Boston CitiNet

Boston CitiNet

Started in 1983, Boston CitiNet was a pioneering developer of local online services supported by advertising.

The IBM PC had been introduced in the summer of 1981, by 1983 there were many IBM and compatible PC's, Commodore was the force in home computers, Apple had shipped 1 million computers and Hayes began shipping a 2400 baud modem. YellowData ("let your computer do the walking") was started in 1982 as a supercharged BBS (bulletin board system) and grew to be the first example of a free, advertiser-supported information service, later adding fee-based membership services (very similar to today's Yahoo portal model). Most services available at the time were either hobbyist BBS boards or were subscription services like CompuServe, Delphi, [[1]], and The Source. Many of these services were delivered over the Tymnet & Telenet dial-up networks.

In late 1982, YellowData was running as a skunk works project out of the offices of Considine Computing Services (CCS), in an old A&P store in Waverly Square in Belmont, MA. Tom Considine and his consultants were programmers extraordinaire and a leading DEC systems integrator. Considine wrote the book on Datatrieve and DEC flew him around the country to teach seminars. Yellow, as it was fondly called, was built on a PDP 11/73 running Digital’s RSTS/E operating system. Richard Koch, the other original Yellowdata partner, was a former Boston school teacher who had built a successful consulting business helping businesses deploy and manage PCs, networks and applications.

The original plan was to run a free service for modem-equipped PC users in the Boston area, build a large user base through partnerships with groups like the Boston Computer Society and the Boston Convention & Visitor's Bureau, and build enough readership to justify advertiser support. Later premium services, email and chat, were added $9.95/year). Myron Kassaraba joined with Koch and Considine in 1983 to form Applied Videotex Systems, Inc. that set out to pursue an ambitious vision of selling/franchising the Yellow services platform to local media companies throughout the US. The name of the flagship service was changed to Boston CitiNet.

Though CitiNet was called a videotex service (that was the trendy buzzword back then) the service supported 300/1200/2400 baud modem users and a straight ASCII text interface. The basic features of the service included content parallel to newspaper attractions of the day (Job Listings, lottery numbers, weather, sports news, ski conditions, movies, travel, and campus activities) and also what are now seen as basic online infrastructure (email, chat, forums). While Considine’s CCS provided systems and custom software, Koch and Kassaraba set about to build the content and get sponsors for Yellowdata/CitiNet. In 1984, John Pollock, a seasoned cable industry executive joined the team to head up franchise development.

Some of the early supporters were several local employment agencies, auto leasing agencies, magazine publishers such as Byte Magazine and a large movie theater chain (Sack Theaters). Online vendors sold cheese, cookies, music disks, VCRs, fax machines (when they came out), and groceries. One of the more popular services was the Daily Horoscope by astrologer Lillian Bono. The first major step that resulted in extra growth in traffic and members was becoming the "official online service for the Boston Computer Society (BCS)". In addition to the forums and chat services, many BCS members paid $9.95.yr. for a mailbox. Boston CitiNet positioned itself as a “local media” and Koch could be found in the Celtic’s locker room or the press box at Fenway Park providing sports coverage that was available online.

By the spring of 1985, Boston CitiNet had over 5,000 registered users and a growing base of advertisers. AVS started to attract a lot of interest and attention from newspaper publishers and telcos throughout the country. Folks like Knight-Ridder had invested millions in services like Viewtron which never got off the ground and they were extremely fearful of the Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs) which were formed by the breakup of AT&T. At the same time, the RBOCs were thinking that their new found freedom was going to allow them to get involved in the information services business (later to be curbed by Judge Green and his interpretation of the MFJ) and were spending money on pilot projects and research. There were a series of discussions with The Boston Globe/Affiliated Publications then never yielded anything.

With projects from both New England Telephone and Pacific Bell providing some cash flow, efforts were ramped up to franchise the regional online service platform under the CitiNet brand to local operators. AVS would supply the systems and software as well as a standard package of content and the local franchisee would sell the advertising and manage the service. AVS also partnered with the new World Trade Center on Boston’s waterfront and moved their offices into space in that facility.

Boston CitiNet not only pioneered advertiser supported online services, but Kassaraba was an avid skier/racer and he led the development of SkiData - one of the first integrated multi-channel interactive services. The New England Ski Areas Council (NESAC) sent AVS's servers the same ski-conditions data feed they sent to the newspapers and other media outlets. This feed was reformatted and made available on CitiNet. CCS had been experimenting with DECTalk, and AVS found a video-kiosk producer, Fred Raab, at Telematic Systems. Ski Market, a leading Boston ski retailer and Michelob co-sponsored SkiData. SkiData included the online ski report on Boston CitiNet, a 24-hour ski phone (NESAC conditions over DECTalk via CitiNet) and an in-store kiosk at Ski Market’s flagship store on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston which provided up to date conditions for all New England ski areas, and also provided multimedia content for each area and from ski manufacturers! The service was a smash hit and was featured in Businessweek.

By the end of 1985, the Boston CitiNet service was continuing to draw users at a pace of 80 new users per day with over 20,000 registered users. CitiNet became a hotbed of innovation, attracting other entrepreneurs with ideas for online businesses. One group called Tradecard International was a barter exchange; Tom Pfau’s RealNet brought property listings; Alex Randall’s Boston Computer Exchange could boast having the first online computer marketplace, BOCOEX and Fred Levinson at Fresh Pond Travel was pioneering online travel. The CitiNet software grew to include integrated applications for each of these, expanding the overall platform offering and the potential uses for franchisees. Even an online grocery ordering service was developed but not successfully rolled out.

In 1986, CitiNet licensed systems to local operators in Houston, TX and Omaha, NE. With another feature in Businessweek, Boston CitiNet's user based peaked at over 40,000. AVS participated in RBOC technical trials and gateway prototypes. The first, PacBell’s Project Victoria was a joint effort with Apple providing Macintosh computers to the home, PacBell providing ISDN, and CitiNet providing local content in conjunction with Chronicle Videotex – the online operation of the San Francisco Chronicle run at the time by Tom Morgan. Later, while Koch ran seminars for telephone companies, Considine designed the network architecture for running a packet network as a portal to information services, and then AVS participated in NYNEX's Info-Look and Bell Atlantic’s Information Gateway.

In the same period, CitiNet pioneered the practice of “click-stream analysis” which is the basis of modern predictive analytics, and also produced some of the very first newspaper “online versions” – Newsday Online, Globe Entertainment, Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Omaha World Herald. In the end, Judge Greene's MFJ (modified final judgment) ruling in 1987 restricted the RBOCs’ entry into information services enough that soon the traditional media folks pulled the plug on their online initiatives and went back to publishing newspapers and the local online services market went into dormancy until the transition to the web. Service providers such as America Online (AOL), AppleLink, CompuServe and Prodigy became the leaders in services that were targeted at consumers and a national/international user-base.