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William H Louden

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William (Bill) Louden (born November 22, 1946) is considered a pioneer in the online/internet industry, digital media executive, serial entrepreneur, and creator of massively multiplayer online games (MMORPG) genre. He is a founding member of the CompuServe startup team (1979), co-founder of Georgia Online (1985), and founder of Genie (General Electric Company) in 1985.

In 2001, Bill was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award for Online Multiplayer Games by HappyPuppy.com.[1]

Early Life

A native of Cleveland, Ohio, he joined the Navy in 1963 and volunteered for Vietnam in 1964. He studied electronics and electrical engineering before majoring in English and Japanese literature at Ohio State University. He received a Masters, International Management degree from the University of Maryland University College.

Early Career

Louden joined Tandy Radio Shack in 1972 and, as a hobbyist, jumped into the personal computing space in 1977 selling Radio Shack TRS-80 computers. He opened one of the first Tandy Computer stores in Columbus, Ohio and went on to manage several stores. Louden also developed some of the earlier TRS-80 programs including a Ride Sharing app for WNCI radio in 1978,[2] Golf Compu Country Club, [3] STRTRK.BAS, and others. He founded COTUG (the Central Ohio TRS-80 User Group) in 1978 and his members began testing an online service at CompuServe service dubbed MicroNET. [4] In 1979, Louden joined CompuServe as Director of Communications, Entertainment, and Software (VIDTEX) product lines. In 1986, MicroTimes magazine named Louden as one of the Top 50 contributors to the personal computing industry. [5]

CompuServe

At CompuServe, Louden was responsible for managing and sourcing products for Communications, Entertainment, and Software product lines. He designed, sourced, and produced some of the first consumer products including community special interest groups or SIGS (1980), which he later dubbed forums (1982), the first consumer electronic mail system (1982),[6] and chat (CB Simulator). He is credited with coining the terms forums and email (which was trademarked in 1983 and later released into the public domain).

For Louden and key developer, Russ Ranshaw, the concept of an electronic community required four elements: an asynchronous messaging system, synchronous communication channels, a storage area, and backend moderation functions. Louden and Ranshaw developed the concept using a metaphor of a large rope (in Naval terms, a hawser ). Each rope wound on the hawser created a forum; in that forum, there were hundreds of ‘threads’ of messages usually pertaining to a certain topic. Moderators had the job of snipping a thread if it wavered too far off-topic or delete or re-thread ‘strands’ of messages into the correct topic area.

Synchronous messaging at the time was based a CB Radio metaphor where were popular at the time. CB simulator. Forty channels were available with channel 9 the help (or customer service) channel, channel 19 was for general chatter, and other channels were either open or assigned to specific events, guest speakers, or games. Private group or one-on-one chats were also available.

The storage area was designed to hold shareable software files, documents, or digital pictures (usually using the CompuServe GIF format.

References[edit]

  1. "Biting the Hand: A Compilation of the Columns to Date" (PDF).
  2. "Microcomputer Aids Columbus Car Pool". Intelligent Machines Journal. January 17, 1979.
  3. "The Big List of TRS-80 Software".
  4. Banks, Michael (2012). On the Way to the Web: The Secret History of thApresse Internet and Its Founders. Apress. ISBN 978-1-4302-5075-3. Search this book on
  5. "The MicroTimes 50". MicroTimes Magazine. December 1986.
  6. Banks, Michael A (January 1, 2007). "The Internet, ARPANet, and Consumer Online".


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