The internet, 15 years ago

The other day, I was telling Beebo about how Google managed to kill every other  search engine when it came along in 1998, due to its competence in working, something which had been sorely lacking in the previous engines. The story below is illustrative of what a different world it was back then:

Browser Deals Push Netscape Stock Up 7.8%

TECH WATCH

April 01, 1996|

From Times Staff and Wire Reports

Netscape Communications Corp. shares rose 7.8% Friday amid expectations that agreements with five Internet search companies will boost the software maker's revenue. Netscape shares rose $3 to $41.50 on Nasdaq after trading as high as $42.50.

Netscape, maker of the most popular Internet browser software, agreed to feature Excite Inc., Infoseek Corp., Lycos Inc., the McKinley Group Inc. and Yahoo! Inc. on its browser and World Wide Web page.

The five companies, which make software that helps people choose sites they like on the Internet global computer network, are expected to pay as much as $5 million each, for a total of $25 million, to Netscape, industry executives said.

News of the agreements, concluded March 20, began to trickle out early last week. "Perhaps people are just beginning to realize now what this means for us," Netscape spokesman Jennifer O'Mahony said in explaining the stock gain.

Yahoo!, Excite, Infoseek and McKinley [what is this?] each said they agreed to pay $5 million for a one-year agreement with Netscape. Lycos officials declined to comment.

Of course, Netscape (as Netscape) is no more.  It's odd that a search engine would need to pay a browser for prominent placement -- but the rules were different then.  Nobody knew (pre-Google) how to find anything on the internet.  Hence the brief period of books being published telling you what websites were hot.  Now that would seem really pointless and temporal.