Internet History Podcast

Discover the fascinating journey of eBay's origins as AuctionWeb, born from Pierre Omidyar's side project. Hear about the skepticism surrounding online commerce and how eBay shifted perceptions on trading goods. Uncover how trust and community fueled its rapid success, transforming a simple platform into a marketplace giant. The anecdotes provide an entertaining glimpse into the challenges faced by early entrepreneurs, reminding us of the grit behind innovation.

Summary:Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins Of The Internet, by Katie HafnerThe Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution, by Walter IsaacsonThe Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires, by Tim WuWeaving the Web: The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web, by Tim Berners-LeeHow the Web Was Born: The Story of the World Wide Web, by James Gillies and Robert CailliauAOL.com, by Kara SwisherThe Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon, by Brad StoneThe Perfect Store: Inside eBay, by Adam CohenBecoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader, by Brent Schlender and Rick TetzeliInfinite Loop, How Apple, the World's Most Insanely Great Company, Went Insane, by Michael S. MaloneElon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future, by Ashlee Vance Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Summary:We continue our survey of the pioneering social/community sites by sitting down with David Bohnett, who, along with John Rezner, founded Geocities. David recounts how a lifelong passion for communications tech inspired the idea of Geocities, how and why the site grew to become one of the 5 most popular web destinations in the world by the late 90s, as well as the company's blockbuster sale to Yahoo. We also marvel at how Geocities lives on, thanks to the passion and affection of the Geocities community. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Summary:One of the biggest names of the dot-com era was TheGlobe.com. It had one of the most successful and storied IPO's of it's day, and it was lead by two early-twenties co-founders, long before that sort of thing was common. Todd Krizelman (along with Stephan Paternot) was one of those co-founders, and in the offices of his current company, MediaRadar, he sat down with me to remember the founding story of one of the earliest and most innovative community sites on the web. We're exploring these community sites as a sort of survey of proto-social-media websites, and as you'll hear, TheGlobe was one of the most interesting.If you're interested in reading more about this story, check out the book A Very Public Offering: A Rebel's Story of Business Excess, Success, and Reckoning. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Summary:Nancy Evans and Candice Carpenter founded iVillage in the mid 1990s. iVillage was one of the first community-focused sites on the early web, and grew to be one of the biggest of its ilk. Not only was iVillage a site and a company founded by women, but it was also among the first sites that targeted women as a demographic in the early web era. Nancy recounts for us the development of the company, the benefits and pitfalls involved in being one of the highest-flying companies of the dot com era, and gives us some powerful perspective about the role women have played from the very beginning of the web era. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Discover how Amazon navigated its startup phase with strategic beta testing and a simple design to gain market credibility. Uncover the hurdles they faced in early sales and the pivotal fundraising successes that fueled their growth. Learn about Amazon's shift from a middleman to a logistics powerhouse, revolutionizing warehousing to boost efficiency. The evolution of stock valuation during the 90s reflects investor excitement amid fierce e-commerce competition, all driven by Jeff Bezos's visionary leadership.

Summary:If you are a Californian, then you might know Steve Westly's name very well. After all, in the mid 2000s, Westly was elected Controller of California, essentially the Chief Financial officer of the state, and he also ran for Governor in 2006. In fact, if you listen to the end of this episode, he might again show up on a ballot for governor some time in the very near future. But before his time in California government and politics, Steve Westly was also one of the key early eBay executives, who was instrumental in transforming eBay from a niche hobyist website to the global auctions and commerce powerhouse we all know it as today. We've not yet gotten to eBay in our overall narrative yet, so think of this as a primer to wet your appetite for the story of eBay's founding, coming very soon. In the mean time, you're going to very much enjoy this conversation with eBay's Senior Vice President, Steve Westly.Here's a recent story from the LA Times about Westly's potential run for Governor. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Summary:As you know, we’ve been trying to cover from every angle, the innovations that ecommerce sites in general, and Amazon.com specifically, brought to the world. That is why I was thrilled to get to speak with Greg Linden, who was one of the Amazon engineers who was responsible for a lot of the personalization and data-driven innovations at Amazon, especially the recommendation engine. Greg explains in great detail the technological challenges involved, but also gives us a conceptual and almost philosophical background to the ways that harnessing data and deploying personalized systems can improve commerce.If you want to read any of the blog posts Greg has done about his early Amazon days, go here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Summary:Robert Levitan has been involved in many pioneering tech companies. The two that I wanted to focus on were iVillage, one of the early web community sites, one of the very first sites to engage with women as a segment of the online audience, and arguably, one of the proto-social networking sites. Later, Robert was the founder of Flooz, the most prominent of the dot-com era companies to attempt digital payments and digital currency.To learn more about Robert's new startup, check out: liveapp.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I lied about there not being a show this week. Except, it's not a show. It's more of a state-of-the-podcast address, celebrating (belatedly) our one year anniversary. http://www.internethistorypodcast.com/donate/  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.