megs of RAM, which was big and new 216 00:12:20,240 --> 00:12:24,560 Speaker 1: and and three point five inch floppies were blowing people's minds, right. Yeah. 217 00:12:24,640 --> 00:12:28,040 Speaker 1: And so IBM looks at all these households, says, five 218 00:12:28,120 --> 00:12:31,800 Speaker 1: million homes and the entire United States are probably capable 219 00:12:31,960 --> 00:12:34,959 Speaker 1: of running Prodigy software. They probably have computers that can 220 00:12:34,960 --> 00:12:37,960 Speaker 1: do this. So five million, that's our target audience. We 221 00:12:38,000 --> 00:12:43,360 Speaker 1: want to hit those five million folks. Um. Yeah, that 222 00:12:43,520 --> 00:12:46,760 Speaker 1: was that turned out to be an ambitious target. In fact, 223 00:12:47,240 --> 00:12:51,040 Speaker 1: five million ends up being ambitious spoiler alert through the 224 00:12:51,200 --> 00:12:55,000 Speaker 1: entire life of Prodigy. Um yeah, but we'll we'll get 225 00:12:55,040 --> 00:12:57,800 Speaker 1: into that as we go further. So, the first cities 226 00:12:57,840 --> 00:13:02,280 Speaker 1: that received the service were San Francisco, There was Hartford, Connecticut, 227 00:13:02,320 --> 00:13:07,960 Speaker 1: and there was some other city, Atlantaza. For once Atlanta 228 00:13:08,080 --> 00:13:13,080 Speaker 1: gets something first. Um yeah, it ended along with technological 229 00:13:13,080 --> 00:13:17,360 Speaker 1: innovator Hartford, Connecticut. I well, you know, I don't make 230 00:13:17,400 --> 00:13:22,200 Speaker 1: fun of heart for Connecticut. Those people will scold you 231 00:13:22,440 --> 00:13:25,200 Speaker 1: at any rate. Yeah. So Atlanta, San Francisco, and Hartford 232 00:13:25,280 --> 00:13:27,760 Speaker 1: are the three cities that get it first, And I 233 00:13:28,200 --> 00:13:32,040 Speaker 1: honestly don't know why those three cities were the ones chosen. 234 00:13:32,080 --> 00:13:37,680 Speaker 1: Perhaps that the telecommunications infrastructure was just uh the best 235 00:13:38,160 --> 00:13:41,600 Speaker 1: in those three for for the services of Prodigy. But 236 00:13:41,880 --> 00:13:45,800 Speaker 1: so the startup package for getting this service was a 237 00:13:45,840 --> 00:13:48,640 Speaker 1: little bit complex because, like Jonathan was saying earlier, people 238 00:13:48,679 --> 00:13:51,320 Speaker 1: didn't have modems. They certainly didn't come in computers at 239 00:13:51,320 --> 00:13:53,960 Speaker 1: the time. Um, it was an add on sort of thing. 240 00:13:54,120 --> 00:13:58,200 Speaker 1: So the original kit cost at nine dollars and cents 241 00:13:58,640 --> 00:14:01,880 Speaker 1: to include that that motive, the software, and three months 242 00:14:01,920 --> 00:14:04,400 Speaker 1: of initial service. Three months of service yeah. Um, you 243 00:14:04,400 --> 00:14:07,560 Speaker 1: could also hypothetically if you happened to have a modem 244 00:14:07,640 --> 00:14:11,720 Speaker 1: by just software for right, and then how much was 245 00:14:12,200 --> 00:14:15,160 Speaker 1: service per month with with a yearly subscription it was 246 00:14:16,480 --> 00:14:18,720 Speaker 1: a month and a month to month it was twelve. 247 00:14:19,520 --> 00:14:22,200 Speaker 1: So there you go nine dollars per month if you 248 00:14:22,360 --> 00:14:24,000 Speaker 1: if you sign up for a full year, or twelve 249 00:14:24,080 --> 00:14:25,800 Speaker 1: ninety five per month if you were going month to 250 00:14:25,840 --> 00:14:29,120 Speaker 1: month basis uh and uh. And so they figured that 251 00:14:29,240 --> 00:14:32,160 Speaker 1: with that pricing, with that subscription model, if they got 252 00:14:32,280 --> 00:14:35,720 Speaker 1: enough people to subscribe, that would be an ongoing source 253 00:14:35,760 --> 00:14:39,000 Speaker 1: of revenue. Right, it's the same sort of model that 254 00:14:39,040 --> 00:14:42,160 Speaker 1: we see with things like pay to play um M 255 00:14:42,280 --> 00:14:45,520 Speaker 1: M O RPGs you know which now when now we're 256 00:14:45,520 --> 00:14:47,600 Speaker 1: seeing more and more of those move away from that 257 00:14:47,680 --> 00:14:49,960 Speaker 1: model and go to free to play and then pay 258 00:14:50,000 --> 00:14:54,320 Speaker 1: to access certain types of content. So nonetheless, the month 259 00:14:54,360 --> 00:14:56,960 Speaker 1: to month subscription fee was a change up at the 260 00:14:56,960 --> 00:14:59,160 Speaker 1: time I think that any anyone else who was in 261 00:14:59,200 --> 00:15:02,320 Speaker 1: the business, and maybe because maybe a O L was 262 00:15:02,360 --> 00:15:04,600 Speaker 1: starting at the same it was starting around the same time. 263 00:15:04,680 --> 00:15:08,080 Speaker 1: Yet and most other services that would be beginning around 264 00:15:08,200 --> 00:15:12,400 Speaker 1: that time, we're using UM pay per usage like per 265 00:15:12,440 --> 00:15:16,080 Speaker 1: per the minute or per per hour the data set. Right, 266 00:15:16,120 --> 00:15:18,680 Speaker 1: You didn't have you didn't have that many people offering 267 00:15:18,760 --> 00:15:22,680 Speaker 1: or that many companies I should say, offering a monthly 268 00:15:22,880 --> 00:15:26,480 Speaker 1: fee for their service. It was almost always uh you know, 269 00:15:26,600 --> 00:15:30,440 Speaker 1: maybe you get the first half hour of content at 270 00:15:30,480 --> 00:15:33,080 Speaker 1: one amount, and then above that it would be more 271 00:15:33,160 --> 00:15:36,840 Speaker 1: because another limitation on some of these early online service 272 00:15:36,880 --> 00:15:41,080 Speaker 1: providers was that they only had so many UH connections 273 00:15:41,080 --> 00:15:43,160 Speaker 1: that they can make at a single time within a 274 00:15:43,280 --> 00:15:46,080 Speaker 1: particular region. So if you if you have a phone 275 00:15:46,120 --> 00:15:48,600 Speaker 1: number that you're supposed to call with your computer, it 276 00:15:48,680 --> 00:15:51,880 Speaker 1: may be that the computer can handle, say one connections, 277 00:15:51,920 --> 00:15:54,120 Speaker 1: and beyond that, it can't handle more than that. And 278 00:15:54,160 --> 00:15:58,680 Speaker 1: so so allowing people continual access was potentially dangerous to 279 00:15:58,720 --> 00:16:01,080 Speaker 1: your customer base because you know, because everyone say like, 280 00:16:01,120 --> 00:16:03,240 Speaker 1: well I got your software, but I can never connect. 281 00:16:03,840 --> 00:16:06,800 Speaker 1: So it's just busy signals for years, right right, So 282 00:16:06,920 --> 00:16:10,520 Speaker 1: but now bigger companies, the next generation is never going 283 00:16:10,560 --> 00:16:13,720 Speaker 1: to have those Yeah, sorry, okay anyway, but yeah, so 284 00:16:15,040 --> 00:16:18,320 Speaker 1: the larger companies at this time could actually handle lots 285 00:16:18,320 --> 00:16:20,560 Speaker 1: of phone calls your local BBS is. I mean, I 286 00:16:20,600 --> 00:16:23,320 Speaker 1: remember this era where I would call into a local 287 00:16:23,360 --> 00:16:27,400 Speaker 1: BBS and there would be maybe five lines, and if 288 00:16:27,440 --> 00:16:29,920 Speaker 1: you called when those five lines were in operation, you 289 00:16:29,960 --> 00:16:32,000 Speaker 1: just had to wait and try and call again, like 290 00:16:32,080 --> 00:16:35,240 Speaker 1: in the half hour or an hour, or every ten 291 00:16:35,320 --> 00:16:37,400 Speaker 1: seconds if you were someone like me. But at any rate, 292 00:16:37,480 --> 00:16:39,760 Speaker 1: that's you know, this was this was a step up 293 00:16:39,840 --> 00:16:43,200 Speaker 1: above those local bbs is a big step up, not 294 00:16:43,320 --> 00:16:46,680 Speaker 1: just a tiny little incremental step. But but Prodigy was 295 00:16:46,720 --> 00:16:51,240 Speaker 1: in fact still regionally operated. It's I mean, they were 296 00:16:51,280 --> 00:16:54,520 Speaker 1: advertising in lots of other cities that they were planning 297 00:16:54,520 --> 00:16:56,920 Speaker 1: on expanding out to. Yeah, in fact, there was a 298 00:16:56,960 --> 00:17:01,440 Speaker 1: pretty extensive advertising campaign, including that fantastic commercial you showed 299 00:17:01,440 --> 00:17:03,400 Speaker 1: me before the episode, Lawrence, Well that one is from 300 00:17:03,440 --> 00:17:09,120 Speaker 1: all the way in clearly. Wow, so we're talking Prodigy 301 00:17:09,240 --> 00:17:12,320 Speaker 1: story is so different. But yeah, no, it's they were 302 00:17:12,359 --> 00:17:16,240 Speaker 1: really trying to drive adoption of this because it was 303 00:17:16,280 --> 00:17:18,160 Speaker 1: a brand new thing. You know. This is like I said, 304 00:17:18,200 --> 00:17:21,200 Speaker 1: this is before people for the most part, had ending 305 00:17:21,600 --> 00:17:24,680 Speaker 1: knowledge whatsoever of the Internet. You know, anyone who knew 306 00:17:24,680 --> 00:17:27,960 Speaker 1: about the Internet was working on the Internet, like building 307 00:17:27,960 --> 00:17:30,520 Speaker 1: the Internet. And so yeah, so talking to people about 308 00:17:30,640 --> 00:17:33,360 Speaker 1: you know, posting to bbs is or doing online shopping 309 00:17:33,520 --> 00:17:35,760 Speaker 1: or anything like that, or you know, looking at stocks 310 00:17:35,800 --> 00:17:38,239 Speaker 1: or weather online, people were like say, one, yeah, yea, 311 00:17:38,359 --> 00:17:41,919 Speaker 1: this is my computer, the thing that I used to 312 00:17:42,000 --> 00:17:46,119 Speaker 1: play a game on and occasionally try and create a 313 00:17:46,119 --> 00:17:49,159 Speaker 1: little program that says hello world. Um yeah, it's it 314 00:17:49,280 --> 00:17:52,399 Speaker 1: was a big change, a huge change as far as 315 00:17:52,440 --> 00:17:54,919 Speaker 1: computer use goes. It was really opening up the gates 316 00:17:54,960 --> 00:17:58,080 Speaker 1: to the potential for computers. And then on top of 317 00:17:58,119 --> 00:18:01,240 Speaker 1: that we then saw by the end of eight so 318 00:18:01,280 --> 00:18:02,920 Speaker 1: all of this is happening at eight eight, this is 319 00:18:02,920 --> 00:18:05,840 Speaker 1: a huge year for Prodigy, right, it's their launch year. 320 00:18:05,880 --> 00:18:08,879 Speaker 1: By the end of eighty eight, they have extended their 321 00:18:08,920 --> 00:18:11,800 Speaker 1: service to three more cities particularly Actually, I think it's 322 00:18:11,800 --> 00:18:14,600 Speaker 1: for cities. I just wrote down three, but their cities 323 00:18:14,640 --> 00:18:18,159 Speaker 1: in California, and those included Los Angeles, San Diego, Sacramento, 324 00:18:18,240 --> 00:18:20,199 Speaker 1: and I think Santa Barbara was also one. I just 325 00:18:20,240 --> 00:18:23,399 Speaker 1: didn't write it in my notes. Uh. And so you 326 00:18:23,480 --> 00:18:28,159 Speaker 1: had this, this this cool system, arguably cool. I guess 327 00:18:28,200 --> 00:18:30,720 Speaker 1: for me it was cool. I was an early Prodigy 328 00:18:30,800 --> 00:18:34,360 Speaker 1: user because I live in Atlanta. Uh. And they did 329 00:18:34,400 --> 00:18:39,199 Speaker 1: have their rivals, not just what would become American America Online, 330 00:18:39,200 --> 00:18:43,480 Speaker 1: not American but America Online, but also compu Serve, mind Spring, 331 00:18:43,680 --> 00:18:47,960 Speaker 1: earth Link. These are all they came on the scene 332 00:18:48,000 --> 00:18:51,320 Speaker 1: at different times, but they would all become rivals. Now. 333 00:18:51,920 --> 00:18:55,040 Speaker 1: The way this would work, generally speaking, is that when 334 00:18:55,040 --> 00:18:58,360 Speaker 1: you would use your computer to call into whatever computer 335 00:18:58,760 --> 00:19:01,720 Speaker 1: was in charge of your region, that computer could then 336 00:19:01,760 --> 00:19:05,600 Speaker 1: serve up all the information that was available on it. 337 00:19:05,680 --> 00:19:07,840 Speaker 1: And we'll talk more about the kind of services that 338 00:19:07,880 --> 00:19:10,280 Speaker 1: Prodigy offered towards the end of the podcast, but this 339 00:19:10,440 --> 00:19:14,280 Speaker 1: also includes you know, pretty basic stuff like news items, 340 00:19:14,680 --> 00:19:19,320 Speaker 1: financial stuff, bulletin boards where you can actually leave messages 341 00:19:19,359 --> 00:19:22,359 Speaker 1: and retrieve messages. There was even an email, although originally 342 00:19:22,400 --> 00:19:24,720 Speaker 1: that email would only allow you to send messages to 343 00:19:24,840 --> 00:19:28,680 Speaker 1: other people on the Prodigy service um and you could 344 00:19:28,680 --> 00:19:32,920 Speaker 1: get all that information. But although early ads talked about 345 00:19:32,960 --> 00:19:35,680 Speaker 1: it being updated throughout the day, originally the way these 346 00:19:35,720 --> 00:19:39,720 Speaker 1: services worked is that the the regional computer would connect 347 00:19:39,840 --> 00:19:42,840 Speaker 1: back to headquarters to a master computer once a day, 348 00:19:43,000 --> 00:19:44,959 Speaker 1: once a day, now once every twenty four hours, they 349 00:19:44,960 --> 00:19:47,600 Speaker 1: would get new content. So then that way, when you 350 00:19:47,680 --> 00:19:50,680 Speaker 1: log on the next day, you would get new news articles, 351 00:19:50,720 --> 00:19:53,680 Speaker 1: new financial reports, that kind of thing. But it would 352 00:19:53,680 --> 00:19:56,040 Speaker 1: stay like that all day long. It wouldn't get updated 353 00:19:56,080 --> 00:20:00,760 Speaker 1: throughout the day because again, these were all general computers 354 00:20:00,760 --> 00:20:03,960 Speaker 1: that were only intermittently connecting with a master computer. It 355 00:20:04,000 --> 00:20:07,479 Speaker 1: wasn't like a truly integrated network at this point. So 356 00:20:07,520 --> 00:20:10,199 Speaker 1: this was definitely a different kind of approach than what 357 00:20:10,280 --> 00:20:14,600 Speaker 1: we see today. By eighty nine, the estimate that IBM 358 00:20:14,640 --> 00:20:17,600 Speaker 1: had made had increased. No longer did they think that 359 00:20:17,640 --> 00:20:19,960 Speaker 1: there were five million homes out there that could run 360 00:20:20,000 --> 00:20:24,080 Speaker 1: Prodigy software. Now they believed there were nine million homes. 