5220667
submission
Gammu writes
"Google was incorporated in late 1998 and after only two years became so popular that it replaced the in-house search engine on the most popular website on the Internet. Google won its popularity through the quality of its search results and because of its management. In an era of spendthrift Internet startups, Google controlled costs and grew slowly (at least in terms of employees. Read more at Low End Mac."
413183
submission
Gammu writes
"After leaving Palm (after years of mismanagement and interference by its parent company, 3COM) Donna Dubinsky and Jeff Hawkins founded Handspring. To the outside world, Handspring appeared to be an ordinary PDA company, releasing the well respected Visor with its SpringBoard slot and enhanced software, but in reality, it was a communications company in disguise. Visor sales helped finance the development and marketing of a new flagship product, the Treo. After two generations of Treos were released, Palm acquired Handspring and adopted the 'communicator' strategy, continuing to release new revisions of the original Handspring design. Read the full history of Handspring and the Treo at Silicon User."
340589
submission
Gammu writes
"The Pilot (later PalmPilot and finally just Palm) saved Palm Computing. Before the release of the Pilot, the company was subsisting (barely) on revenue from connectivity packages for HP PDA's and a version of Graffiti for the Newton. This was because its first PDA hardware product had failed under the weight of feature creep and design by committee. Read about Palm's early history at SiliconUser."
291991
submission
Gammu writes
"The idea of syndicating audio content via the Internet was not new in 2002 when the first podcasts debuted. Originally implemented by radio stations looking to cut costs by having a national catalog instead of creating a new one for every market, audio syndication as an open Internet standard was born by developers exchanging ideas on the brand new RSS on a free Yahoo! message board. It would take years for the idea to be implemented but when it was, podcasting (as it was called) experienced meteoric growth. Now, everybody from Apple to Microsoft to NPR support podcasting in one form or another, a far cry from its humble roots as a research project at Apple (and eventually Netscape) during the mid-nineties."
231177
submission
Gammu writes
"Before HTML, HyperCard was the hypertext framework of choice for consumers. At a time when Apple was the largest PC manufacturer in units shipped, HyperCard was bundled with every Macintosh, PowerBook and Apple IIgs sold to the public. This initial popularity died down after Apple unsuccessfully tried to release the program under the Claris brand. HyperCard continued receiving updates until 1998 and was being sold on the Apple website until 2004. Despite HyperCard's long, drawn out death, it was notable for bringing the concept of hypertext to consumers and making it possible to create programs without learning a programming language."Link to Original Source
212501
submission
Gammu writes
"The inventor of the compact disc, the most popular medium in the world for playing back and storing music, is often disputed as one individual did not invent every part of the compact disc. The most attributed inventor is James Russell, who in 1965 was inspired with a revolutionary idea as he sketched on paper a more ideal music recording system to replace vinyl records; Russell envisioned a system which could record and replay sounds without any physical contact between parts."
205127
submission
Gammu writes
"During the mid-nineties, Mac users were prone to dealing with poorly-trained and ill-maintained Mac sections in big box computers and electronics stores. These environments did not foster customer loyalty nor did they help differentiate the Mac user-experience from Windows. After Steve Jobs returned to Apple, he began a concerted campaign to help sales by improving the presentation of Macs. This campaign culminated with the development and introduction of the Apple Stores in 2001."
198079
submission
Gammu writes
"Podcasting can trace its history back to 1996, but only really emerged in 2004. The concept of metadata was first applied to HTML by Apple and the concept was refined at Netscape. Netscape's metadata standard (RDF) was eventually adapted to syndicate content on major websites like My Netscape and David Winer's Scripting News. A little noticed feature in the RDF standard, containers, allowed website owners 'push' music files to subscribers. After a proof of concept post by David, Podcasting took off in a big way."
193299
submission
Gammu writes
"For the past thirty years, many children have been raised with a heavy diet MECC games like Oregon Trail, Odell Lake and Lemonade Stand. These products weren't developed by a major game developer. Rather, they were developed by the state of Minnesota for use in their schools. What began as an initiative to get Minnesota students ready for the micro-computer age turned into a multi-million dollar a year business whose products are still used in US schools even a decade after MECC was sold off to another developer. Read about the history of MECC (and especially Oregon Trail) at Silicon User."
191591
submission
Gammu writes
"For the past fifteen plus years, Photoshop has turned into the killer app for graphics designers on the Mac. It was originally written as a support app for a grad student's thesis and struggled to find wide commercial release. Eventually, Adobe licensed the app and has sold millions of copies. Read about its early history at SiliconUser."
