Previous: 1993 / Next: 1995  View all of the years in the New Media Timeline               TECHNOLOGY February 1994 -- Yahoo is started as a personal list of sites by David Filo and Jerry Yang, Ph.D. candidates in electrical engineering at Stanford. Yahoo stands for "Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle." April 4, 1994 -- The Netscape Communications Corporation is founded by Marc Andreessen and Jim Clark. "The Magic Box: Time Warner is testing its futuristic vision of services that will be available from the TV. But how much interaction do Americans really want?" The New Yorker, April 11, 1994. The JPEG standard is officially approved. (JPEG images will play an important part in the future use of digital photographs and graphics on the Web.) Although professional photographers began experimenting with digital photography in 1979, the Associated Press and Kodak introduce the NC2000, the first digital camera specifically designed for photojournalists, in 1994. Early digital cameras were very expensive. It would be a number of years before they became popular with the general public. (See also: "A Bird's View of History: The Digital Camera and the Ever-Changing Landscape of Photojournalism." The Digital Journalist, Feb. 2006.) Sept. 12, 1994 -- Netscape releases the beta version of its Navigator Web browser. (See also: "A Sad Milestone: AOL To Discontinue Netscape Browser Development." Michael Arrington, TechCrunch, Dec. 28, 2007.)   Oct. 1994 -- The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is created to develop common protocols for the Internet. Oct. 21, 1994 -- The official White House Website is launched. (See also: "Archived Image of Website" and the article, "Clinton White House Web Site" from About.com) "1994 video about the Web from Digital Equipment Corporation." Posted on YouTube, Feb. 13, 2007. According to the Times Mirror Center, nearly one in three U.S. households contains a personal computer, and approximately 23 million adults use a home computer every day. A majority of employed people use a computer at the workplace. (The Times Mirror Center will later change its name to the Pew Research Center.) Sony introduces its PlayStation video game console. "The (Second Phase of the) Revolution Has Begun: Don't look now, but Prodigy, AOL, and CompuServe are all suddenly obsolete - and Mosaic is well on its way to becoming the world's standard interface." Wired, Oct. 1994.                THE MEDIA News Example: Jan. 17, 1994 -- "Southern California Earthquake." (This is an early example of a news event reported and discussed by Internet, BBS, and dial-up service users.) (2004 story from nbc4.tv "The Videotex Debacle." AJR, Nov. 1994. A few examples of new media sites launched during 1994: (Source: E&P and Alexa) Salt Lake Tribune, Utah Online, Jan. 1994, Service: BBS Detroit Free Press, Jan. 1994, Service: CompuServe Raleigh News & Observer, Nando.Net, Feb. 1994, Service: Gopher - Internet / BBS Palo Alto Weekly, Feb. 1994, Service: Internet Atlanta Journal and Constitution, Access Atlanta, March 1994, Service: Prodigy CNET, March 1994, Service: Internet BBC April 13, 1994 Service: Internet Columbus Dispatch, May 1994, Service: Columbus Freenet The New York Times, @ Times, June 1994, Service: America Online Halifax Daily News June 1994 ESPN, July 1994 Tampa Tribune, Tampa Bay Online, Aug. 1994, (1994 IPA Review) Service: Prodigy Raleigh News & Observer, Nando Times, Late summer 1994, (1995 AJR article) Service: Web - Internet Newsday, Newsday Direct, Oct. 1994, Service: Prodigy Wired Magazine, Hot Wired, Oct. 1994, (1994 IPA Review) Service: Internet Los Angeles Times, TimesLink, Oct. 26, 1994, (1994 IPA Review) Service: Prodigy London Daily Telegraph, Electronic Telegraph, Nov. 1994, (1994 IPA Review) (2004 anniversary) Service: Internet San Francisco Examiner / Chronicle, The Gate, Nov. 1994, Service: Internet Finanical Times, Nov. 1994 San Jose Mercury News, Mercury Center, Dec. 1994, Service: Internet Dallas Morning News, 1994 The Irish Times, 1994 Statistics According to The Media in Cyberspace II survey, the following online services are used by reporters in 1994: CompuServe -- 35% Gov't Services -- 22% AOL -- 21% Other Internet -- 19% Prodigy -- 8% Delphi -- 4% Dow-Jones -- 2.5% The America Online dial-up service has 1,000,000 subscribers. (Source: AOL) Additional Resources See Also: New Media Bibliography

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