361 00:20:24,119 --> 00:20:27,280 Speaker 1: So that shows that the adoption of the personal computer, 362 00:20:27,320 --> 00:20:31,480 Speaker 1: and not just personal computers but more sophisticated personal computers 363 00:20:31,560 --> 00:20:35,480 Speaker 1: was on the rise. Uh. This still is before the 364 00:20:35,520 --> 00:20:38,520 Speaker 1: true explosion in personal computers. I mean there was a 365 00:20:38,600 --> 00:20:40,399 Speaker 1: time I think we even mentioned it in one of 366 00:20:40,400 --> 00:20:43,240 Speaker 1: our podcasts where Bill Gates had kind of projected out 367 00:20:43,320 --> 00:20:45,360 Speaker 1: how many computers he thought were going to be adopted, 368 00:20:45,359 --> 00:20:48,440 Speaker 1: and it turned out it was like a seventy fewer 369 00:20:48,480 --> 00:20:51,960 Speaker 1: than what actually happened, and now no one could predict it. Um. 370 00:20:52,000 --> 00:20:56,440 Speaker 1: The actual number of Prodigy customers at the time was Yeah. 371 00:20:56,480 --> 00:21:00,199 Speaker 1: So they remember, they're aiming for a customer bay that 372 00:21:00,240 --> 00:21:03,040 Speaker 1: they have estimated to be nine million people, and they 373 00:21:03,080 --> 00:21:07,880 Speaker 1: they land sixty thousand. That is brutal. I mean, that's 374 00:21:08,160 --> 00:21:11,679 Speaker 1: such a tiny percentage um. And then Prodigy launched in 375 00:21:11,720 --> 00:21:15,280 Speaker 1: New York City, but it only had partial coverage in 376 00:21:15,280 --> 00:21:17,880 Speaker 1: in the city. They had the thirteen markets in New 377 00:21:17,960 --> 00:21:20,920 Speaker 1: York City, but that meant that they had left out 378 00:21:20,960 --> 00:21:25,480 Speaker 1: about the population of New York City who had the 379 00:21:25,560 --> 00:21:28,840 Speaker 1: who had the technology to connect right, They had the ability, 380 00:21:28,920 --> 00:21:31,600 Speaker 1: but they didn't have the actual support, so they could 381 00:21:31,640 --> 00:21:34,879 Speaker 1: not be members of Prodigy at that time, so they 382 00:21:34,920 --> 00:21:40,920 Speaker 1: weren't able to capitalize on that very at least not efficiently. However, 383 00:21:40,920 --> 00:21:44,800 Speaker 1: by Prodigy did become available across the United States, I 384 00:21:44,800 --> 00:21:50,040 Speaker 1: believe when I got Prodigy up near Cleveland, Dish. Yeah, see, 385 00:21:50,359 --> 00:21:53,520 Speaker 1: I was already living not in Atlanta, but close enough 386 00:21:53,520 --> 00:21:57,080 Speaker 1: to Atlanta where I got the support, and by the 387 00:21:57,119 --> 00:22:01,840 Speaker 1: end of that year, their numbers had exploded almost tenfold. Really, 388 00:22:02,359 --> 00:22:06,000 Speaker 1: we're talking from six thd to six hundred thirty five thousand. 389 00:22:06,760 --> 00:22:09,760 Speaker 1: So but now granted they managed to go nationwide. Now, 390 00:22:09,840 --> 00:22:12,800 Speaker 1: so now you're talking about the entire US, not just 391 00:22:12,920 --> 00:22:18,119 Speaker 1: these little regions that they had been hitting previously, but 392 00:22:18,359 --> 00:22:22,840 Speaker 1: still only six thousand, and that put them in second place. 393 00:22:23,200 --> 00:22:27,720 Speaker 1: The first place provider was compu serve Um, which we 394 00:22:27,720 --> 00:22:30,080 Speaker 1: could also do an episode about copy serve at some point. 395 00:22:30,119 --> 00:22:33,320 Speaker 1: But compu Serve would eventually be acquired from H and 396 00:22:33,400 --> 00:22:35,720 Speaker 1: R Block, which at the time they were there the 397 00:22:35,760 --> 00:22:40,040 Speaker 1: owners at the time. The new owners would be America Online, 398 00:22:40,920 --> 00:22:44,919 Speaker 1: and of course America Online UH ends up being the 399 00:22:45,000 --> 00:22:48,840 Speaker 1: big daddy of the online service providers and probably made 400 00:22:49,320 --> 00:22:51,040 Speaker 1: I would say, I would argue that it made the 401 00:22:51,040 --> 00:22:55,880 Speaker 1: most effective transition from online service provider to internet service provider. 402 00:22:56,880 --> 00:22:59,959 Speaker 1: The two things are different. Yeah, I've seen estimates, by 403 00:23:00,040 --> 00:23:04,400 Speaker 1: the way, that about twenty five million households now held computers. Wow. 404 00:23:04,680 --> 00:23:08,199 Speaker 1: So yeah, huge numbers that are jumping up here. Right, 405 00:23:08,240 --> 00:23:10,160 Speaker 1: We went from five million to nine million, and nine 406 00:23:10,200 --> 00:23:14,320 Speaker 1: million to five million, So and you might be wondering, like, 407 00:23:14,359 --> 00:23:17,200 Speaker 1: how how is this even happening? This is Moore's law 408 00:23:17,440 --> 00:23:20,280 Speaker 1: in play, right. Moore's law is not just about how 409 00:23:20,320 --> 00:23:23,840 Speaker 1: computers get twice as powerful every two years or so. 410 00:23:24,240 --> 00:23:28,160 Speaker 1: It's also about how, because the processes get more sophisticated 411 00:23:28,200 --> 00:23:32,359 Speaker 1: over time, the technology itself decreases in price and cost 412 00:23:32,920 --> 00:23:35,199 Speaker 1: so more people can afford it. So not only are 413 00:23:35,240 --> 00:23:37,920 Speaker 1: they becoming more powerful, they're becoming more affordable, so you're 414 00:23:37,920 --> 00:23:40,800 Speaker 1: seeing higher adoption rates. This in particular way that was 415 00:23:40,920 --> 00:23:44,000 Speaker 1: a giant boom time. Yeah, yeah, this is and and 416 00:23:44,080 --> 00:23:46,640 Speaker 1: you know this is also ten years before we see 417 00:23:46,680 --> 00:23:50,080 Speaker 1: the the dot com bubble and uh so this is 418 00:23:50,240 --> 00:23:53,800 Speaker 1: right when the just the promise of the computer age 419 00:23:53,880 --> 00:23:57,480 Speaker 1: was really becoming realized. And still before the Internet is 420 00:23:57,520 --> 00:24:01,280 Speaker 1: a common household term. We don't see the World Wide 421 00:24:01,280 --> 00:24:05,399 Speaker 1: Web even start to emerge until two and we're just 422 00:24:05,480 --> 00:24:08,439 Speaker 1: in right now. Yeah. I mean, big big news for 423 00:24:08,440 --> 00:24:12,080 Speaker 1: Prodigy that year was they added an encyclopedia and zach 424 00:24:12,119 --> 00:24:16,960 Speaker 1: It's guide. Yeah yeah, and It's interesting also that even 425 00:24:17,000 --> 00:24:21,960 Speaker 1: though we're seeing this explosion at this time of adoption UH, 426 00:24:22,200 --> 00:24:25,119 Speaker 1: the analysts were looking at it and saying, well, you know, 427 00:24:26,240 --> 00:24:29,800 Speaker 1: you've got more subscribers, but you spent so much money 428 00:24:29,880 --> 00:24:32,840 Speaker 1: setting up this this company, perhaps as much as a 429 00:24:32,880 --> 00:24:36,560 Speaker 1: billion dollars by this time, that it's going to take 430 00:24:36,600 --> 00:24:40,600 Speaker 1: you years for you to become profitable, even and I 431 00:24:40,640 --> 00:24:43,439 Speaker 1: love I love how in my notes I don't know 432 00:24:43,440 --> 00:24:45,560 Speaker 1: what I was thinking in my notes by said dramatic 433 00:24:45,560 --> 00:24:48,440 Speaker 1: increase in Survivors. Apparently I had some sort of horror 434 00:24:48,480 --> 00:24:50,560 Speaker 1: movie going on in my brain. I meant, customers, you 435 00:24:50,880 --> 00:24:52,800 Speaker 1: are you are going to go be a zombie on stage? 436 00:24:52,920 --> 00:24:56,800 Speaker 1: That is true that I do have. I do have 437 00:24:56,840 --> 00:24:59,320 Speaker 1: to be a zombie in UH in approximately four hours. 438 00:24:59,440 --> 00:25:01,000 Speaker 1: So you allow to be a zombie on Talk Like 439 00:25:01,040 --> 00:25:04,160 Speaker 1: a Pirate Day? Is that? I mean? We're only recording 440 00:25:04,240 --> 00:25:06,560 Speaker 1: on Talk Like a Pirate Day. And I promised Lauren 441 00:25:06,600 --> 00:25:08,960 Speaker 1: that I was not going to torture her on Talk 442 00:25:09,000 --> 00:25:11,560 Speaker 1: Like a Pirate Day, particularly since by the time this publishes, 443 00:25:11,800 --> 00:25:13,760 Speaker 1: Talk Like a Pirate Day will be along in the past. 444 00:25:14,359 --> 00:25:16,679 Speaker 1: So you guys are going to be spared both the 445 00:25:16,760 --> 00:25:20,080 Speaker 1: zombie and the pirate. Uh. At any rate, Uh, the 446 00:25:20,160 --> 00:25:24,760 Speaker 1: survivors would be would still not end up giving enough money, 447 00:25:24,840 --> 00:25:28,280 Speaker 1: generating enough revenue for the company to be profitable for 448 00:25:28,320 --> 00:25:33,040 Speaker 1: several years. Hey, guys, Jonathan from twenty twenty here interrupting 449 00:25:33,080 --> 00:25:35,800 Speaker 1: the classic episode because it's time for us to take 450 00:25:35,960 --> 00:25:49,400 Speaker 1: a quick break, did something that was incredibly controversial within 451 00:25:49,440 --> 00:25:54,200 Speaker 1: the Prodigy community. Yeah, they started introducing these censorship rules. Yeah, 452 00:25:54,320 --> 00:25:56,359 Speaker 1: so which I mean, I mean, I guess it's not 453 00:25:56,720 --> 00:26:00,239 Speaker 1: censorship if it's not on a government. Yeah, they of all, 454 00:26:00,320 --> 00:26:03,400 Speaker 1: we we use censorship as as sort of the kind 455 00:26:03,400 --> 00:26:06,160 Speaker 1: of shorthand way of saying. Essentially, what they were saying 456 00:26:06,240 --> 00:26:08,600 Speaker 1: was that they didn't want to have any sort of 457 00:26:08,680 --> 00:26:12,480 Speaker 1: profanity or objectionable material on the Prodigy service because they 458 00:26:12,520 --> 00:26:16,240 Speaker 1: wanted it to be family friendly. So, now keep in mind, 459 00:26:16,359 --> 00:26:18,520 Speaker 1: some of the stuff that was going on on Prodigy 460 00:26:18,520 --> 00:26:21,920 Speaker 1: included these bulletin board systems where you could create messages, 461 00:26:22,000 --> 00:26:24,879 Speaker 1: leave messages, respond to messages. They almost became like a 462 00:26:24,920 --> 00:26:27,119 Speaker 1: message board. And I don't know if you guys have 463 00:26:27,160 --> 00:26:31,239 Speaker 1: ever been on the Internet, but sometimes people on this 464 00:26:31,280 --> 00:26:34,520 Speaker 1: sort of thing can get a little bit profane. Flame 465 00:26:34,560 --> 00:26:37,560 Speaker 1: wars can break out yeah, they can, they can start 466 00:26:37,720 --> 00:26:43,960 Speaker 1: throwing in some personal attacks. They can use some language 467 00:26:44,040 --> 00:26:48,840 Speaker 1: that is, as the pirates would say, salty. Uh so 468 00:26:48,840 --> 00:26:51,600 Speaker 1: so yeah, so for first profanity was outlawed, then flame 469 00:26:51,600 --> 00:26:56,040 Speaker 1: wars were outlawed, then the mention of another users handle. Yeah, 470 00:26:56,080 --> 00:26:58,560 Speaker 1: you weren't supposed to use any sort of member names. 