14 Oct
2004
14 Oct
'04
2:31 a.m.
I got contacted by an attorney looking for prior art
on ecommerce and shopping carts, especially web-based stuff;
a bunch of lawyers ended up with the OpenMarket patents
and is trying to shake everyone down, ala SCO. Amazon, among
others, are working on busting the patent.
The two early events I know of are:
June-July of '94 my company (Bibliobytes/HKS.net) released
"OrderBook", which was basically a front end that would let you enter
some SKU's and credit card info and would email us an encrypted copy
of the order to be processed and fufilled. You got the SKUs from a
catalog downloaded seperately from a web page, by ftp, or whatever.
Around August 2004, NetMarket, a startup done by four guys from
Swarthmore, started selling CDs over the web.
Anyone know of any other shopping-cart and/or automatic payment
systems that were up and running or publically described
before October of '94?
--akb
14 Oct
14 Oct
5:22 a.m.
On Thu, 14 Oct 2004, Andrew K. Bressen wrote:
I got contacted by an attorney looking for prior art
on ecommerce and
shopping carts, especially web-based stuff; a bunch of lawyers ended up
with the OpenMarket patents and is trying to shake everyone down, ala
SCO. Amazon, among others, are working on busting the patent.
I guess Amazon is trying to make up for it's stupid one-click patent? :)
June-July of '94 my company (Bibliobytes/HKS.net)
released
"OrderBook", which was basically a front end that would let you enter
some SKU's and credit card info and would email us an encrypted copy
of the order to be processed and fufilled. You got the SKUs from a
catalog downloaded seperately from a web page, by ftp, or whatever.
Around August 2004, NetMarket, a startup done by four guys from
Swarthmore, started selling CDs over the web.
Wow, I didn't realize e-commerce was being deployed even this early.
Anyone know of any other shopping-cart and/or
automatic payment
systems that were up and running or publically described
before October of '94?
I've got a few very early web directory books from this timeframe that
might shed some light.
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ]
[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]
6:51 a.m.
On Thu, 14 Oct 2004, Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
In late 1993 (oct-nov), my company (InfoMagic, Inc) started using our
online "intranet" site for dealing with larger customers (usually
resellers, store chains and such) for ordering. This was much like
the Bibiobytes setup: we emailed out SKU lists, and they just entered
them into the site, after which our order processors got the info in
encrypted format so they could pull it through the financial and
logistical packages for processing. Later, sometime mid-1994, this
was enhanced to be mostly automated; no more encrypted email, but
a pipe straight into the logistics system.
I guess this indeed is a form of eCommerce, tho at the time, we just
liked it 'cos it saved us from having many people around, typing in
numbers .. ;)
Much later, "regular" ordering sites for the general public were put
into place.. this is ~1995 or ~1996 or so.
Cheers,
Fred
--
Fred N. van Kempen, DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) Collector/Archivist
Visit the VAXlab Project at http://VAXlab.pdp11.nl/
Visit the Archives at http://www.pdp11.nl/
Email: waltje(a)pdp11.nl BUSSUM, THE NETHERLANDS / Mountain View, CA, USA
June-July of
'94 my company (Bibliobytes/HKS.net) released
"OrderBook", which was basically a front end that would let you enter
some SKU's and credit card info and would email us an encrypted copy
of the order to be processed and fufilled. You got the SKUs from a
catalog downloaded seperately from a web page, by ftp, or whatever.
Around August 2004, NetMarket, a startup done by four guys from
Swarthmore, started selling CDs over the web.
Wow, I didn't realize e-commerce was being deployed even this early.
Anyone know of any other shopping-cart and/or
automatic payment
systems that were up and running or publically described
before October of '94?
I've got a few very early web directory books from this timeframe that
might shed some light. 
1:44 p.m.
At 12:31 14/10/2004, Andrew K. Bressen wrote:
Anyone know of any other shopping-cart and/or automatic
payment
systems that were up and running or publically described
before October of '94?
I definitely bought a book ("The meaning of Liff") in the early 1980s on
Prestel, British Telecom's online viewdata public information service. I
think it was via Club 403 (all pages were numbered, with main IPs
("Information Providers") being allocated 3-digit prefixes, hence many
called themselves after their page number). I actually found my old '403
membership card the other day - it expired in 1985. I have a vague feeling
that although I placed the order through their online system, they phoned
me up for the credit card details..
I do have a fair bit of old Prestel (and Viatel - Australia) publicity
material and IP brochures, but not sure if they mention any form of
e-commerce (as that phrase hadn't been coined then!).
Rob
7222
days inactive
7222
days old
3 comments
4 participants
participants (4)
-
akb+lists.cctech＠imap1.mirror.to -
classiccmp.org＠irrelevant.fsnet.co.uk -
vcf＠siconic.com -
waltje＠pdp11.nl