PowWow was the first Internet
instant message
Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of online chat allowing real-time text transmission over the Internet or another computer network. Messages are typically transmitted between two or more parties, when each user inputs text and trigge ...
and
chat program
Online chat may refer to any kind of communication over the Internet that offers a real-time text, real-time transmission of text-based, text messages from sender to receiver. Chat messages are generally short in order to enable other participa ...
s for
Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
. It was made by a company called Tribal Voice, Inc.
Features
Many of the features found in contemporary instant messaging programs were first introduced in PowWow. The program also had several innovative features such as allowing users to talk with each other using
VoIP
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. The terms Internet t ...
, a shared whiteboard, a built-in speech synthesizer,
WAV
Waveform Audio File Format (WAVE, or WAV due to its filename extension; pronounced "wave") is an audio file format standard, developed by IBM and Microsoft, for storing an audio bitstream on PCs. It is the main format used on Microsoft Wind ...
sound file playing, offline transmittal of instant messages via
POP/
SMTP
The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is an Internet standard communication protocol for electronic mail transmission. Mail servers and other message transfer agents use SMTP to send and receive mail messages. User-level email clients typical ...
, and the ability for users to share their web surfing experience concurrently by redirecting either party to a new URL when another navigates elsewhere. It also had built-in file transfer with a simple drag-and-drop interface to make file sharing very easy.
History
The company was founded in
Woodland Park, Colorado
Woodland Park is home rule municipality in Teller County, Colorado, United States. Woodland Park is part of the Colorado Springs, CO Metropolitan Statistical Area. Many residents in this bedroom community commute to Colorado Springs. Woodland ...
, United States, at the end of 1994, by the software millionaire
John McAfee
John David McAfee ( ; 18 September 1945 – 23 June 2021) was a British-American computer programmer, businessman, and two-time presidential candidate who unsuccessfully sought the Libertarian Party nomination for president of the United States ...
, founder of McAfee Associates (later called
McAfee
McAfee Corp. ( ), formerly known as McAfee Associates, Inc. from 1987 to 1997 and 2004 to 2014, Network Associates Inc. from 1997 to 2004, and Intel Security Group from 2014 to 2017, is an American global computer security software company head ...
or Intel Security Group). At first, the company described itself, especially on its web site, as a '
Native American' company run by Native Americans. As the company grew, the Native American references gradually disappeared.
The company eventually located its corporate headquarters in
Scotts Valley, California
Scotts Valley is a small city in Santa Cruz County, California, United States, about thirty miles (48 km) south of downtown San Jose and six miles (10 km) north of the city of Santa Cruz, in the upland slope of the Santa Cruz Mount ...
.
In the late 1990s, Tribal Voice began to
OEM
An original equipment manufacturer (OEM) is generally perceived as a company that produces non-aftermarket parts and equipment that may be marketed by another manufacturer. It is a common industry term recognized and used by many professional or ...
the PowWow software in order to increase market share. While most of these deals were insubstantial, several were with high-profile companies, including
AT&T
AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile tel ...
's WorldNet
Internet service provider
An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise private ...
(ISP), search engine/portal
AltaVista
AltaVista was a Web search engine established in 1995. It became one of the most-used early search engines, but lost ground to Google and was purchased by Yahoo! in 2003, which retained the brand, but based all AltaVista searches on its own sear ...
, and
Freeserve
Freeserve was a British Internet service provider, which was founded in 1998. At its height, the company became a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index, before merging into the Wanadoo group in 2000. It then became a subsidiary of France Telecom, ...
, a
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
-based ISP.
PowWow was one of the first instant messaging programs to provide interoperability between multiple instant messaging clients, being compatible with both
AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) and Microsoft's
MSN Messenger
MSN Messenger (also known colloquially simply as "Messenger"), later rebranded as Windows Live Messenger, was a cross-platform instant-messaging client developed by Microsoft. It connected to the Microsoft Messenger service and, in later versio ...
.
In the late 1990s AOL sued Tribal Voice for use of the phrase 'buddy list' and made repeated efforts to block interoperability between their instant messaging client and Tribal Voice's, as well as those of other companies.
In 1998, original founder McAfee brought in Joseph Esposito, formerly the president and CEO of
Encyclopædia Britannica
The (Latin for "British Encyclopædia") is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It is published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; the company has existed since the 18th century, although it has changed ownership various time ...
, to run the company.
In 1999, the company was acquired by dot-com incubator
CMGI
Steel Connect, Inc. is an American company that provides supply chain management services to software companies. During the dot-com bubble, the company, which was then known as CMGI, Inc., had a market capitalization of $41 billion and owned the n ...
, who moved the company's development center from Woodland Park to
Colorado Springs
Colorado Springs is a home rule municipality in, and the county seat of, El Paso County, Colorado, United States. It is the largest city in El Paso County, with a population of 478,961 at the 2020 United States Census, a 15.02% increase since ...
,
Colorado
Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...
, and closed the
Scotts Valley
Scotts Valley is a small city in Santa Cruz County, California, United States, about thirty miles (48 km) south of downtown San Jose and six miles (10 km) north of the city of Santa Cruz, in the upland slope of the Santa Cruz Mount ...
office. In 2000, CMGI merged the company into CMGIon, a division of CMGI, founded with help from
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, the ...
and
Novell
Novell, Inc. was an American software and services company headquartered in Provo, Utah, that existed from 1980 until 2014. Its most significant product was the multi-platform network operating system known as Novell NetWare.
Under the lead ...
. In January 2001, CMGIon closed its Colorado Springs office, the former Tribal Voice.
Bibliography
Article about Tribal Voice's first step to generate revenue*
*
AT&T WorldNet selects PowWow for IM clientAltaVista selects PowWow for IM client*
*
Experimental PowWow server set up by former employeesVICE That Time John McAfee Developed One of the First Social Networks
References
{{Reflist
Windows instant messaging clients
Computer-related introductions in 1994
Products and services discontinued in 2001
Internet properties established in 1994
Internet properties disestablished in 2001
Defunct instant messaging clients