The Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link Sold To Its Members 36
New submitter nadaou sends this quote from the NY Times:
"One of the earliest online communities, The WELL, has a new owner: its members. On Thursday evening, Salon Media Group, the previous owner of The WELL, said it had sold the community to the Well Group, a private investment group consisting of longtime members of the community, which was founded in 1985, long before the rise of the Web."
For those who like them some history.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Wired, May 1997 - The Epic Saga of The Well [wired.com]
McClure shared an office with someone from the Whole Earth Software Catalog. His computer, a Compaq, sat on a piece of white plywood board; he cadged a stenographer's chair from the Whole Earth office. It was high tech in the middle of funk, and funk wasn't the ideal setting in which to launch a cutting-edge enterprise. The building had no insulation to speak of, and the roof leaked. In the summer the office was an inferno, and in the winter the temperature indoors dipped into the 50s. The computer room, a modified closet, was just big enough for the disk drive and CPU cabinets. A window-mounted air conditioner -- the largest unit Sears sold -- cooled the VAX.
Re:Back to the roots (Score:4, Interesting)
I've been a member since ~1994. I drive by about once a week, get into a conversation every few weeks. It's like the general store that somehow survived the mega-mall built next door. Conversations tend to be very sane, with a complete lack of the idiotic noise you get in places like this.