471 00:26:58,760 --> 00:27:01,440 Speaker 1: In fact, I read one report that said that one 472 00:27:01,520 --> 00:27:04,040 Speaker 1: group got very much frustrated because it was a group 473 00:27:04,080 --> 00:27:09,000 Speaker 1: of coin collectors and they had a a thread about 474 00:27:09,080 --> 00:27:12,159 Speaker 1: the Roosevelt dime then, and because they were collectors who 475 00:27:12,200 --> 00:27:15,560 Speaker 1: were interested in Roosevelt dimes. But but one member had 476 00:27:15,600 --> 00:27:18,720 Speaker 1: to handle Roosevelt dime, which meant that they could not 477 00:27:18,800 --> 00:27:22,600 Speaker 1: actually write about it because it was a member handle. Yeah, 478 00:27:22,880 --> 00:27:27,880 Speaker 1: so these were these were got started. Yeah, well, handles 479 00:27:27,880 --> 00:27:31,040 Speaker 1: certainly had played a role in it. But yeah, you 480 00:27:31,119 --> 00:27:34,280 Speaker 1: see at this time that the users were really starting 481 00:27:34,280 --> 00:27:38,240 Speaker 1: to get aggravated by these policies. They felt that it 482 00:27:38,320 --> 00:27:42,280 Speaker 1: was unnecessary and that it was hampering their ability to communicate. 483 00:27:42,320 --> 00:27:45,560 Speaker 1: It was taking functionality away from the service that they 484 00:27:45,560 --> 00:27:48,560 Speaker 1: were paying for, right and uh And however it was 485 00:27:48,600 --> 00:27:50,920 Speaker 1: only on those those bulletin boards, So a lot of 486 00:27:50,960 --> 00:27:53,920 Speaker 1: traffic started shifting to email. Right, So people were using 487 00:27:53,960 --> 00:27:57,240 Speaker 1: the email service on Prodigy, which at this time was 488 00:27:57,320 --> 00:28:01,240 Speaker 1: still uh still very much restricted to Prodigy. It's not 489 00:28:01,280 --> 00:28:05,040 Speaker 1: like you were emailing outside. So imagine that your school 490 00:28:05,359 --> 00:28:08,119 Speaker 1: or your the business you work at that you have email, 491 00:28:08,200 --> 00:28:10,800 Speaker 1: but you are only able to email anyone else who 492 00:28:10,880 --> 00:28:14,240 Speaker 1: is also on that particular server, right, So you could 493 00:28:14,240 --> 00:28:16,520 Speaker 1: not email someone who works for another company or goes 494 00:28:16,560 --> 00:28:18,800 Speaker 1: to another school. You could only only other people who 495 00:28:18,800 --> 00:28:20,639 Speaker 1: were there are the ones that you could send messages to. 496 00:28:20,760 --> 00:28:22,760 Speaker 1: That's kind of what we're talking about at this time. 497 00:28:22,800 --> 00:28:25,880 Speaker 1: I mean, however, it wasn't like there were other services 498 00:28:25,920 --> 00:28:28,960 Speaker 1: that had had it much better, right right. You know, 499 00:28:29,320 --> 00:28:31,840 Speaker 1: until we see the inner connectivity to the internet, it 500 00:28:31,960 --> 00:28:36,520 Speaker 1: just doesn't really you don't get the the expanded capabilities. 501 00:28:36,560 --> 00:28:40,040 Speaker 1: Although again in commercial business that had already happened there 502 00:28:40,040 --> 00:28:42,840 Speaker 1: were businesses that had email or you could send it 503 00:28:42,880 --> 00:28:44,880 Speaker 1: to people other than the ones that were on your 504 00:28:44,960 --> 00:28:48,400 Speaker 1: email server. Consumer level, consumer levels still pretty much a 505 00:28:48,480 --> 00:28:51,960 Speaker 1: novelty UM. Now. I will also say that this is 506 00:28:52,000 --> 00:28:56,680 Speaker 1: when Prodigy changed one of its other email UM policies, 507 00:28:56,680 --> 00:28:58,640 Speaker 1: but I'll talk about that when we get into the 508 00:28:58,680 --> 00:29:02,720 Speaker 1: services that they provide. It was. It was in response 509 00:29:02,760 --> 00:29:06,240 Speaker 1: to the fact that everyone started using more email. Uh see, 510 00:29:06,240 --> 00:29:07,959 Speaker 1: you also have to keep in mind that the data 511 00:29:08,240 --> 00:29:10,880 Speaker 1: that is being sent back and forth, while it's it 512 00:29:10,920 --> 00:29:13,520 Speaker 1: tends to be in small packets. Once you get up, 513 00:29:13,680 --> 00:29:18,640 Speaker 1: you know, you have those numbers increase. Data transfer wasn't free, 514 00:29:18,880 --> 00:29:23,360 Speaker 1: you know, sending information across telephone company lines cost money, 515 00:29:23,400 --> 00:29:26,120 Speaker 1: and it cost Prodigy money. And in fact, that was 516 00:29:26,160 --> 00:29:28,440 Speaker 1: one of the biggest problems that Prodigy had was that 517 00:29:28,480 --> 00:29:31,880 Speaker 1: their their costs were much greater than the revenue they 518 00:29:31,880 --> 00:29:36,240 Speaker 1: were bringing in. So if they were to offer up 519 00:29:36,320 --> 00:29:39,160 Speaker 1: something that originally was free, as in it was part 520 00:29:39,200 --> 00:29:43,280 Speaker 1: of what your paid service already covered, and everyone started 521 00:29:43,360 --> 00:29:46,800 Speaker 1: using it, then they would start incurring greater costs as 522 00:29:46,800 --> 00:29:49,560 Speaker 1: a result. So that would end up giving them the 523 00:29:49,600 --> 00:29:53,280 Speaker 1: incentive to make it less free. In other words, you 524 00:29:53,280 --> 00:29:56,080 Speaker 1: would have to pay an extra surcharge on top of 525 00:29:56,080 --> 00:29:59,640 Speaker 1: your monthly feet in order to use certain services, because 526 00:29:59,720 --> 00:30:03,880 Speaker 1: that's only way that Prodigy could either put a little 527 00:30:03,920 --> 00:30:07,040 Speaker 1: bit of a control on the traffic that you know, 528 00:30:07,040 --> 00:30:08,960 Speaker 1: it would decrease the traffic because people didn't want to 529 00:30:08,960 --> 00:30:11,880 Speaker 1: pay for it, or they could recapture costs if people 530 00:30:11,960 --> 00:30:14,400 Speaker 1: really wanted it, and they would pay for it anyway. Right. 531 00:30:14,440 --> 00:30:19,320 Speaker 1: That was also they increased their monthly subscription fee too, 532 00:30:20,560 --> 00:30:22,520 Speaker 1: and they also in response to that, they also had 533 00:30:22,600 --> 00:30:27,320 Speaker 1: more subscribers by then too, right, yeah, one seven million. Yeah, 534 00:30:27,360 --> 00:30:29,880 Speaker 1: so that's you know, they're they're on the on the rise. 535 00:30:29,920 --> 00:30:32,000 Speaker 1: And I'll keep in mind that by now we're talking 536 00:30:32,040 --> 00:30:35,320 Speaker 1: about millions and millions of computers capable of running Prodigy. 537 00:30:35,400 --> 00:30:38,600 Speaker 1: But the Prodigy was still losing money at this time. Yeah, 538 00:30:38,680 --> 00:30:41,360 Speaker 1: they still were not making a profit. In fact, Walter 539 00:30:41,480 --> 00:30:45,240 Speaker 1: Mossberg and anyone who has followed technology for any length 540 00:30:45,280 --> 00:30:47,959 Speaker 1: of time has heard that name. Walter Mossburg has written 541 00:30:48,040 --> 00:30:52,480 Speaker 1: extensively about technology companies over the past couple of decades, 542 00:30:52,920 --> 00:30:56,440 Speaker 1: criticized Prodigy, saying it lacked many features and then it 543 00:30:56,480 --> 00:30:58,880 Speaker 1: was really kind of difficult to use. It was slow, 544 00:30:59,680 --> 00:31:03,440 Speaker 1: and it wasn't necessarily intuitive. That you know, while it 545 00:31:03,520 --> 00:31:06,040 Speaker 1: might be easier to use than say an old Bold 546 00:31:06,120 --> 00:31:08,680 Speaker 1: and Board system where you had to you know, tip 547 00:31:08,800 --> 00:31:11,920 Speaker 1: through text commands to to navigate through it, it still 548 00:31:11,960 --> 00:31:15,880 Speaker 1: didn't make a whole lot of intuitive sense, according to Mossburg. 549 00:31:16,280 --> 00:31:20,320 Speaker 1: And that didn't new Prodigy very many figures moving on 550 00:31:20,360 --> 00:31:24,040 Speaker 1: to ninety three. That's when Prodigy incorporated a new feature 551 00:31:24,040 --> 00:31:28,760 Speaker 1: and its software, which was Internet connectivity. Now, they weren't 552 00:31:29,200 --> 00:31:32,120 Speaker 1: giving you the next necessarily giving you the access to 553 00:31:32,560 --> 00:31:34,720 Speaker 1: a web browser. You could get a web browser and 554 00:31:34,800 --> 00:31:37,560 Speaker 1: use Prodigy to connect to the Internet, but there wasn't 555 00:31:38,040 --> 00:31:41,560 Speaker 1: one incorporated directly into Prodigy at that time, so they're 556 00:31:41,600 --> 00:31:44,040 Speaker 1: really still just an online service provider. However, what it 557 00:31:44,080 --> 00:31:47,200 Speaker 1: did allow you to do is use email to send 558 00:31:47,280 --> 00:31:51,520 Speaker 1: messages to people, yes, people who were not on the 559 00:31:51,560 --> 00:31:55,360 Speaker 1: Prodigy island, and that year the company we actually start 560 00:31:55,400 --> 00:31:57,880 Speaker 1: having figures now for how much money the company was losing. 561 00:31:57,960 --> 00:32:00,960 Speaker 1: Keep in mind during this time, Prodigy is a privately 562 00:32:02,040 --> 00:32:06,280 Speaker 1: run business. It's not it's not its own publicly traded company. 563 00:32:06,320 --> 00:32:09,719 Speaker 1: It's a partnership between IBM and Sears, but it's not 564 00:32:09,840 --> 00:32:12,560 Speaker 1: itself a publicly traded company, so it doesn't have to 565 00:32:13,280 --> 00:32:17,560 Speaker 1: file all of its corporate finances with the government, or 566 00:32:17,600 --> 00:32:20,280 Speaker 1: well does, but not with the public like we don't 567 00:32:20,280 --> 00:32:22,880 Speaker 1: have access to it. The government certainly did because otherwise 568 00:32:22,880 --> 00:32:25,720 Speaker 1: the ass gets a little ansy. But the company that year, 569 00:32:25,800 --> 00:32:32,440 Speaker 1: according to some sources, lost about sixty million dollars, so 570 00:32:32,800 --> 00:32:36,040 Speaker 1: a sixty million dollar loss is not only not profitable, 571 00:32:36,080 --> 00:32:40,200 Speaker 1: but ouch. Yeah. This this figure comes from funding Universe, 572 00:32:40,200 --> 00:32:41,840 Speaker 1: and I got to give them a shout out because 573 00:32:41,880 --> 00:32:46,800 Speaker 1: they have a great uh summary of prodigies history and 574 00:32:46,840 --> 00:32:49,600 Speaker 1: I managed to find a lot of my research from 575 00:32:49,760 --> 00:32:54,240 Speaker 1: funding Universe. Uh. So that's when Prodigy hits its customer 576 00:32:54,320 --> 00:32:58,800 Speaker 1: base peak about two million. Yeah, now that's that's its 577 00:32:58,840 --> 00:33:02,800 Speaker 1: peak based upon on its own customers during the heyday 578 00:33:02,800 --> 00:33:06,320 Speaker 1: of Prodigy. There is something that will change dramatically changed 579 00:33:06,360 --> 00:33:09,640 Speaker 1: Prodigy late in its life that that blows that number 580 00:33:09,680 --> 00:33:13,280 Speaker 1: all the water. But you can't really count it because 581 00:33:13,280 --> 00:33:18,440 Speaker 1: it's it's not customers that Prodigy themselves gleaned, right. It 582 00:33:18,480 --> 00:33:21,280 Speaker 1: was almost like Prodigy was thrust upon them as opposed 583 00:33:21,280 --> 00:33:24,040 Speaker 1: to as opposed that they came to Prodigy, right, But 584 00:33:24,120 --> 00:33:26,960 Speaker 1: we'll talk about that when we get there. So two 585 00:33:27,000 --> 00:33:30,640 Speaker 1: million customers, so obviously they never really hit that that 586 00:33:30,760 --> 00:33:33,600 Speaker 1: promised five million that they really wanted to get. Uh. 587 00:33:33,680 --> 00:33:37,160 Speaker 1: And they also expanded UM in October. I think you're 588 00:33:37,160 --> 00:33:40,280 Speaker 1: about to say they they expanded UM to let users 589 00:33:40,640 --> 00:33:43,840 Speaker 1: use us net using usenet. That was a great phraseology 590 00:33:43,880 --> 00:33:47,640 Speaker 1: that it's almost impossible to avoid. I mean that when 591 00:33:47,640 --> 00:33:50,920 Speaker 1: you're services name is used net, it's going to happen. 592 00:33:51,320 --> 00:33:54,760 Speaker 1: But yeah, use net is another bolton board message board 593 00:33:54,840 --> 00:33:58,440 Speaker 1: kind of system where anyone who's used us net knows 594 00:33:58,520 --> 00:34:01,120 Speaker 1: that this was c tells you can't get around it. 595 00:34:01,440 --> 00:34:06,480 Speaker 1: Anyone who has taken advantage of use net services knows 596 00:34:06,560 --> 00:34:09,240 Speaker 1: that this is someplace where people where it would share 597 00:34:09,360 --> 00:34:13,960 Speaker 1: lots of different things, files, pictures, information about different topics. 