GEnie

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

GEnie was an online service created by a General Electric business - GEIS (now GXS) that ran from 1985 through the end of 1999. At its peak, GEnie claimed around 400,000 users, although the real figure was closer to 115,000.^{[citation needed]} Peak simultaneous usage was around 2,000 users. It was one of the pioneering services in the field, though eventually replaced by the Internet and graphics-based services, most notably AOL.[1]

1 Early history
2 Games
3 RoundTables
4 Lack of commercial success
5 GEnie's Legacy
6 Famous users
7 Notes
8 See also
9 External links and references

[edit] Early history

GEnie's full page magazine ad.

GEnie was founded by Bill Louden in May 1985 and was launched as an ASCII text-based service by GE's Information Services division in October 1985, and received attention as the first serious commercial competition to CompuServe. Louden was originally CompuServe's product manager for Computing, Community (forums), Games, ecommerce, and email product lines. Louden is credited with creating the first online forums, chat, and consumer email products while at CompuServe. He also designed and developed Megawars, the first online multi-player online game (or MMOG), in 1982.

The service was run by General Electric Information Services (GEIS, now GXS (company)GXS) based in Rockville, Maryland. GEIS served a diverse set of large-scale, international, commercial network-based custom application needs, including banking, Electronic Data Interchange and e-mail services to companies world-wide, but was able to run GEnie on their many Mark III time-sharing mainframe computers that otherwise would have been underutilized after normal U.S. business hours. This orientation was part of GEnie's downfall. Although it became very popular and a national force in the on-line marketplace, GEnie was not allowed to grow. GEIS executives steadfastly refused to view the service as anything but "fill in" load and would not expand the network by a single phone line, let alone expand mainframe capacity, to accommodate GEnie's growing user base. (Later, however, GE did consent to make the service available through the SprintNet time-sharing network, which had its own dial-up points of presence.)

The initial price for connection, at both 300 bits per second and the then-high-speed 1200 bits per second, was $5-$6 per hour during "non-prime-time" hours (evenings and weekends) and $36 an hour (to discourage daytime use) otherwise, later adjusted to $6 per hour and $18 per hour, respectively. 2400 bps was also available a premium. Later, GEnie developed the Star*Services package, soon renamed Genie*Basic after Prodigy threatened a trademark lawsuit over the use of the word "Star". It offered a set of "unlimited use" features for $4.95/month. Other services cost extra, mirroring the tiered service model popular at the time.

GEnie's forums were called RoundTables (RTs), and each, as well as other internal services, had a page number associated with it, akin to a web address today; typing "m 1335", for instance, would bring you to the GemStone III game page. For some time, GEnie published a bimonthly paper magazine called LiveWire. The service included RTs, games, mail, and shopping.

GEnie's chat room was called the LiveWire CB Simulator,^[1] after the popular CB radios of the time.

[edit] Games

GEnie had a reputation as being the home of excellent online games. Top titles included:

Kesmai's Air Warrior
Simutronics' GemStone ][
GemStone III
AUSI's Dragon's Gate
Simutronics' CyberStrike - won the first "Online Game of the Year" award from Computer Gaming World magazine in 1993
Kesmai's Multiplayer Battletech: Solaris

Other major titles included:

AUSI's Galaxy II
NTN Trivia
Kesmai's Stellar Warrior - GEnie's first multiplayer online game
Kesmai's Stellar Emperor - The GEnie version of Kesmai's Compuserve game MegaWars III
John Weaver's RSCards
Jim Dunnigan's Hundred Years' War
Simutronics' DragonRealms
Federation II
Simutronics' Modus Operandi
A-Maze-ing
Diplomacy Online

[edit] RoundTables

A RoundTable on GEnie was a discussion area containing a message board ("BBS"), a chatroom ("RealTime Conference" or RTC) and a Library for permanent text files. They were part of an online community culture that predated the Internet's emergence as a mass medium, which also included such separate entities as CompuServe forums, Usenet newsgroups, and e-mail mailing lists.

Most RoundTables were actually operated not by GEnie employees but by independent contractors working from home, which was standard practice for online services at the time. The contractors received royalties on time spent in their forums. In the most popular forums, this revenue stream was often substantial enough to hire one or two part-time or full-time staffers. Many RoundTables also had a number of unpaid assistants, working for a "free flag" (which granted them free access to that RoundTable) or an "internal account" (which granted free access to all of the service).

