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OBS Firsts: Leading the Online Publishing Industry Since 1989 |
Open Book Systems (OBS) was there when online publishing started, creating a startling number of industry "firsts" in Internet publishing. Now, as the electronic publishing industry moves towards dynamic online publishing -- accessing and developing ideas and information online -- OBS again takes the lead.
Follow the history of online publishing by reviewing the OBS "Firsts":
- How OBS Began
- 1989 -- OBS/Editorial Inc. produces
John Quarterman's
The Matrix: Computer Networks and Conferencing Systems Worldwide
for Digital Press, the first book about the Internet.
- 1992 -- Editorial Inc. conceives of and produces
The Internet Companion: A Beginner's Guide to Global Networking by Tracy LaQuey
(Addison-Wesley), the first trade book about the Internet.
Online BookStore (OBS) is launched.
- March 15, 1993 -- OBS sponsors the first "Live Online" poetry reading on
the Net, featuring National Book Award-winner Robert Coover, and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet John Ashbery.
- March 1993 -- The Voyager version
of The Internet Companion becomes first disk-based trade book to contain Internet
Service Provider connectivity software.
- May 1993 -- OBS Internet Start-Up Booth brings the first Internet connection to
ABA.
- September 1993 -- OBS publishes
Stephen King on the Net and conducts the first sale of Internet rights. The gopher "buy"
option offering immediate credit card clearance was the first of its kind on the Net.
- October 1993 -- OBS
brings the first Internet connection to Frankfurt Book Fair.
- February 1994 -- OBS sells the first "distributive" book in HTML on the Net,
Adrian Butash's Bless This Food
(Delacorte Press).
- March 1994 -- OBS conducts the first "Virtual Book Signing" on the Net
with Viking Penguin.
- May 1994 -- John Wiley publishes
its first titles on the Net with OBS.
- May 1994 -- Bernice Chesler's Bed & Breakfast in New England, 4th edition
(Globe Pequot Press) becomes the first B&B book on the Web.
- September 30, 1994 -- McGraw-Hill publishes the complete HTML files for
Paperless Publishing with OBS.
- October 2, 1994 -- Floyd Kemske
(Catbird Press) becomes the first novelist to publish the complete book-writing process
on the Web, paving the way for hyperfictions online.
- December 14, 1994 -- Nelson Mandela's Long Walk to Freedom published in multiple languages on the Net.
- February 1995 -- OBS introduces multilanguage publishing server (in four languages).
- June 1, 1995 -- OBS offers
"Time Warner Quick Reads" for sale by download - a first for
Time Warner Electronic Publishing.
- October 26, 1995 -- OBS creates the first
"Open Book Review" for
Robert McNamara's In Retrospect.
- November, 1995 -- OBS creates
award-winning film-sites for
Miramax-Films.
- March 1996 -- First the posting of a trilingual search engine for McKinley.com (now Excite!).
- March 17, 1996 -- Bernice
Chesler's Bed and Breakfast in New England, 5th edition (Chronicle Books) becomes
the first full-text, fully-searchable database B&B book on the Net, offering online currency
conversion, weather reports, interactive maps, and email to 448 selected B&Bs.
- May 1996 -- Springhouse Corporation,
the country's leading nursing publisher (subsidiary of Reed Elsevier) offers the first
Continuing Education Credits online over the Internet through OBS.
- July 1996 Gordon and Breach site serves as an "author magnet"
by enabling online submission and accellerated publication of content.
- October 1996 -- OBS hosts the world's first Internet Rights Auction for the Frankfurt Book Fair auctioning off the Internet rights to two titles by Gregory Rawlins and Maeve Binchy.
- December 1996 -- Multiple choice tests are graded and charged for in real-time at the Springhouse Corporation's SpringNet.com site.