598 00:34:14,239 --> 00:34:16,880 Speaker 1: A lot of message boards that you will find on 599 00:34:16,920 --> 00:34:20,319 Speaker 1: the Internet really had their origin back in the use 600 00:34:20,360 --> 00:34:24,720 Speaker 1: net days, and you could find pretty much any interest 601 00:34:24,760 --> 00:34:27,759 Speaker 1: you can imagine. There was a use net dedicated to it. 602 00:34:27,760 --> 00:34:30,040 Speaker 1: There was a more a thread dedicated to thinking back 603 00:34:30,080 --> 00:34:32,640 Speaker 1: here reminds me a little bit of like Reddit these days. Yeah, 604 00:34:32,920 --> 00:34:35,800 Speaker 1: right right, Yeah. It's just or just like the idea 605 00:34:35,880 --> 00:34:38,239 Speaker 1: that somewhere someone has made a web page about the 606 00:34:38,320 --> 00:34:41,080 Speaker 1: thing you're thinking of. The example I will give is 607 00:34:41,120 --> 00:34:43,240 Speaker 1: I remember when I was working for a consulting firm 608 00:34:43,320 --> 00:34:46,880 Speaker 1: years ago. I decided to are one of the consultants 609 00:34:46,880 --> 00:34:50,120 Speaker 1: I was working with wanted in a particular presentation to 610 00:34:50,200 --> 00:34:53,040 Speaker 1: have a picture of a wammy. You know what a 611 00:34:53,040 --> 00:34:55,919 Speaker 1: wammy is no more? Wammy's no more wammy's. So there's 612 00:34:55,920 --> 00:34:57,919 Speaker 1: a game show in the eighties called Press Your Luck, 613 00:34:58,239 --> 00:35:01,719 Speaker 1: maybe early nineties called Press Your Luck, And uh, the 614 00:35:01,760 --> 00:35:04,000 Speaker 1: way the game show worked was this little board would 615 00:35:04,040 --> 00:35:06,480 Speaker 1: light up and at the light would move from one 616 00:35:06,480 --> 00:35:09,000 Speaker 1: block to the next, and you would press a button 617 00:35:09,080 --> 00:35:11,279 Speaker 1: and that would stop the light and it would either 618 00:35:11,680 --> 00:35:14,080 Speaker 1: land on a great prize or something called a whammy. 619 00:35:14,160 --> 00:35:15,719 Speaker 1: And if you've got too many whammy's, you were out 620 00:35:15,719 --> 00:35:18,040 Speaker 1: of the game. So she wanted a picture of a whammy. 621 00:35:18,080 --> 00:35:21,080 Speaker 1: And I thought, surely someone this. Keep in mind, this 622 00:35:21,120 --> 00:35:23,160 Speaker 1: is in the nineties when I'm saying this, So surely 623 00:35:23,160 --> 00:35:25,399 Speaker 1: someone's made a web page about whammy's. And I did 624 00:35:25,440 --> 00:35:28,000 Speaker 1: did the search, and sure enough I found five now, 625 00:35:28,600 --> 00:35:30,400 Speaker 1: which just goes to show that if you could think 626 00:35:30,440 --> 00:35:33,520 Speaker 1: about it, someone's made a web page about it. So so, 627 00:35:33,520 --> 00:35:35,000 Speaker 1: so this was for an additional fee that was for 628 00:35:35,080 --> 00:35:38,080 Speaker 1: three dollars and sixty cents per hour because it was 629 00:35:38,160 --> 00:35:42,239 Speaker 1: so information so data intensive. Well, yeah, it took up 630 00:35:42,360 --> 00:35:45,080 Speaker 1: telephone lines again, so you know the fact that it 631 00:35:45,160 --> 00:35:49,200 Speaker 1: was requiring Prodigy to have these lines open, and thus 632 00:35:49,239 --> 00:35:51,560 Speaker 1: they had to pay for them. They ended up putting 633 00:35:51,600 --> 00:35:54,799 Speaker 1: three dollars and sixty cents per hour as the surcharge. 634 00:35:55,239 --> 00:35:58,360 Speaker 1: They also introduced chat rooms that year, and they introduced 635 00:35:58,400 --> 00:36:01,080 Speaker 1: them free of charge. As it turns out, was a 636 00:36:01,200 --> 00:36:03,880 Speaker 1: terrible idea. Yeah, from a business perspective, it was a 637 00:36:03,960 --> 00:36:06,560 Speaker 1: terrible idea, because every from a customer perspective, it was 638 00:36:06,560 --> 00:36:09,719 Speaker 1: a brilliant idea. And now I can communicate with people 639 00:36:09,760 --> 00:36:12,040 Speaker 1: in real time and chat rooms with lots of other 640 00:36:12,080 --> 00:36:14,160 Speaker 1: people all at the same time. But for Prodigy there 641 00:36:14,160 --> 00:36:18,240 Speaker 1: were two big problems. Well, that's also really data intensive, yeah, 642 00:36:18,360 --> 00:36:22,560 Speaker 1: and also people will say the darnedest things when they 643 00:36:22,560 --> 00:36:27,680 Speaker 1: get together. Uh. And so the telecommunications charges went through 644 00:36:27,680 --> 00:36:30,959 Speaker 1: the roof, and the content was something that Prodigy could 645 00:36:30,960 --> 00:36:33,439 Speaker 1: not control. They couldn't censor that the way they could 646 00:36:33,520 --> 00:36:36,879 Speaker 1: the bulletin board messages or the other services. In fact, 647 00:36:36,880 --> 00:36:39,240 Speaker 1: there was a time where there was even a rumor 648 00:36:39,280 --> 00:36:42,400 Speaker 1: that they were looking at emails, although they never were, 649 00:36:42,440 --> 00:36:45,840 Speaker 1: but the rumor broke out that they were. So uh. 650 00:36:46,120 --> 00:36:50,200 Speaker 1: They ended up shutting down the chat rooms um eventually 651 00:36:50,280 --> 00:36:54,279 Speaker 1: because of the the rising cost of operating them and 652 00:36:54,400 --> 00:36:57,240 Speaker 1: the fact that they could not be certain that people 653 00:36:57,280 --> 00:37:00,600 Speaker 1: would behave themselves in the chat rooms. According to Prodigies, 654 00:37:01,080 --> 00:37:04,759 Speaker 1: idea of how people should behave themselves. The company that 655 00:37:04,840 --> 00:37:07,719 Speaker 1: year lost fifty two millions, so although it lost a 656 00:37:07,719 --> 00:37:09,799 Speaker 1: lot of money, it was less money than it lost 657 00:37:09,800 --> 00:37:14,919 Speaker 1: the year before. I guess, um, that brings us up 658 00:37:15,120 --> 00:37:18,960 Speaker 1: to right. So, oh, ninety five, that's when that's when 659 00:37:19,160 --> 00:37:24,600 Speaker 1: Rock and Roll found Prodigy. Um the former head of 660 00:37:24,680 --> 00:37:27,279 Speaker 1: VH one, or one of the former heads of VH one, 661 00:37:27,640 --> 00:37:31,040 Speaker 1: Edward Bennett, who had really turned the company around. Yeah, 662 00:37:31,080 --> 00:37:35,920 Speaker 1: I had really turned VH one from a struggling channel 663 00:37:36,040 --> 00:37:38,920 Speaker 1: into a success. I'm sure pop up video must have 664 00:37:38,960 --> 00:37:41,120 Speaker 1: been one of those things that was just came out 665 00:37:41,120 --> 00:37:44,000 Speaker 1: of that that era. He joined, He joined Prodigy as 666 00:37:44,040 --> 00:37:46,920 Speaker 1: the new CEO. Yep, And that same year they launched 667 00:37:47,200 --> 00:37:51,120 Speaker 1: a web browser, Prodigy branded web browser, so you would 668 00:37:51,760 --> 00:37:54,280 Speaker 1: go into your Prodigy account and then you could access 669 00:37:54,320 --> 00:37:56,960 Speaker 1: the world Wide Web. Uh. And in ninety five, it 670 00:37:57,040 --> 00:38:01,440 Speaker 1: was still still pretty much a Wild West kind of territory, 671 00:38:01,560 --> 00:38:04,840 Speaker 1: although it was certainly getting larger adoption by then. The 672 00:38:05,080 --> 00:38:09,359 Speaker 1: customers also could uh. Well, they now accounted for about 673 00:38:09,400 --> 00:38:11,839 Speaker 1: let's see, I think there's one million of them, so 674 00:38:11,960 --> 00:38:15,440 Speaker 1: the numbers are actually dropped than before. But the company 675 00:38:15,480 --> 00:38:18,719 Speaker 1: claimed that it was on track to becoming profitable, which 676 00:38:18,880 --> 00:38:21,239 Speaker 1: had been claiming for the past ten years, right, right, 677 00:38:21,280 --> 00:38:23,200 Speaker 1: But they're they're saying, no, we really mean it now, 678 00:38:23,400 --> 00:38:25,680 Speaker 1: we are we are on the road to becoming a 679 00:38:25,680 --> 00:38:29,960 Speaker 1: profitable business. They lost thirty four point six million dollars 680 00:38:29,960 --> 00:38:33,640 Speaker 1: in that year, but less than the previous two years 681 00:38:34,360 --> 00:38:37,919 Speaker 1: half of half, like two years ago. Yeah, so they're 682 00:38:37,920 --> 00:38:40,839 Speaker 1: losing less money year over year, which means that, in 683 00:38:40,840 --> 00:38:42,640 Speaker 1: a way, you could say they're on the road to 684 00:38:42,680 --> 00:38:49,240 Speaker 1: being profitable, assuming they can continue that trend. However, IBM 685 00:38:49,280 --> 00:38:52,960 Speaker 1: and Sears basically bailed. Yeah, they said, you know what, guys, 686 00:38:53,280 --> 00:38:57,040 Speaker 1: it's been fun, but it's also been holy heck on 687 00:38:57,080 --> 00:39:00,520 Speaker 1: our wallets, right, because I mean they you know, definitely 688 00:39:01,120 --> 00:39:04,040 Speaker 1: over a billion dollars in investments spent at that point 689 00:39:04,160 --> 00:39:06,440 Speaker 1: and in laws and revenue. The fact that they were 690 00:39:06,480 --> 00:39:08,720 Speaker 1: losing money year over year meant that that one billion 691 00:39:08,880 --> 00:39:11,279 Speaker 1: was just a starting point. They had to keep the 692 00:39:11,320 --> 00:39:14,600 Speaker 1: company afloat during these years too, um so they so 693 00:39:14,640 --> 00:39:19,240 Speaker 1: they wound up selling Producy Services Company to a company 694 00:39:19,239 --> 00:39:23,520 Speaker 1: called International Wireless Incorporated. That the new management team was 695 00:39:23,560 --> 00:39:28,400 Speaker 1: still led by Edward Bennett. But but yeah, they had 696 00:39:28,440 --> 00:39:32,320 Speaker 1: some they cleared some house. Yeah yeah, in order to 697 00:39:32,360 --> 00:39:33,600 Speaker 1: get it ready for the sale. I think that they 698 00:39:33,760 --> 00:39:36,360 Speaker 1: dropped seventeen percent of their workforce. Yeah. Yeah. It was 699 00:39:36,400 --> 00:39:39,279 Speaker 1: one of those strategies that companies sometimes used in order 700 00:39:39,320 --> 00:39:42,640 Speaker 1: to make them look better than than how they're operating. 701 00:39:42,800 --> 00:39:45,600 Speaker 1: They lower operating costs in a way to lower operating 702 00:39:45,600 --> 00:39:48,560 Speaker 1: costs get rid of some of those pesky salaries. Yeah, 703 00:39:48,640 --> 00:39:50,759 Speaker 1: I mean that, you know. Either way, this sale was 704 00:39:50,840 --> 00:39:54,160 Speaker 1: for seventy eight point two million, which is embarrassing. Yeah, 705 00:39:54,200 --> 00:39:56,680 Speaker 1: when you look at it, over a billion dollars in 706 00:39:56,840 --> 00:40:00,120 Speaker 1: investments over the years, plus however much was need to 707 00:40:00,200 --> 00:40:02,680 Speaker 1: keep the company afloat. Selling it for somebody eight point 708 00:40:02,680 --> 00:40:05,680 Speaker 1: two million is really cutting your losses whether or not. 709 00:40:05,800 --> 00:40:10,480 Speaker 1: That's the biggest uh, you know, biggest uh dump as 710 00:40:10,520 --> 00:40:12,719 Speaker 1: far as it goes. No, there are other ones that 711 00:40:12,760 --> 00:40:14,959 Speaker 1: are even worse. I mean you can argue like things 712 00:40:15,000 --> 00:40:18,480 Speaker 1: like MySpace and uh and there are other properties that 713 00:40:18,760 --> 00:40:23,000 Speaker 1: had really dramatic investments and then a huge drop off. 714 00:40:23,480 --> 00:40:28,319 Speaker 1: But it's it's definitely up there. So uh. The new 715 00:40:28,400 --> 00:40:31,880 Speaker 1: strategy that the company has is to really kind of 716 00:40:31,920 --> 00:40:36,240 Speaker 1: branch out to still offer the online service provider provider 717 00:40:36,320 --> 00:40:38,520 Speaker 1: services that it had. So in other words, you know, 718 00:40:38,560 --> 00:40:40,600 Speaker 1: this would still be something that you would log into 719 00:40:40,640 --> 00:40:43,920 Speaker 1: and you would have your curated content. Uh. And you 720 00:40:43,960 --> 00:40:48,560 Speaker 1: could then also access some Internet functionality that was packaged 721 00:40:48,600 --> 00:40:51,720 Speaker 1: under the name Prodigy Classic, right, or you could actually 722 00:40:51,840 --> 00:40:54,439 Speaker 1: use Prodigy as an Internet service provider, and this would 723 00:40:54,480 --> 00:40:57,520 Speaker 1: be the company that would give you the access to 724 00:40:57,680 --> 00:41:00,600 Speaker 1: the Internet, so you could browse the Internet, send email, 725 00:41:00,640 --> 00:41:02,560 Speaker 1: all the kind of stuff that we do all the time. 726 00:41:03,000 --> 00:41:06,279 Speaker 1: And that one that that service had an interesting name, 727 00:41:06,600 --> 00:41:09,000 Speaker 1: So you had Prodect Classic, and then the Internet service 728 00:41:09,000 --> 00:41:16,160 Speaker 1: provider branch was called Prodigy Internet. Really really creative