Blast From The Past: A 1995 Guide To Doing Business On The InternetBlast From The Past: A 1995 Guide To Doing Business On The Internet

I stumbled over a copy of the book Doing (More) Business On The Internet, which I picked up 13 years ago when first getting a handle on this strange, new form of electronic business. Leafing through it is like looking at your high school yearbook, without the bad haircuts. The cover alone is like a trip in the Back to the Future car.

Hey, kids, remember the "electronic highway?" Actually, it was usually called the "Information Superhighway." If you haven't gotten the point yet, the artwork shows a highway. And note the badge, indicating the book covers topics including the WWW, Mosaic, and Netscape. Whatever happened to Mosaic, anyway?

The preface to this, the second edition, proclaims:

You hear that? Thousands! Wow!

Over 20,000! Wow!

The preface, by author Mary Cronin, goes on to talk about the Web -- spelling the name out in full every time: "World Wide Web." It spells out the phrase "Universal Resource Locator (URL). And it concludes with the author's URL (which now leads to a Canadian office-furniture firm):

Chapter 1 of the book gives an overview of the history of digital networks and how the Internet evolved. Chapter 2 is a manager's guide to the Internet, including information on the Web -- pardon me, the World Wide Web -- Gopher, and Usenet (which the author spells out in all-caps -- "USENET").

It's a pretty good chapter, actually, looking at using the Internet for competitive advantage and to build relationships with vendors and suppliers. Businesses are looking at those same issues today.

Elsewhere in the book, the author looks at how companies like Schlumberger, IBM, and Oracle were pioneering use of the Internet.