The Birth of Electronic Newspapers

The first newspaper took 2 hours to download (just text) at a dial-up cost of $5 per hour. $10 a day for a newspaper. Watch the video for some predictions that seemed so far fetched at the time, but are taken for granted today.

There are many classic lines in this one. What's your favorite?

Mine is: "We aren't in it to make money. We're probably not going to lose a lot, but we aren't going to make much either." Right.

Comments: 8

John Mihalik Jan 29, 2009, 9:05am UTC

LOL. It will never catch on!

Does anyone remember "The Electronic Newstand" (www.enews.com)!

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Dave Sandborg Jan 29, 2009, 9:11am UTC

Wow, was that an acoustic coupler? And a TRS-80?

I remember enews, they were an early Be Free client. Weren't they actually trying to sell subscriptions to paper magazines still? I don't even remember, I just recall that their link format caused us some early trouble.

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Tom Gerace Jan 29, 2009, 9:15am UTC

"We can copy it on to paper and save it. Which I think is the future."

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Tom Gerace Jan 29, 2009, 9:16am UTC

"So, for the moment at least, this fellow isn't worried about being out of a job."

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Tom Gerace Jan 29, 2009, 9:18am UTC

OK and I love that it took 2 hours to download the paper and that connectivity (at 300 baud, I am betting) cost $5 an hour. The $10 electronic version wasn't a threat to the $0.20 paper on the street.

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Tyler Hoffman Jan 29, 2009, 9:19am UTC

But Tom, that extra $9.80 allowed you to download it, print it and save it.

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denise e Feb 7, 2009, 5:36pm UTC

thanks for sharing :)

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The Birth of Electronic Newspapers

Comments: 8

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