marketing 729 00:41:16,160 --> 00:41:18,600 Speaker 1: forces here. The company that year had also changed its 730 00:41:18,640 --> 00:41:22,480 Speaker 1: name to Prodigy Incorporated. Yep, yep, So now it's Prodigy Inc. 731 00:41:22,880 --> 00:41:26,840 Speaker 1: And uh, they changed the subscription package. Now it was 732 00:41:26,920 --> 00:41:32,600 Speaker 1: no longer for either service. It was now you had 733 00:41:32,600 --> 00:41:36,800 Speaker 1: to spend whether it was Prodigy Classic or prod Internet 734 00:41:36,840 --> 00:41:39,520 Speaker 1: didn't matter which. Uh. And that year the company lost 735 00:41:39,600 --> 00:41:42,600 Speaker 1: ninety point eight million dollars. Yeah, And so I mean 736 00:41:42,640 --> 00:41:45,200 Speaker 1: you keep in mind that the overall market all had 737 00:41:45,200 --> 00:41:49,319 Speaker 1: been adding some three thousand subscribers per month um and 738 00:41:49,360 --> 00:41:52,919 Speaker 1: had in fact declined to take over Prodigy yeah. They 739 00:41:53,400 --> 00:41:56,520 Speaker 1: they supposedly visited the premises at some point and went, 740 00:41:56,560 --> 00:41:59,640 Speaker 1: you know, we're doing okay. They went to White Plains, 741 00:41:59,680 --> 00:42:04,920 Speaker 1: New York, which is where Prodigy was headquartered, and Microsoft Network, 742 00:42:04,920 --> 00:42:06,799 Speaker 1: which had been online for less than a year, had 743 00:42:06,800 --> 00:42:10,080 Speaker 1: already surpassed Prodigy and subscribers. Yeah, so this is one 744 00:42:10,120 --> 00:42:13,000 Speaker 1: of those things where, uh, and we'll talk a little bit, 745 00:42:13,040 --> 00:42:15,239 Speaker 1: I guess towards the end about what we think kind 746 00:42:15,239 --> 00:42:18,000 Speaker 1: of went wrong with Prodigy. I can at least speak 747 00:42:18,040 --> 00:42:21,560 Speaker 1: to that a little bit. But it became pretty clear 748 00:42:21,600 --> 00:42:26,560 Speaker 1: in hindsight that Prodigy made some poor choices. Jonathwenty here again, 749 00:42:26,600 --> 00:42:37,120 Speaker 1: we're gonna take another quick break, but we'll be right back. Alright, 750 00:42:37,120 --> 00:42:40,520 Speaker 1: So we left off in nineteen six, so logically we 751 00:42:40,560 --> 00:42:44,879 Speaker 1: should then move on to crazy talk. That was when 752 00:42:44,920 --> 00:42:49,280 Speaker 1: Prodigy split into three divisions. So you had two divisions 753 00:42:49,320 --> 00:42:51,839 Speaker 1: that looked at the core services. One of them were 754 00:42:52,080 --> 00:42:55,480 Speaker 1: was specifically focused on domestic and one on international. But 755 00:42:55,520 --> 00:42:58,239 Speaker 1: you had a third division as well, right, That one 756 00:42:58,360 --> 00:43:01,520 Speaker 1: was all about software developments. That was about building a 757 00:43:01,560 --> 00:43:06,040 Speaker 1: new functionality and improving the existing functionality of the Prodigy service. 758 00:43:06,080 --> 00:43:08,000 Speaker 1: That was all that it was doing, which they were doing. 759 00:43:08,239 --> 00:43:12,640 Speaker 1: They had, around as the similar time, launched a supposedly 760 00:43:12,680 --> 00:43:15,920 Speaker 1: the first bulletin board archive, which was essentially a search engine, 761 00:43:16,000 --> 00:43:18,400 Speaker 1: and that was kind of a new crazy thing within 762 00:43:18,719 --> 00:43:23,520 Speaker 1: the bulletin board messaging board world. Yeah, we had some 763 00:43:23,600 --> 00:43:26,480 Speaker 1: early search engines in those nineties cash, I remember things 764 00:43:26,520 --> 00:43:29,319 Speaker 1: like web crawler. But this is you know, this is 765 00:43:29,440 --> 00:43:33,720 Speaker 1: right when companies like Google are just starting to bloom. 766 00:43:33,800 --> 00:43:38,320 Speaker 1: They're not even really on the horizon yet for most people. 767 00:43:38,440 --> 00:43:41,640 Speaker 1: So it was certainly something that was still seen as 768 00:43:41,719 --> 00:43:46,719 Speaker 1: very much innovative. UM. As for the international UH efforts 769 00:43:46,920 --> 00:43:50,400 Speaker 1: on part of Prodigy, we mentioned earlier that Europe was 770 00:43:50,520 --> 00:43:54,440 Speaker 1: very much saturated with online service providers and internet service 771 00:43:54,440 --> 00:43:57,480 Speaker 1: providers of their own, so Prodigy really didn't see like 772 00:43:57,520 --> 00:44:00,799 Speaker 1: there was a great in road in Teably never even 773 00:44:00,800 --> 00:44:03,400 Speaker 1: went there. They were just like, you know, so they 774 00:44:03,400 --> 00:44:07,319 Speaker 1: started looking at other markets, and mainly at that time 775 00:44:07,360 --> 00:44:11,399 Speaker 1: it was Africa and China. They also started to make 776 00:44:11,560 --> 00:44:14,960 Speaker 1: some impact in Mexico and in fact that would become 777 00:44:14,960 --> 00:44:19,200 Speaker 1: more important, very important. UM they had around well in 778 00:44:19,280 --> 00:44:21,680 Speaker 1: ninety seven, they estimated that they needed about one point 779 00:44:21,760 --> 00:44:25,560 Speaker 1: five million customers in order to break even. UH. They 780 00:44:25,560 --> 00:44:28,360 Speaker 1: did not have one point five million customers. In ninety 781 00:44:28,400 --> 00:44:32,200 Speaker 1: seven they had about sixteen thousand compared to A O 782 00:44:32,320 --> 00:44:36,120 Speaker 1: L's like eight million, right, and and that six thousand. 783 00:44:36,160 --> 00:44:38,839 Speaker 1: They actually had more customers than that, but six and 784 00:44:38,920 --> 00:44:41,920 Speaker 1: thirteen thousand were the billable customers because because you know, 785 00:44:41,960 --> 00:44:44,719 Speaker 1: they might have joined the service, but they were in 786 00:44:44,760 --> 00:44:48,920 Speaker 1: that free free period, so they weren't being build for that. Actually, 787 00:44:48,960 --> 00:44:51,360 Speaker 1: that was the year that FTC that the the Federal 788 00:44:51,360 --> 00:44:54,080 Speaker 1: Trade Commission charged Prodigy, compu Serve, and a O L 789 00:44:54,160 --> 00:44:57,200 Speaker 1: with all having made unclear free trial offers that didn't 790 00:44:57,200 --> 00:45:00,520 Speaker 1: sufficiently warn their customers about being automatically built at the 791 00:45:00,600 --> 00:45:04,280 Speaker 1: end of the trial period. Excellent. I actually saw that lawsuit, 792 00:45:04,360 --> 00:45:07,040 Speaker 1: like I had the information up on my page. I 793 00:45:07,680 --> 00:45:09,360 Speaker 1: felt like I didn't have enough time to read it. 794 00:45:09,400 --> 00:45:12,200 Speaker 1: So I'm glad you did because I was like, there's 795 00:45:12,320 --> 00:45:16,160 Speaker 1: something legal happen in ninety seven. Moving on, Uh so, 796 00:45:16,280 --> 00:45:20,000 Speaker 1: how much money did the company lose in nineteen seven 797 00:45:20,719 --> 00:45:25,560 Speaker 1: and thirty two point seventy eight million? Wow? Wow, So 798 00:45:26,160 --> 00:45:28,759 Speaker 1: keep in mind just a few years earlier. It was 799 00:45:28,880 --> 00:45:32,239 Speaker 1: it was back in when they thought that they were 800 00:45:32,280 --> 00:45:35,480 Speaker 1: on the road to profitability. That's when they lost thirty 801 00:45:35,560 --> 00:45:38,600 Speaker 1: four million dollars back in ninety five, and then just 802 00:45:38,680 --> 00:45:42,600 Speaker 1: two years later they lose a hundred thirty two million, 803 00:45:42,640 --> 00:45:46,520 Speaker 1: almost a hundred thirty three million dollars. Clearly things were 804 00:45:46,600 --> 00:45:49,680 Speaker 1: not moving in the same direction as they had perceived 805 00:45:49,760 --> 00:45:51,920 Speaker 1: back in ninety five, and certainly not where they were 806 00:45:51,920 --> 00:45:54,960 Speaker 1: hoping now. Right. So, apparently there were a lot of 807 00:45:55,000 --> 00:45:57,040 Speaker 1: things going on in the market at that time, including 808 00:45:57,080 --> 00:46:01,200 Speaker 1: this increased competition from the other rivals in the space. 809 00:46:02,080 --> 00:46:05,160 Speaker 1: Uh and and so the company decides to do something 810 00:46:05,239 --> 00:46:08,120 Speaker 1: really dramatic, something that they had only done a couple 811 00:46:08,160 --> 00:46:11,680 Speaker 1: of times before. They were their their their name change. Yeah, 812 00:46:11,920 --> 00:46:15,440 Speaker 1: they changed to Prodigy Communications Corporation. Right. So then they 813 00:46:15,520 --> 00:46:18,799 Speaker 1: also decided to lower the monthly fees back to about 814 00:46:18,880 --> 00:46:23,440 Speaker 1: fifteen fifteen bucks, and they promised a new digital service 815 00:46:23,520 --> 00:46:28,120 Speaker 1: that would be specifically geared for the brand new blistering 816 00:46:28,360 --> 00:46:33,600 Speaker 1: le fast fifty six K modems. Yeah, I remember having 817 00:46:33,640 --> 00:46:39,640 Speaker 1: a twenty four hundred mottem. I think in that time, 818 00:46:39,680 --> 00:46:42,880 Speaker 1: I actually did think that K was blisteringly fast. I 819 00:46:42,920 --> 00:46:44,600 Speaker 1: think I still had a fourteen four at the time, 820 00:46:45,120 --> 00:46:49,840 Speaker 1: so I essentially two point four is what mine was. Man, Yeah, 821 00:46:50,280 --> 00:46:52,680 Speaker 1: you would you would just hope that whatever link, whatever 822 00:46:52,760 --> 00:46:55,759 Speaker 1: thing you were looking at was just text, because if 823 00:46:55,760 --> 00:46:57,880 Speaker 1: there was anything other than text, you were going to 824 00:46:57,960 --> 00:47:00,279 Speaker 1: be there for a good couple of hours until my 825 00:47:00,400 --> 00:47:04,080 Speaker 1: x files fan pages loaded very slowly. Um well, the 826 00:47:04,120 --> 00:47:07,560 Speaker 1: truth was out there. Uh So the news service was 827 00:47:07,560 --> 00:47:11,880 Speaker 1: supposed to be much faster. K optimized service is supposed 828 00:47:11,880 --> 00:47:14,520 Speaker 1: to be faster and have more rich content than the 829 00:47:14,560 --> 00:47:17,719 Speaker 1: older services. Now, remember we said that the older services 830 00:47:17,880 --> 00:47:21,560 Speaker 1: services had graphics, but these graphics were akin to what 831 00:47:21,719 --> 00:47:25,839 Speaker 1: you might see in an old clip art, uh folder, Right, 832 00:47:26,200 --> 00:47:30,560 Speaker 1: they weren't. They weren't like photo realistic pictures or anything 833 00:47:30,560 --> 00:47:33,080 Speaker 1: along those lines. And when you see the commercial, you'll 834 00:47:33,120 --> 00:47:36,000 Speaker 1: understand what I what I mean, because that be feeder. 835 00:47:36,040 --> 00:47:40,080 Speaker 1: It's pretty gorgeous. It's it's it's. My My favorite thing 836 00:47:40,160 --> 00:47:42,080 Speaker 1: is the reaction of the old man when he sees 837 00:47:42,160 --> 00:47:45,640 Speaker 1: the page load up about England and it's a little 838 00:47:45,680 --> 00:47:50,479 Speaker 1: cartoon of a B feeder and he's like, Wow, how 839 00:47:50,600 --> 00:47:53,480 Speaker 1: easily we were impressed back in those days, Like you know, yeah, 840 00:47:53,560 --> 00:47:55,880 Speaker 1: like like pixel art on the level of that, Like 841 00:47:56,080 --> 00:47:59,400 Speaker 1: Diesel Sweeties makes fun of these days, right. Yeah. So 842 00:48:00,040 --> 00:48:03,240 Speaker 1: at this time, the company was still maintaining two different services, 843 00:48:03,239 --> 00:48:07,839 Speaker 1: Prodigy Classic and Prodigy Internet uh and combined those two 844 00:48:07,880 --> 00:48:11,440 Speaker 1: services had eight hundred thirty thousand customers, only six hundred 845 00:48:11,520 --> 00:48:15,719 Speaker 1: seventy one thousand of which were considered billable customers. So 846 00:48:15,800 --> 00:48:18,480 Speaker 1: the company lost money yet again, but less than they 847 00:48:18,480 --> 00:48:21,200 Speaker 1: had the year previous, less than half, only sixty five 848 00:48:21,239 --> 00:48:25,080 Speaker 1: point eight million point eight million. Yeah, it's tiny compared 849 00:48:25,120 --> 00:48:30,359 Speaker 1: to the hundred thirty two So yeah, good at least 850 00:48:30,400 --> 00:48:32,839 Speaker 1: at least it was a reverse in the trend because 851 00:48:32,840 --> 00:48:36,439 Speaker 1: they had been losing more and more money each year. Yes. Um, 852 00:48:36,960 --> 00:48:39,840 Speaker 1: So the next year they launched an I p O 853 00:48:40,080 --> 00:48:43,000 Speaker 1: because why wouldn't you, Well, you've been losing money year 854 00:48:43,080 --> 00:48:45,359 Speaker 1: over year, And I think I think that was one 855 00:48:45,400 --> 00:48:48,520 Speaker 1: of those desperate bids to avoid bankruptcy kind of kind 856 00:48:48,520 --> 00:48:50,640 Speaker 1: of I p O s. Because there's two kinds of IPOs. 857 00:48:50,680 --> 00:48:52,239 Speaker 1: There's the kind that we are like, wow, we're so 858 00:48:52,280 --> 00:48:53,960 Speaker 1: excited and we think that everyone's going to give us 859 00:48:53,960 --> 00:48:56,000 Speaker 1: even more money to do these wonderful things. And there's 860 00:48:56,320 --> 00:48:59,719 Speaker 1: oh crap, oh crap, my car, don't take my car. 861 00:49:00,160 --> 00:49:03,080 Speaker 1: Please put money in us, because we promise we are 862 00:49:03,120 --> 00:49:05,920 Speaker 1: going to be much more profitable, very very soon. We 863 00:49:05,960 --> 00:49:08,960 Speaker 1: promised we're going to sell it to a sucker right there, exactly. 