The Pipeline was one of the earliest

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

Internet service providers 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 privatel ...

. It was founded in December 1993 in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

by the science and technology writer

James Gleick James Gleick (; born August 1, 1954) is an American author and historian of science whose work has chronicled the cultural impact of modern technology. Recognized for his writing about complex subjects through the techniques of narrative nonficti ...

and computer programmer Uday Ivatury, who had met at the Manhattan Bridge Club and shared an interest in online

bridge A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somethi ...

. Both men believed that a

graphical user interface The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...

would make the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

more widely accessible than the command-line

Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...

commands that were then generally necessary. When the Pipeline was established, the major

online services An online service provider (OSP) can, for example, be an Internet service provider, an email provider, a news provider (press), an entertainment provider (music, movies), a search engine, an e-commerce site, an online banking site, a health site, ...

of the day—

America Online AOL (stylized as Aol., formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City. It is a brand marketed by the current incarnation of Yahoo! Inc. ...

CompuServe CompuServe (CompuServe Information Service, also known by its initialism CIS) was an American online service provider, the first major commercial one in the world – described in 1994 as "the oldest of the Big Three information services (the oth ...

, and

Prodigy Prodigy, Prodigies or The Prodigy may refer to: * Child prodigy, a child who produces meaningful output to the level of an adult expert performer ** Chess prodigy, a child who can beat experienced adult players at chess Arts, entertainment, and ...

—provided their users with no access or very limited access to the internet. Many users welcomed Pipeline as "AOL for the Internet". The software was distributed in the then-popular Book + CD format. The Pipeline was noted for its

point-and-click Point and click are the actions of a computer user moving a pointer to a certain location on a screen (''pointing'') and then pressing a button on a mouse, usually the left button (''click''), or other pointing device. An example of point and cli ...

user interface, which made e-mail, chat,

Usenet Usenet () is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979, and it was ...

, the

World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet. Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web se ...

FTP The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard communication protocol used for the transfer of computer files from a server to a client on a computer network. FTP is built on a client–server model architecture using separate control and data ...

, and other Internet features easily accessible to users. Gleick and Ivatury licensed the Pipeline software through InterCon Systems Corporation to more than 15 other Internet service providers, including

Ireland On-Line Ireland On-Line (IOL) is a former ISP in Ireland. Ireland On-line was the first commercial internet service provider in the state. The company was formed in 1992 by Barry Flanagan, and was reported to have launched "Ireland's first mass-market Int ...

and

Caltech The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

. The Pipeline was purchased in February 1995 by

PSINet PSINet, based in Northern Virginia, was one of the first commercial Internet service providers (ISPs) and was involved in the commercialization of the Internet until the company's bankruptcy in 2001 during the dot-com bubble and acquisition by Coge ...

, which expanded Pipeline service nationwide. Another feature introduced by PSInet was flat pricing for unlimited Internet usage. In July 1996, PSINet sold its consumer Internet operations, including the Pipeline, to

MindSpring EarthLink is an American Internet service provider. It went public on NASDAQ in January 1997. Much of the company's growth was via acquisition; by 2000, ''The New York Times'' described Earthlink as the "second largest Internet service provider ...

. MindSpring discontinued the use of the Pipeline brand, although former Pipeline customers could continue to use their e-mail addresses in the Pipeline

domain Domain may refer to: Mathematics *Domain of a function, the set of input values for which the (total) function is defined **Domain of definition of a partial function **Natural domain of a partial function **Domain of holomorphy of a function * Do ...

. Three years later, MindSpring merged with

EarthLink EarthLink is an American Internet service provider. It went public on NASDAQ in January 1997. Much of the company's growth was via acquisition; by 2000, ''The New York Times'' described Earthlink as the "second largest Internet service provider ...

. Earthlink, too, allows former Pipeline customers to use their Pipeline e-mail addresses.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pipeline Defunct Internet service providers 1993 establishments in New York City 1996 disestablishments in the United States EarthLink