Making Contact.-Online in the 80s -- Early entrepreneurs -- Timesharing and PSNs -- Compu-Serve and Comp-U-Card -- Wasted resources and personal computers -- The prefect business opportunity -- Design and beta-testing the first online service -- Hacker toys or consumer service? -- The Source.-The uncertain entrepreneur -- From liquor to consulting -- Recycling hardware and ideas -- Telephones and computers -- A wireless Internet -- Videotext, cable TV, and computers -- The off-the-shelf computer network -- Tariffs and information providers -- Backers -- Opening Day: 'This is the beginning of the Information Age!' -- Content and Competition.-Revenue issues. Playing games at 300 bps -- News -- The problem with online shopping -- Downloadable software -- Advertising and online presence -- Online gaming. Paying the bills -- New social networks -- Mainstreaming online -- In search of cheap connections -- Chatting: the killer app -- What it looked like -- Looking Backward -- How'd we get here? -- The Victorian Internet -- Hyperlinks in the 1950s -- ARPAnet -- Packet-switching -- The knowledge industry moves in (Dow Jones, Knowledge Index, et al) -- Corporate computing -- Modems and home computers -- Bulletin boards (BBSs) -- 'What do we do next?' The noble idea -- E-mail and one-liners -- FTP, Gopher, and USENET -- More Entrepreneurs -- Modem millionaires -- The new competition (PLink, QLink, DELPHI, and more) -- Content is king. Publishing, percentages, and partnerships -- Digressions: downloadable music, motives, and games -- Variations on a theme: Cable TV and phone nets, videogame consoles online (battle of the mediums) -- Downloadable software and shareware.-Heavy Hitters and Growing Pains -- SIGs and Forums. FSBO and auctions -- Online casualties -- GEnie -- AOL -- Prodigy (How not to run an online service) -- Advertising wars -- Viruses -- Pranked and turfed! The numbers increase -- Scammers and hackers move in -- Billing: Flat rate versus by-the-minute -- What it really cost -- Competition, Cooperation, and Coercion.-'My net's better than yours!' E-mail interconnections -- Frames and graphics -- Front ends: value-added illusions -- Multi-tasking online -- Online intimidation, theft, and lawsuits -- Hackers and 'Free AOL.-' Million-dollar games.-Simulacrums and lies -- Doing Business Online.-Knowledge services -- Luxury goods -- Publishers and presence -- Experiments in retailing -- Advertising without advertising: sponsored Forums -- Growth: The Second Generation and Specialty Services -- Hosted services and private networks -- USA Today Sports Center -- The WELL -- BIX and WIX. BRS/After Dark. EasyNet -- Apple-Link. Promenade -- ZiffNet -- MCI Mail -- AT&T Net -- Legitimizing E-mail -- PornNet -- More casualties -- Linking to the Net -- E-mail links -- USENET Newsgroups -- Gopher -- FTP -- Modem taxes and other myths -- The plague of the Internet: Spam -- What spammers are really selling -- Social Evolution in Cyberspace.-'When everyone's online ...' Online romance -- Intimate frauds -- Masquerades and identity theft -- Privacy fears and threats -- Encryption -- Compromising corporate secrets -- Chats and clubs -- Policing the online world -- Turning a buck -- Online crime -- Web psychos and stalkers -- Where the walls have ears (and memories).-The Hidden Network -- Getting the real story -- Bulletin boards behind the Iron Curtain -- Scooping CNN -- Earthquake! Data lines down: the story The Wall Street Journal missed. -Software pirates unbound. Pimps and predators. Pornography unlimited -- And now, the Web .. -- Before the Web -- CompuServe buys The Source -- AOL buys CompuServe -- Mosaic-. Netscape. Bill Gates: The Web as a small phenomenon -- Catching up with Microsoft Internet Explorer -- GNN -- Web myths and fears -- Mainstreaming the Web -- The Corporate World Goes Online -- 'If it's online, it's free!' Web expectations and realities -- Dot com bust and boom -- The future -- Timeline.