864 00:49:08,960 --> 00:49:11,640 Speaker 1: That may also be the case, like we'll we'll only 865 00:49:11,680 --> 00:49:15,880 Speaker 1: be publicly tradeable shortly, and then we'll we'll endure a 866 00:49:16,239 --> 00:49:18,640 Speaker 1: hostile takeover, which will actually be just a takeover because 867 00:49:18,640 --> 00:49:21,279 Speaker 1: we'll be like, please take over. But they raised about 868 00:49:21,320 --> 00:49:23,440 Speaker 1: a hundred and sixty million out of that, Yeah, so 869 00:49:23,600 --> 00:49:27,120 Speaker 1: they did raise money. The stocks share price originally was 870 00:49:27,160 --> 00:49:30,560 Speaker 1: fifteen dollars from what I understand. According to Funding Universe, 871 00:49:30,600 --> 00:49:34,400 Speaker 1: the highest point of the stock price in ended up 872 00:49:34,400 --> 00:49:37,600 Speaker 1: being about fifty dollars per share. But that was a 873 00:49:37,600 --> 00:49:42,399 Speaker 1: time where the investment companies were very much excited about 874 00:49:42,520 --> 00:49:47,040 Speaker 1: technology companies. We're talking about. This is also, yeah, this 875 00:49:47,120 --> 00:49:49,200 Speaker 1: is the cusp. This is before, This is while the 876 00:49:49,320 --> 00:49:52,919 Speaker 1: dot com bubble is inflating, right, So this is when 877 00:49:52,960 --> 00:49:55,680 Speaker 1: we were all believing that the Internet was going to 878 00:49:55,719 --> 00:49:58,480 Speaker 1: be the way everyone was going to do business from 879 00:49:58,520 --> 00:50:01,200 Speaker 1: that point forward, that that the brick and mortar stores 880 00:50:01,280 --> 00:50:04,239 Speaker 1: were going to die out almost immediately. This is how 881 00:50:04,280 --> 00:50:06,440 Speaker 1: everything's gonna work. We just have to make sure that 882 00:50:06,480 --> 00:50:09,440 Speaker 1: we've got the business plan in place that makes it 883 00:50:09,480 --> 00:50:13,400 Speaker 1: all magically happen. And I apologize for this age reference, Jonathan, 884 00:50:13,440 --> 00:50:16,080 Speaker 1: but but this was right before I graduated from high school, 885 00:50:16,160 --> 00:50:20,319 Speaker 1: and I've been married for two years, and and it 886 00:50:20,360 --> 00:50:22,440 Speaker 1: was right about that time that all of my friends 887 00:50:22,520 --> 00:50:25,200 Speaker 1: were going, like, we are going to make our fortunes 888 00:50:25,239 --> 00:50:28,560 Speaker 1: doing this Internet thing. Yeah. So obviously that's one of 889 00:50:28,600 --> 00:50:31,960 Speaker 1: those if you're a company that offers access to this 890 00:50:32,040 --> 00:50:35,200 Speaker 1: magical world called the Internet, you're in a good position. 891 00:50:35,280 --> 00:50:37,320 Speaker 1: So they did do pretty well with that I p 892 00:50:37,440 --> 00:50:41,719 Speaker 1: O and the subsequent year of investment, but not so 893 00:50:41,760 --> 00:50:43,759 Speaker 1: well that they were actually able to generate a lot 894 00:50:43,800 --> 00:50:48,480 Speaker 1: of revenue from this um. They would eventually, by the 895 00:50:48,520 --> 00:50:52,440 Speaker 1: end of ninety nine lose eighty point four nine million, 896 00:50:52,560 --> 00:50:55,719 Speaker 1: So again it's gone up since the last time. But 897 00:50:55,800 --> 00:50:59,040 Speaker 1: they also would undergo kind of a change as well 898 00:50:59,120 --> 00:51:03,040 Speaker 1: because of this I p O. It allowed a company 899 00:51:03,160 --> 00:51:09,040 Speaker 1: called Carso Global Telecom Essay c V. It's a Mexican company, 900 00:51:09,080 --> 00:51:13,319 Speaker 1: to end up with sixty percent ownership of Prodigy. So 901 00:51:13,360 --> 00:51:16,760 Speaker 1: this was one of those companies that ended up investing 902 00:51:16,760 --> 00:51:20,280 Speaker 1: in Prodigy when they started making those in roads into Mexico, 903 00:51:21,000 --> 00:51:23,920 Speaker 1: and in fact, Prodigy to this day is very important 904 00:51:23,960 --> 00:51:27,320 Speaker 1: in Mexico. But we'll get into that. So Prodigy launched 905 00:51:27,320 --> 00:51:30,200 Speaker 1: a bilingual I SP service in the United States and 906 00:51:30,239 --> 00:51:33,680 Speaker 1: also entered a joint venture into Mexico's largest I s P, 907 00:51:33,800 --> 00:51:37,440 Speaker 1: which was called telmex And at that time the company 908 00:51:37,480 --> 00:51:40,919 Speaker 1: also went ahead sold off its African assets, those those 909 00:51:40,960 --> 00:51:44,240 Speaker 1: regional areas in Africa that had been supporting for only 910 00:51:44,320 --> 00:51:49,160 Speaker 1: two point eight one million dollars. But later in Prodigy 911 00:51:49,160 --> 00:51:52,239 Speaker 1: acquired a company called flash net Communications, which was a 912 00:51:52,400 --> 00:51:55,560 Speaker 1: rival I s P and OSP where a hundred thirteen 913 00:51:55,600 --> 00:51:59,880 Speaker 1: million dollars. That did add two hundred and fifty thousand 914 00:52:00,000 --> 00:52:04,160 Speaker 1: customers to their base. So now they've they've almost artificially 915 00:52:04,200 --> 00:52:07,080 Speaker 1: added more customers in a way, because they ended up 916 00:52:07,120 --> 00:52:09,680 Speaker 1: acquiring all the ones that had belonged to flash Neet. 917 00:52:10,080 --> 00:52:13,719 Speaker 1: And then Prodigy and SBC Communications Incorporated, which is a 918 00:52:13,760 --> 00:52:18,200 Speaker 1: telephone company, announced plans for a limited partnership and that 919 00:52:18,239 --> 00:52:21,080 Speaker 1: partnership would make Prodigy the exclusive I s P for 920 00:52:21,239 --> 00:52:23,680 Speaker 1: SBC consumers. So, you know when I said earlier about 921 00:52:23,719 --> 00:52:27,200 Speaker 1: how two million was kind of the peak for Prodigy, 922 00:52:27,239 --> 00:52:29,879 Speaker 1: this is where the caveat comes in, because because SBC 923 00:52:30,040 --> 00:52:33,200 Speaker 1: had something like seventy millions seventy seven million high speed 924 00:52:33,239 --> 00:52:38,040 Speaker 1: Internet customers, which meant that because this agreement made Prodigy 925 00:52:38,239 --> 00:52:43,320 Speaker 1: the the exclusive provider, it it boosted Prodigies numbers to 926 00:52:43,360 --> 00:52:45,480 Speaker 1: an insane amount. But that's the thing is that these 927 00:52:45,520 --> 00:52:48,719 Speaker 1: were not people who were subscribing directly to Prodigy. Well 928 00:52:48,760 --> 00:52:50,759 Speaker 1: they you know, it's they were because they had to, 929 00:52:50,960 --> 00:52:54,160 Speaker 1: but they were subscribing to SPC and so it wasn't 930 00:52:54,200 --> 00:52:57,680 Speaker 1: generating the revenue directly through Prodigy the way. The way, 931 00:52:57,680 --> 00:53:01,279 Speaker 1: because prod also made money through advertising. They would put 932 00:53:01,320 --> 00:53:05,160 Speaker 1: ads on their pages, usually one ad per page, so 933 00:53:05,200 --> 00:53:07,600 Speaker 1: it's not like you would have tons of ads on everything. 934 00:53:08,120 --> 00:53:10,440 Speaker 1: So they would generate some revenue that way, so that 935 00:53:10,440 --> 00:53:12,759 Speaker 1: there was also, you know, a method of making some 936 00:53:12,840 --> 00:53:17,959 Speaker 1: money besides just direct subscriptions. Anyway. Uh, that was also 937 00:53:17,960 --> 00:53:21,840 Speaker 1: the year where probably was shut down temporarily on purpose. 938 00:53:21,960 --> 00:53:25,080 Speaker 1: Internally they shut down they or they turned off the lights, 939 00:53:25,280 --> 00:53:27,759 Speaker 1: as some people have said, because there was something going 940 00:53:27,800 --> 00:53:29,920 Speaker 1: on in ninety nine that a lot of people just 941 00:53:30,280 --> 00:53:32,400 Speaker 1: I mean, you've heard the phrase, but you've probably forgotten 942 00:53:32,440 --> 00:53:35,120 Speaker 1: all about it. Whole two K thing. Yeah, back when 943 00:53:35,120 --> 00:53:37,480 Speaker 1: we thought the world was going to end because all 944 00:53:37,600 --> 00:53:41,439 Speaker 1: computers had only been programmed to run up through We're 945 00:53:41,480 --> 00:53:46,520 Speaker 1: through through. No one had bothered to well, they had 946 00:53:46,600 --> 00:53:49,640 Speaker 1: used they had only programmed the date for the year 947 00:53:49,719 --> 00:53:53,799 Speaker 1: as two right, so computers would read ninety nine as 948 00:53:54,800 --> 00:53:56,640 Speaker 1: And then everyone thought, wait a minute, what happens when 949 00:53:56,640 --> 00:53:59,239 Speaker 1: they hit zero zero for two thousand? Uh? Does that 950 00:53:59,320 --> 00:54:01,560 Speaker 1: mean the computers are just going to assume it's nineteen 951 00:54:01,640 --> 00:54:04,640 Speaker 1: hundred because it's going to reset to that value. It 952 00:54:04,680 --> 00:54:08,399 Speaker 1: doesn't understand that there is another year here, and if 953 00:54:08,440 --> 00:54:11,200 Speaker 1: that happens, how is this going to affect everything else? 954 00:54:11,440 --> 00:54:13,520 Speaker 1: And so you had people saying, well, you're probably gonna 955 00:54:13,520 --> 00:54:15,880 Speaker 1: have some interruptions and services, but that's about as bad 956 00:54:15,880 --> 00:54:17,000 Speaker 1: as it's going to be. And then you have the 957 00:54:17,000 --> 00:54:19,160 Speaker 1: other side of the spectrum where they said all of 958 00:54:19,200 --> 00:54:24,240 Speaker 1: the world shall end, the financial markets shall crash. Basically 959 00:54:24,280 --> 00:54:26,399 Speaker 1: be I know that fight Club hasn't did fight Club 960 00:54:26,440 --> 00:54:28,600 Speaker 1: come out that year? I know that fight Club wasn't 961 00:54:28,600 --> 00:54:31,040 Speaker 1: a big thing at that point, but but but like 962 00:54:31,120 --> 00:54:33,200 Speaker 1: basically the end of fight Club, I was just saying, 963 00:54:33,200 --> 00:54:36,879 Speaker 1: like dogs and cats living together, maths hysteria. Yeah, so 964 00:54:36,920 --> 00:54:39,920 Speaker 1: that that's essentially what we're looking at in fact, And 965 00:54:40,200 --> 00:54:41,799 Speaker 1: it was one of those things where even I at 966 00:54:41,800 --> 00:54:43,600 Speaker 1: the time. I was not working at how stuff works 967 00:54:43,600 --> 00:54:44,799 Speaker 1: at the time, but even at the time, I was 968 00:54:44,840 --> 00:54:50,399 Speaker 1: thinking where do I want to be when becomes two 969 00:54:50,440 --> 00:54:53,120 Speaker 1: thousand and I decided to go to a very flamboyant 970 00:54:53,120 --> 00:54:56,200 Speaker 1: club in Athens and it was fabulous because I figured, 971 00:54:56,239 --> 00:54:58,040 Speaker 1: if if the world is going to end, I wanted 972 00:54:58,080 --> 00:55:01,759 Speaker 1: to end with some amazing music. It's that's entirely fair. Um. 973 00:55:02,120 --> 00:55:05,240 Speaker 1: Why two K was also the they retired Prodigy Classic 974 00:55:05,280 --> 00:55:07,360 Speaker 1: that year and they started why twok is one of 975 00:55:07,400 --> 00:55:10,040 Speaker 1: the reasons, along with other architecture problems that you know, 976 00:55:10,360 --> 00:55:13,000 Speaker 1: it was not really a system that was intended to 977 00:55:13,080 --> 00:55:16,839 Speaker 1: go along with all of these new crazy innovations, right, 978 00:55:16,880 --> 00:55:20,640 Speaker 1: so they were really taking taking a similar model to 979 00:55:20,800 --> 00:55:25,279 Speaker 1: America Online, where where the Prodigy service would launch you 980 00:55:25,320 --> 00:55:28,319 Speaker 1: into a portal page where there then you could go 981 00:55:28,560 --> 00:55:31,520 Speaker 1: and do whatever it was you wanted to do. But uh, yeah, 982 00:55:31,560 --> 00:55:33,960 Speaker 1: they wanted to kind of get away from having to 983 00:55:34,000 --> 00:55:38,040 Speaker 1: support this this legacy system of Prodigy Classic because it 984 00:55:38,120 --> 00:55:41,160 Speaker 1: was becoming less and less relevant and it required a 985 00:55:41,200 --> 00:55:44,400 Speaker 1: diversion of revenue, it required a diversion of of assets. 