RoundTables available on GEnie included:

The 911 / Emergency RoundTable for discussion of emergency preparedness...and a forum set up for quick mobilization during emergencies
The A2 RoundTable for discussion of Apple computers, an early home of Apple devotees
The Astrology RoundTable
The Comics RoundTable
The CP/M RoundTable
The Education RoundTable, which included a separate area for younger, school-aged GEnie users
The Forth RoundTable, a popular discussion board for the Forth programming language
The Health RoundTable
The IBM PC RoundTable - Sysop's Charlie Strom and Rick Ruhl
The Japan RoundTable, including "Japanimation Online", an early anime forum [2]
The Left Coast RoundTable (initially The California RoundTable, later The American West RoundTable)
The MIDI/WorldMusic RoundTable, an early MIDI discussion forum hosted by Robert Moore
The NBC Online RoundTable [3]
PetNet - all things animal
The Public Forum and Non-Profit Connection, dedicated to political discussion as well as assisting non-profits to use online resources to further their mission,
The Religion and Philosophy RoundTable
The four Science Fiction RoundTables, the official online home of the Horror Writers Association and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America before the Internet became popular (SFWA members, who were all published authors, received free access to the SF RoundTables)
- The Jerry Pournelle RoundTable
Scorpia's Games RoundTable, dedicated to games of all types, including GEnie's hosted online games
The Scuba RoundTable
The ShowBiz RoundTable, created by film critic Bill Warren in 1989 and still active today on the online service Delphi
The Space and Science RoundTable
The Spaceport RoundTable, oriented around engineering projects that could be carried out in space.
The Sports RoundTable
The TeleJoke RoundTable, which was managed by Brad Templeton and cross-linked with the Usenet newsgroup rec.humor.funny.
TI-99/4A and Geneve RoundTable
The White House RoundTable for making available press releases and other hard to find administration materials and and for partisan discussions on actions of the Clinton administration
The Windows RoundTable - Sysop's Rick Ruhl and Charlie Strom
The Writers' Ink RoundTable

[edit] Lack of commercial success

Although GEnie developed a loyal following – especially for its hosted forums, among the online gaming crowd, and among science-fiction writers and fans – and for years was second as a service provider only to CompuServe itself, it never had enough backing from GEIS management and was never considered strategic. The service failed to keep up when Prodigy and America Online produced graphics-based online services that drew the masses. Programs such as Aladdin, which had been developed earlier by an independent developer and eventually supported by GEnie, helped many of the newcomers who came to GEnie from Prodigy and AOL adjust; these were the equivalent of modern-day email programs and newsreaders, incorporating a more user-friendly interface which automated message and mail downloading and posting. But GEnie's marketing was all but non-existent, and word-of-mouth was insufficient to keep it going in the face of media blitzes from the new services.

In addition, as the Internet gained popularity, GEnie took its time developing GEnie Mail-to-Internet Mail gateways, which were extremely expensive, and support for Usenet newsgroups.

GE sold GEnie in 1996 to Yovelle, which was later taken over by IDT Corp. IDT attempted to transition Genie (now all-lowercase) to an internet service provider, but ultimately failed. IDT also attempted to place a GUI on the still text-based service. This client was actually in use for the final few months, but GEnie did not last long for the GUI client to become popular.

Visitors to GEnie dropped with the growth of other online services and fell dramatically following a very sudden change in the fee structure in 1996. The users were notified with only 12 hours' notice that all basic services would cease to exist, while prices of the other services would rise dramatically. The short amount of advance warning meant that many people would not be able to log on that very night, and there was insufficient time to contact friends and create means of keeping in touch for the future. The resulting exodus produced a great deal of anger against the owners of GEnie. By the final year, insiders reported fewer than 10,000 total users.

On December 4, 1999, it was announced that GEnie would close for good on December 27 due to Y2K issues. Remaining users gathered in chat areas of the few RoundTables remaining to say goodbye and "watch the lights go out" at midnight on the 26th. But GEnie did not close for four more days and a dwindling number watched at the close of each day. The RoundTables and all areas of GEnie, except the Top, became unavailable slightly before midnight on December 30, 1999. There were still several users chatting at the end.

[edit] GEnie's Legacy

GEnie, particularly its specialized RoundTables, served as an arena for collaborations that had impact in American popular culture. Several books, TV shows, films, and other projects had their genesis and inspiration on GEnie. One example is the Babylon 5 television show, created by J. Michael Straczynski, which was first announced publicly in GEnie's Science Fiction RoundTables. The SFRTs served as the show's first online "home" and were the source of many in-jokes and references throughout its run.

Bill Louden, the original creator of GEnie, formed a group of investors to buy the Delphi online service from News Corp, where he led the transition of the service from text-only to the Web (and from a pay-per-hour to an advertising-supported revenue model).

Many of the contractors who ran GEnie RoundTables (such as Syndicomm) went on to operate forums on other online services, such as Delphi and AOL, and many remain active online today with Web communities or blogs.

[edit] Famous users

Many notable personalities were early adopters of the online medium, and were a prominent presence on GEnie, either active in one of its RoundTables, or frequent public participants in GEnie's CB Chat.

Tom Clancy was a frequent presence in the chat area, and he and his children sometimes played the games such as GemStone II.
Peter David, self-styled "writer of stuff", such as comic books, television and film novelisations, screenwriting, and many original novels and short stories.
Cory Doctorow, co-author of the Boing Boing blog, was active on GEnie's Science Fiction RoundTable.
Damon Knight, author, founder of Science Fiction Writers of America, SFWA Grand Master
Jerry Pournelle, science fiction author and political commentator, who had his own RoundTable.
J. Michael Straczynski, television writer and producer, and creator of Babylon 5.
Wil Wheaton, "Wesley" from Star Trek: The Next Generation was a frequent presence in the chat area