986 00:55:44,440 --> 00:55:47,239 Speaker 1: I should say, right, sure, it's still affected some two 987 00:55:47,320 --> 00:55:51,040 Speaker 1: hundred and eight thousand subscribers, which Prodigy tried to move 988 00:55:51,200 --> 00:55:56,080 Speaker 1: to um to their Internet service with with middling success. Yeah, 989 00:55:56,200 --> 00:55:58,919 Speaker 1: if you've ever worked with someone who was very much 990 00:55:59,000 --> 00:56:02,240 Speaker 1: used to a particular type of system and then watched 991 00:56:02,280 --> 00:56:04,960 Speaker 1: as they tried to navigate a new system, you can 992 00:56:04,960 --> 00:56:08,279 Speaker 1: see how quickly they can become frustrated and disenchanted. They 993 00:56:08,320 --> 00:56:11,920 Speaker 1: actually they actually provided a new homepage like at like 994 00:56:11,920 --> 00:56:15,239 Speaker 1: a different port for the Classic customers who were moving 995 00:56:15,280 --> 00:56:17,839 Speaker 1: to Internet that looked more like the original Classic port 996 00:56:17,920 --> 00:56:21,839 Speaker 1: to help less of transitioning. I think about every time 997 00:56:21,880 --> 00:56:25,600 Speaker 1: anyone upgrades their operating system, or even when Facebook changes, 998 00:56:25,680 --> 00:56:28,680 Speaker 1: I mean, you know, the Internet riots. Yeah, no, not 999 00:56:29,440 --> 00:56:32,160 Speaker 1: my favorite thing to post at that is, the new 1000 00:56:32,200 --> 00:56:34,560 Speaker 1: Facebook changes are the worst thing to happen since the 1001 00:56:34,640 --> 00:56:38,120 Speaker 1: last Facebook changes, because that's how it always seems like. 1002 00:56:38,160 --> 00:56:42,640 Speaker 1: At any rate. Getting back onto Prodigy and two thousand SBC, 1003 00:56:42,920 --> 00:56:45,840 Speaker 1: the company we talked about, the telephone company purchased at 1004 00:56:46,640 --> 00:56:50,480 Speaker 1: interest in Prodigy, and earlier Prodigy had been looking at 1005 00:56:50,560 --> 00:56:54,279 Speaker 1: possibly merging with earth Link and MindSpring, which would have 1006 00:56:54,280 --> 00:56:57,120 Speaker 1: been a very interesting outcome because all of these companies 1007 00:56:57,120 --> 00:57:01,040 Speaker 1: had sort of been suffering a against the onslaught that 1008 00:57:01,160 --> 00:57:06,400 Speaker 1: was America Online UM and SPC would essentially end up 1009 00:57:06,440 --> 00:57:09,759 Speaker 1: with controlling interest in Prodigy within the next year, so 1010 00:57:09,880 --> 00:57:13,600 Speaker 1: they bought controlling interests, right. So moving ahead to two 1011 00:57:13,640 --> 00:57:17,320 Speaker 1: thousand two, SPC formed another strategic alliance, this time with 1012 00:57:17,600 --> 00:57:22,360 Speaker 1: a little company called Yahoo. Yeahoo Yeah. So two thousand two, 1013 00:57:22,400 --> 00:57:24,800 Speaker 1: this is this is back when Yahoo was doing some 1014 00:57:24,880 --> 00:57:27,840 Speaker 1: serious business, right, I mean, this was not the era 1015 00:57:27,960 --> 00:57:30,360 Speaker 1: where we all were wondering what Yahoo was going to 1016 00:57:30,400 --> 00:57:31,960 Speaker 1: be able to do to turn things around. This is 1017 00:57:31,960 --> 00:57:35,000 Speaker 1: when Yahoo is really on the rise, and uh, the 1018 00:57:35,040 --> 00:57:38,280 Speaker 1: alliance ended up creating a new kind of Yahoo portal. 1019 00:57:38,400 --> 00:57:40,800 Speaker 1: So if you've been to, like, if you ever visited 1020 00:57:40,880 --> 00:57:43,040 Speaker 1: Yahoo back in this time, you remember that there was 1021 00:57:43,080 --> 00:57:45,560 Speaker 1: one of these things where you would get news and sports, 1022 00:57:45,600 --> 00:57:47,680 Speaker 1: and it's very similar to what you see today, although 1023 00:57:47,720 --> 00:57:50,160 Speaker 1: today it's much more of a sophisticated layout than it 1024 00:57:50,240 --> 00:57:52,400 Speaker 1: was back in the day. But this was sort of 1025 00:57:52,440 --> 00:57:56,160 Speaker 1: taking taking a queue off those old online service providers 1026 00:57:56,200 --> 00:57:59,640 Speaker 1: which had this curated content that everyone likes so much. 1027 00:58:00,240 --> 00:58:04,320 Speaker 1: So that's when we see uh Prodigy sort of start 1028 00:58:04,360 --> 00:58:07,120 Speaker 1: to fade away, and in fact, SPC stopped allowing new 1029 00:58:07,160 --> 00:58:10,040 Speaker 1: Prodigy accounts. In two thousand two, they did let people 1030 00:58:10,040 --> 00:58:14,240 Speaker 1: who were hardcore fans of Prodigy retain their Prodigy dot 1031 00:58:14,280 --> 00:58:18,120 Speaker 1: net email addresses, which people still retain today. Yeah. Yeah, 1032 00:58:18,120 --> 00:58:19,760 Speaker 1: It's one of those things where it's almost like a 1033 00:58:19,800 --> 00:58:23,560 Speaker 1: badge of honor. It's like I was there concert t shirt. 1034 00:58:23,640 --> 00:58:26,880 Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah. But eventually it would get to a 1035 00:58:26,920 --> 00:58:28,760 Speaker 1: point where if you were to try to go to 1036 00:58:28,920 --> 00:58:32,320 Speaker 1: prodig dot net, it would lead to uh my A 1037 00:58:32,520 --> 00:58:36,600 Speaker 1: T A T T dot net page until around two 1038 00:58:36,600 --> 00:58:39,000 Speaker 1: thousand nine, and after that you just get an error. Yeah. 1039 00:58:39,080 --> 00:58:41,160 Speaker 1: So now these days, if you go to Project donet, 1040 00:58:41,720 --> 00:58:43,920 Speaker 1: at least as of the recording of this podcast, if 1041 00:58:43,920 --> 00:58:45,880 Speaker 1: you go to prodect dot net, you get an error message. 1042 00:58:45,960 --> 00:58:48,360 Speaker 1: By the time this comes out, maybe they've actually figured 1043 00:58:48,400 --> 00:58:51,800 Speaker 1: out some way of resuscitating the brand. So really a 1044 00:58:51,840 --> 00:58:56,440 Speaker 1: few years later it becomes um uh that that SPC 1045 00:58:56,640 --> 00:58:59,400 Speaker 1: was looking at actually selling the brand name Prodigy to 1046 00:58:59,520 --> 00:59:01,840 Speaker 1: someone else who would want to whoever would want to 1047 00:59:01,920 --> 00:59:03,760 Speaker 1: use it. Right around two thousand five, there is a 1048 00:59:03,800 --> 00:59:06,320 Speaker 1: big push um they were There were a lot of 1049 00:59:06,360 --> 00:59:09,280 Speaker 1: rumors floating around that they were trying. Yeah, but no one, 1050 00:59:09,360 --> 00:59:11,840 Speaker 1: No one's purchased it now we will say that Prodigy 1051 00:59:11,920 --> 00:59:14,920 Speaker 1: Internet still is a thing. There is a Prodigy Internet. 1052 00:59:14,960 --> 00:59:17,240 Speaker 1: It is in Mexico and it's the largest I s 1053 00:59:17,280 --> 00:59:21,000 Speaker 1: P in Mexico. So it's not that Prodigy has completely disappeared, 1054 00:59:21,040 --> 00:59:22,800 Speaker 1: but in the United States it's pretty much a non 1055 00:59:22,920 --> 00:59:25,520 Speaker 1: factor these days. UM. So let's talk a little bit 1056 00:59:25,520 --> 00:59:27,720 Speaker 1: about some of the services they would provide. We've mentioned 1057 00:59:27,720 --> 00:59:30,240 Speaker 1: a few of them already, and that this this idea 1058 00:59:30,240 --> 00:59:33,840 Speaker 1: of curated content we talked about the bulletin boards. UM. Also, 1059 00:59:33,920 --> 00:59:36,560 Speaker 1: early on they did not allow foul downloads. It was 1060 00:59:36,720 --> 00:59:39,880 Speaker 1: really the idea was that you were consuming content but 1061 00:59:39,960 --> 00:59:44,040 Speaker 1: not producing it or sharing it. Yeah. But but later 1062 00:59:44,200 --> 00:59:47,800 Speaker 1: they would allow file downloads, although they would look at 1063 00:59:47,840 --> 00:59:50,240 Speaker 1: those as well to make sure that they've met the 1064 00:59:50,280 --> 00:59:53,440 Speaker 1: standards that they had set for everywhere else on Prodigy. 1065 00:59:53,960 --> 00:59:56,600 Speaker 1: Uh an electronic mail. Back in ninety one, we talked 1066 00:59:56,600 --> 01:00:01,720 Speaker 1: about how UH they ended up seeing a big surge 1067 01:00:01,800 --> 01:00:04,400 Speaker 1: in electronic mail use because due to their censorship of 1068 01:00:04,480 --> 01:00:07,640 Speaker 1: the boards, and so in response, what did they do. 1069 01:00:07,840 --> 01:00:10,600 Speaker 1: They decided that, well, you know, this huge amount of 1070 01:00:10,600 --> 01:00:15,919 Speaker 1: electronic mail is putting a taxation upon our our transaction 1071 01:00:16,000 --> 01:00:18,880 Speaker 1: fees with the telephone company so let's pass that along 1072 01:00:18,880 --> 01:00:22,880 Speaker 1: to the consumer. Every month, you'll get thirty messages for free, 1073 01:00:23,080 --> 01:00:24,680 Speaker 1: and if you want to send more than that, you 1074 01:00:24,720 --> 01:00:28,080 Speaker 1: need to spend money. It costs money to have more 1075 01:00:28,160 --> 01:00:31,040 Speaker 1: than thirty messages in a month. And so that was 1076 01:00:31,040 --> 01:00:33,400 Speaker 1: sort of the response to this surge and email use. 1077 01:00:33,480 --> 01:00:35,920 Speaker 1: And again that did not make users happy because firstly, 1078 01:00:36,000 --> 01:00:39,720 Speaker 1: since sinsored the bulletin boards and other messaging systems, and 1079 01:00:39,720 --> 01:00:43,360 Speaker 1: then they made it harder to send email. Yay that 1080 01:00:43,360 --> 01:00:45,800 Speaker 1: that some people would argue. That ended up being a 1081 01:00:45,840 --> 01:00:49,640 Speaker 1: major reason why Prodigy ended up failing was because they 1082 01:00:49,800 --> 01:00:53,960 Speaker 1: had a lot of consumer unfriendly practices. Even though their 1083 01:00:54,000 --> 01:00:57,400 Speaker 1: original model, this idea of a flat fee and you 1084 01:00:57,440 --> 01:01:00,919 Speaker 1: get access to almost everything was very attract the way 1085 01:01:00,920 --> 01:01:05,440 Speaker 1: that they were creating policies was so against what the 1086 01:01:05,440 --> 01:01:08,640 Speaker 1: average consumer wanted that it ended up making it ended 1087 01:01:08,680 --> 01:01:13,320 Speaker 1: up alienating their their customer base. So then you get 1088 01:01:13,360 --> 01:01:16,480 Speaker 1: to uh the news again, the curated news. You get 1089 01:01:16,520 --> 01:01:19,840 Speaker 1: to travel. You can make travel arrangements on Prodigy. Uh. 1090 01:01:20,000 --> 01:01:24,640 Speaker 1: They had specific partnership with American Airlines, so you could 1091 01:01:24,680 --> 01:01:28,360 Speaker 1: make a reservation on American Airlines through Prodigy. This again 1092 01:01:28,560 --> 01:01:31,320 Speaker 1: before the Internet, this or before we had access to 1093 01:01:31,320 --> 01:01:33,720 Speaker 1: the internet, this online service provider stuff. That's not like 1094 01:01:33,800 --> 01:01:36,080 Speaker 1: you could just go to American Airlines dot com and 1095 01:01:36,280 --> 01:01:38,800 Speaker 1: do whatever you want to do. This this precedes that 1096 01:01:39,160 --> 01:01:41,760 Speaker 1: Triblocity did not exist. They could also you could also 1097 01:01:41,760 --> 01:01:44,880 Speaker 1: make hotel and car rental reservations through that same system, 1098 01:01:44,960 --> 01:01:48,120 Speaker 1: although keep in mind again this is through partnerships that 1099 01:01:48,160 --> 01:01:50,520 Speaker 1: they Prodigy had made with specific companies. It's not like 1100 01:01:50,600 --> 01:01:53,320 Speaker 1: you had access to everybody, all right, right, you wrote 1101 01:01:53,320 --> 01:01:55,000 Speaker 1: in your in your notes that it was like going 1102 01:01:55,040 --> 01:01:56,840 Speaker 1: to a mall, Like, not every mall is going to 1103 01:01:56,920 --> 01:01:59,200 Speaker 1: have the stories that you want. It's going to be 1104 01:01:59,280 --> 01:02:01,720 Speaker 1: you know whatever, Yeah, exactly, yeah, so you know just 1105 01:02:01,760 --> 01:02:04,480 Speaker 1: what you exactly right. If if that store wasn't in 1106 01:02:04,480 --> 01:02:05,960 Speaker 1: that mall, you had to go to a different all well, 1107 01:02:05,960 --> 01:02:07,960 Speaker 1: the same sort of thing. If if you could not 1108 01:02:07,960 --> 01:02:11,520 Speaker 1: get access to a particular vendor through Prodigy, then that 1109 01:02:11,560 --> 01:02:15,040 Speaker 1: meant that, well, you have the wrong online service provider 1110 01:02:15,080 --> 01:02:17,880 Speaker 1: for your needs. The same same thing applies to the 1111 01:02:17,880 --> 01:02:23,240 Speaker 1: shopping obviously, Sears clearly being a founding partner. Sears Merchandise 1112 01:02:23,360 --> 01:02:28,680 Speaker 1: had heavy representation in online shopping on Prodigy and around 1113 01:02:29,000 --> 01:02:33,960 Speaker 1: well more than forty other direct mail marketing kind of vendors, 1114 01:02:34,000 --> 01:02:38,600 Speaker 1: like any company that would other places that had large catalog. Yeah, 1115 01:02:38,680 --> 01:02:40,560 Speaker 1: that whole, the whole, like we will mail you are 1116 01:02:40,600 --> 01:02:42,880 Speaker 1: stuff because this is still you know, this isn't a 1117 01:02:42,920 --> 01:02:46,240 Speaker 1: time where this that was not the most common method 1118 01:02:46,400 --> 01:02:49,720 Speaker 1: of delivering stuff. Right, Usually you would have this retail 1119 01:02:49,760 --> 01:02:52,440 Speaker 1: experience where you go into a store, so direct to 1120 01:02:52,520 --> 01:02:56,320 Speaker 1: customer was something that only a few vendors offered at 1121 01:02:56,400 --> 01:02:59,880 Speaker 1: that point. You could also do banking. The banking was 1122 01:03:00,040 --> 01:03:04,400 Speaker 1: through New York's manufacturers Hanover Trust Bank, so if you 1123 01:03:04,440 --> 01:03:07,880 Speaker 1: weren't with that one, too bad. And stocks yep, yep. 1124 01:03:08,040 --> 01:03:11,520 Speaker 1: That was through Donaldson, Lufkin Engine Rhett, which was a 1125 01:03:11,520 --> 01:03:14,800 Speaker 1: Wall Street company that would handle the stock purchases so 1126 01:03:14,840 --> 01:03:16,560 Speaker 1: you could become a day trader if you wanted to. 1127 01:03:17,680 --> 01:03:21,120 Speaker 1: Early early on, they did groceries. They did online groceries. 1128 01:03:21,160 --> 01:03:25,480 Speaker 1: But I think that the price and availability of service 1129 01:03:25,800 --> 01:03:28,760 Speaker 1: was just so yeah, there was very low adoption and 1130 01:03:28,800 --> 01:03:30,919 Speaker 1: also it just costs a lot of money to run 1131 01:03:30,920 --> 01:03:32,960 Speaker 1: that kind of operation. Now, I will say I never 1132 01:03:33,080 --> 01:03:36,040 Speaker 1: used Prodigies grocery shopping service, but I've used other online 1133 01:03:36,040 --> 01:03:39,000 Speaker 1: grocery shopping services. Back when they were more common, like 1134 01:03:39,040 --> 01:03:41,560 Speaker 1: webvan would be the I think that's even webban was 1135 01:03:41,600 --> 01:03:44,320 Speaker 1: the one I used, and I loved it, but it 1136 01:03:44,480 --> 01:03:46,840 Speaker 1: again was one of those things where I just could 1137 01:03:46,880 --> 01:03:50,720 Speaker 1: imagine exactly it had to be phenomenally expensive to operate, 1138 01:03:50,920 --> 01:03:53,960 Speaker 1: and unless you have a huge customer base right out 1139 01:03:54,000 --> 01:03:55,760 Speaker 1: of the gate, you're going to be operating at a 1140 01:03:55,800 --> 01:03:59,760 Speaker 1: loss for several years, kind of like Prodigy. And then 1141 01:04:00,040 --> 01:04:02,760 Speaker 1: later on when it became when it started to do 1142 01:04:02,800 --> 01:04:06,080 Speaker 1: the prodec internet services, it began to offer things like 1143 01:04:06,360 --> 01:04:09,480 Speaker 1: curated content online, so you would go to your little 1144 01:04:09,520 --> 01:04:11,680 Speaker 1: online portal and that's where you'd see things like sports, 1145 01:04:11,680 --> 01:04:14,240 Speaker 1: business news, world news, that kind of stuff, kind of 1146 01:04:14,240 --> 01:04:17,080 Speaker 1: like yeah, who does um. They also did have have 1147 01:04:17,240 --> 01:04:19,959 Speaker 1: news writers. They had had they had an editorial team, 1148 01:04:20,000 --> 01:04:23,360 Speaker 1: the dedicated editorial staff that worked out a White Plains, 1149 01:04:23,400 --> 01:04:27,120 Speaker 1: New York. So they had editors and writers working specifically 1150 01:04:27,160 --> 01:04:31,480 Speaker 1: to write content just for Prodigy users. So it's the 1151 01:04:31,520 --> 01:04:33,800 Speaker 1: same sort of stories you would see in other sources, 1152 01:04:33,880 --> 01:04:35,400 Speaker 1: like if you were to get a newspaper, but it 1153 01:04:35,440 --> 01:04:39,200 Speaker 1: was written specifically for the Yeah. And then they also 1154 01:04:39,240 --> 01:04:42,720 Speaker 1: had instant messaging, Like they said, they had chat rooms 1155 01:04:42,720 --> 01:04:44,920 Speaker 1: for a little while, and then they had things like 1156 01:04:45,280 --> 01:04:48,880 Speaker 1: financial tools like portfolio management and personal finance tracking, so 1157 01:04:48,920 --> 01:04:52,400 Speaker 1: you could follow how your your finances were doing over time. 1158 01:04:52,720 --> 01:04:56,040 Speaker 1: Like when you see all your dot com stocks on 1159 01:04:56,160 --> 01:04:58,240 Speaker 1: like a meteoric rise and you think, I am going 1160 01:04:58,280 --> 01:05:00,640 Speaker 1: to be in the world's next multi billion air and 1161 01:05:00,680 --> 01:05:05,080 Speaker 1: two thousand one, when you think, where where's my change? Jar? 1162 01:05:05,680 --> 01:05:09,360 Speaker 1: I want to go to McDonald's. Yeah, yeah, they I 1163 01:05:09,720 --> 01:05:11,640 Speaker 1: you know, I do think that in a lot of 1164 01:05:11,640 --> 01:05:14,480 Speaker 1: ways it was ahead of its time. I think that 1165 01:05:14,560 --> 01:05:17,920 Speaker 1: if Prodigy had come out in that wave that A. O. 1166 01:05:18,040 --> 01:05:20,920 Speaker 1: L did just a couple of years later, um, that 1167 01:05:20,960 --> 01:05:23,480 Speaker 1: the technology would have been such that they would have 1168 01:05:23,520 --> 01:05:26,320 Speaker 1: had greater adoption. But but some of those I mean, 1169 01:05:26,320 --> 01:05:28,960 Speaker 1: I hate to use the word draconian for an Internet 1170 01:05:29,000 --> 01:05:32,360 Speaker 1: service provider, but who but who reads their bulletin board 1171 01:05:32,360 --> 01:05:36,640 Speaker 1: content and make sure that I mean that's that's right. Yeah, yeah, 1172 01:05:36,720 --> 01:05:40,360 Speaker 1: I would say that those decisions were what stood in 1173 01:05:40,440 --> 01:05:45,200 Speaker 1: Prodigies away from becoming like the dominant osp was that 1174 01:05:45,280 --> 01:05:47,640 Speaker 1: it wasn't that the service they provided was bad. A 1175 01:05:47,680 --> 01:05:50,920 Speaker 1: lot of it was good, but they were not prepared 1176 01:05:51,200 --> 01:05:55,080 Speaker 1: for the initial costs that they incurred as they began. Um, 1177 01:05:55,080 --> 01:05:57,080 Speaker 1: they weren't prepared to endure that for as long as 1178 01:05:57,080 --> 01:05:59,400 Speaker 1: it was necessary for them to build up the customer base. 1179 01:05:59,640 --> 01:06:03,200 Speaker 1: They may decisions that upset customers, including not just the 1180 01:06:04,240 --> 01:06:06,240 Speaker 1: censorship or however you want a word it not just 1181 01:06:06,280 --> 01:06:09,280 Speaker 1: that policy, and not just the policy of charging more 1182 01:06:09,320 --> 01:06:11,640 Speaker 1: for email, but they started to do surcharges on other 1183 01:06:11,880 --> 01:06:15,040 Speaker 1: features as well. So not all features were not free 1184 01:06:15,200 --> 01:06:17,880 Speaker 1: but free with with subscription, right. Not all of them 1185 01:06:17,920 --> 01:06:19,720 Speaker 1: were free with subscription. Some of them you would have 1186 01:06:19,760 --> 01:06:22,360 Speaker 1: to pay on top of your subscription fee. And these 1187 01:06:22,400 --> 01:06:24,520 Speaker 1: were things where people were saying, well, yeah, you you 1188 01:06:24,600 --> 01:06:27,960 Speaker 1: build this as I pay one monthly fee and then 1189 01:06:28,000 --> 01:06:30,200 Speaker 1: I have access to all these amazing things. But in truth, 1190 01:06:30,280 --> 01:06:32,240 Speaker 1: I pay one monthly fee and then I have the 1191 01:06:32,360 --> 01:06:35,640 Speaker 1: opportunity to buy more stuff all of these services that 1192 01:06:35,800 --> 01:06:39,360 Speaker 1: I kind of want to use. And so it may 1193 01:06:39,480 --> 01:06:41,880 Speaker 1: very well be that their business plan, perhaps they had 1194 01:06:41,920 --> 01:06:44,480 Speaker 1: just priced themselves too low at the very beginning, and 1195 01:06:44,520 --> 01:06:46,640 Speaker 1: they maybe if they had gone with a slightly higher 1196 01:06:46,680 --> 01:06:49,480 Speaker 1: subscription fee at the very beginning, uh, it could have 1197 01:06:49,560 --> 01:06:51,960 Speaker 1: offset some of the costs they incurred when they started 1198 01:06:51,960 --> 01:06:54,160 Speaker 1: offering up these services, and maybe then they could have 1199 01:06:54,280 --> 01:06:58,440 Speaker 1: kept those services free with the subscription, and then they 1200 01:06:58,520 --> 01:07:01,040 Speaker 1: might it might be a totally different story today. Maybe 1201 01:07:01,040 --> 01:07:04,240 Speaker 1: today we wouldn't be talking about A O. L. You know, 1202 01:07:04,440 --> 01:07:07,160 Speaker 1: like we wouldn't say that A O. L. Was had 1203 01:07:07,240 --> 01:07:09,600 Speaker 1: become the you know this this name, but we still know. 1204 01:07:09,680 --> 01:07:12,080 Speaker 1: Maybe we'd be talking about Prodigy. Maybe all of us 1205 01:07:12,120 --> 01:07:14,640 Speaker 1: would be talking about how many c D s we 1206 01:07:14,680 --> 01:07:18,040 Speaker 1: have that we accumulated over the years as Prodigy, c 1207 01:07:18,200 --> 01:07:20,880 Speaker 1: D after c D after CD, of of the basic 1208 01:07:20,960 --> 01:07:23,640 Speaker 1: kits as you can install it. Yeah, and analysts named 1209 01:07:23,680 --> 01:07:25,920 Speaker 1: Richard Adler. I found this quote and I believe a 1210 01:07:25,920 --> 01:07:29,160 Speaker 1: New York Times piece from said somebody is going to 1211 01:07:29,160 --> 01:07:31,200 Speaker 1: make a lot of money in this business someday. I 1212 01:07:31,240 --> 01:07:33,720 Speaker 1: just don't know if it's going to be Prodigy. Yeah, 1213 01:07:33,800 --> 01:07:36,480 Speaker 1: and he was right. Some lots of people made lots 1214 01:07:36,480 --> 01:07:38,800 Speaker 1: of money in this It's just like this was this 1215 01:07:38,840 --> 01:07:41,800 Speaker 1: was unfortunately not the story for that, but I thought 1216 01:07:41,880 --> 01:07:44,480 Speaker 1: was an interesting one. Lauren and I both used Prodigy, 1217 01:07:44,560 --> 01:07:47,960 Speaker 1: so we're both prodigy kids. Uh, we're both prodigies. Really. 1218 01:07:48,840 --> 01:07:50,600 Speaker 1: We don't want to our own horn or anything. It's 1219 01:07:50,640 --> 01:07:53,440 Speaker 1: just true. So, you know, no false modesty on this 1220 01:07:53,440 --> 01:07:56,640 Speaker 1: show at any rate. Uh, you know, it's an interesting story, 1221 01:07:56,720 --> 01:07:58,800 Speaker 1: and like I said, we'll probably talk about other ones 1222 01:07:58,880 --> 01:08:01,000 Speaker 1: in the future. Maybe we'll will have an episode where 1223 01:08:01,000 --> 01:08:03,760 Speaker 1: we talk about copy Server, maybe one about mind Spring. U. 1224 01:08:03,880 --> 01:08:07,520 Speaker 1: These are other interesting internet companies and kind of see 1225 01:08:07,560 --> 01:08:10,040 Speaker 1: what formed the basis of how we think of the 1226 01:08:10,080 --> 01:08:13,640 Speaker 1: Internet today and which ones are still around in which 1227 01:08:13,680 --> 01:08:18,200 Speaker 1: ones are just a name that we associate with. Yeah, 1228 01:08:18,320 --> 01:08:20,559 Speaker 1: time's gone by. Stuff you missed. Industry class would probably 1229 01:08:20,600 --> 01:08:23,040 Speaker 1: cover these two if they looked at more recent history. 1230 01:08:23,680 --> 01:08:25,839 Speaker 1: And there's not a whole lot of online service providers 1231 01:08:25,840 --> 01:08:28,120 Speaker 1: in the days of the Vikings. And that wraps up 1232 01:08:28,120 --> 01:08:30,880 Speaker 1: this classic episode of tech Stuff. Hope you guys enjoyed it. 1233 01:08:31,479 --> 01:08:34,000 Speaker 1: If you have any suggestions for future topics that I 1234 01:08:34,000 --> 01:08:36,040 Speaker 1: should cover on the show, reach out to me on 1235 01:08:36,080 --> 01:08:38,800 Speaker 1: Twitter or Facebook. The handle at both of those is 1236 01:08:38,840 --> 01:08:41,519 Speaker 1: tech Stuff hs W and I'll talk to you again 1237 01:08:42,240 --> 01:08:50,400 Speaker 1: really soon. Text Stuff is an I Heart Radio production. 1238 01:08:50,640 --> 01:08:53,439 Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I 1239 01:08:53,560 --> 01:08:56,800 Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to 1240 01:08:56,840 --> 01:09:00,320 Speaker 1: your favorite shows. See