With its server activated in March, 1996, WOW! from CompuServe was a very promising online service. According to AppleKay, it had the best Chat around. As an ISP, it was excellent, for $17.95 a month unlimited, WOW! could handle 16 and 32-bit Internet applications. WOW! itself was basically a 32-bit Internet application (most of its content was on the web), available only for users of Windows95; a Mac version was to be released in Spring '97.
Unfortunately, the first release (WOW 1.0) was chatacterized by a review in Online Planet as being "beta software shipped as production software". (Rumor has it that the original WOW! was not seriously beta-tested.) Maybe, but independent WOW! support pages sprang up on the Internet, explaining how to work around the early bugs, plus WOW! allowed its message boards to be used by clever users with solutions to the problems. A very refreshing lack of censorship pervaded WOW! Customer support, at an 800 phone number, was open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Even more unfortunately, it was probably underpriced. As a "family service", it allowed the whole family to remain online indefinately. When the accountants at H&R Block (CompuServe's 80% owner), saw WOW! costing more than it brought in, WOW! was cancelled. The announcement was made November 21, 1996; the service ended Jan. 31, 1997.
WOW! had problems, but they would have been fixed in the new release which had been prepared on CD-ROM and beta-tested, but was not sent out when Block made its decision; the web browser in the original WOW! was MS Internet Explorer 2.0(where Microsoft's too-early entrance into the web browser market showed), the new release would have included MSIE 3.0, said to be as good as Netscape Navigator 3.0; WOW!'s e-mail worked poorly, the new release fixed that; the sluggishness and unreliability of the 16-bit CompuServe Internet Dialer was replaced by use of the Windows95 phone dialer and TCP/IP software, in addition to fixing other technical problems. Plus, the new release included a robust teen section; previously WOW! had been offered to adults, with a kids (no chat, no access to "adult" internet sites, special content) version for preteens. A WOW! employee commented after cancellation, "Teen WOW! was going to be the coolest thing foisted on American youth since MTV." The full text of this and another employee's comments are reprinted here. (Read the text of the original upgrade announcement for more.)
CompuServe's inabitity to fix WOW's problems was compounded when America Online, along with Prodigy and the Microsoft Network(MSN) announced $19.95 unlimited pricing policies, prompting many WOW! users to jump elsewhere. See alt.AOL Sucks FAQ for why moving to AOL was a bad idea. As CompuServe began to lose money, their stock plunged to the $10/share range, down from the $30+ of the summer of '96; one wonders if the story might have been different if the new WOW! release had been distributed in Oct. as promised, followed by a price increase. The revised WOW! would easily have been a better value at $19.95 than AOL.
Only CompuServe, Inc. can bring back WOW!; send them snail mail at: 5000 Arlington Centre Boulevard, Columbus, OH 43220. A good e-mail address is Scott Kauffman, former general manager of WOW!, currently CompuServe VP for Interactive Services, 70003.6706@compuserve.com.
Notes:
Die-hard WOW! fans can still get a permanent e-mail address @wow.member.org from ForeverMail. Look under "Organizations and Clubs", then "Internet/Computer related" to find wow.member.org .
The cloud background in the day was Kayla's idea; a reminder of the changing background that appeared behind the WOW! HOME screen. The original backgrounds are buried in wow.exe, we realize that what we have are only poor substitutes. Suggestions are welcome!
Other WOW! related sites: WOW! The Online Service, including the WOW! picture collection assembled by a former WOW! member(the owner of this page reports it to be defunct at some time prior to 5/16/99.) The WOW! Member Organization(WMO), run by two former WOW! members (the WMO is reported to be defunct 9/7/97 by LuckiBrian, quoting its founder, Evan); and Gary's Home page, formerly Gary's WOW! Page (is defunct 12/5/97).(Two other WOW! help pages, Brett's and ZeroDown's, are gone, too.) Gary's page was one of the first of the pages that appeared to combat the early problems. (According to Ms. Analysis' WOW! Resource Links, Gary was first; according to Andy of the WMO, his founding associate Evan was first.)(Note to historians: Gary's page was "founded June 28, 1996"; the WMO started counting visitors on June 26, 1996.) On the day of the cancellation announcement, "Domer", someone with access to the beta version of the upgrade, published a group of beta screenshots; Netscape users click here, MSIE 3.0 users click here(!) Avid chatters will remember As The WOW Turns, which has a lot of info on the very last night of WOW! And check out ER's WOW Lives!. NOTE: WOW Lives! is a great page, but it was made with MS FrontPage, and includes non-standard HTML, plus non-standard background images which Microsoft makes work on MSIE 3.0+, which creates the illusion that MSIE works better than Netscape! (A big thanks to ER for pointing her ex-WOW!/now AOL friends towards this page!!) Another attempt has been made to accumulate old WOW! names and new service addresses, see WOW to AOL and other Places - Names.
Kayla has also made these two images in support of Bringing Back WOW!
Feel free to use them on your
own webpages! (To save, right-click on the image; a "save-as" box
will open.)
LuckiBrian@aol.com has started a mailing list of ex-WOWies, to send out news. If you were a WOWie, and want to be included but weren't, email your address to him.
Gary's page reports that AOL is trying to buy CompuServe, and that H&R Block wants to sell. The good news: it was Block that killed WOW! in the first place; they might have told CompuServe to keep it dead. The bad news: AOL probably would not want to bring back something that was originally set up to attract AOL customers. Pure Speculation: AOL killed its Internet only operation, GNN. Maybe AOL/CS would spin off SpryNet, CS's Internet only subsidiary, and give Spry the rights to WOW! Spry is an Internet company, and would have done a much better job with WOW! than CompuServe did; we could then ask Spry to Bring Back WOW!
END NOTE: On Sept 8 the announcement was made: CompuServe sold by Block to WorldCom, which then sold all of CompuServe, except for the CompuServe network, to AOL, which plans to operate both CompuServe and SpryNet as "brands" of AOL. If the federal government approves the deal, AOL will own the rights to WOW!
"The Future isn't what it used to be"
-from Gary's WOW! Page, at the end of WOW!
Possible hope: CompuServe says that it has been assured by AOL Chairman Steve Case that CompuServe will continue as an entity. This page will continue unless (or until) AOL flatly states that a return of WOW! from CompuServe will not be considered. (If AOL kills SpryNet; not impossible in view of the demise of GNN; this page will continue at Prodigy .)
AOL members: Your provider now controls the fate of WOW! Find out who to write at AOL, write them, and tell us who it is; we will post it here.
An AOL member writes that it probably won't help, but you can write to the #1 person at AOL, SteveCase@aol.com. Thanks!
Unfortunately, Steve Case has resigned as Chairman of AOL Time Warner; here is a list of who's who at AOL.
View the original guestbook(up to mid-4/97)
We will keep signers informed of developments.
Comments? E-mail the author at JohnHunter2@wow.member.org. Or, e-mail Bring Back WOW! at "Kayla",wownow@hotmail.com.
Rev. 2-3-07
(counter killed by MindSpring in 12/99)visitors since 4-2-97
Wowies Unite Web Ring Were you at one time a member of Compuserves computer service "Wow!"? Do you own a homepage? Click here to experience what Wow! was all about. | "John C. Hunter"is a (superlatives omitted) member of the Wowies Unite Web Ring ; | |
This WOWies Unite site is owned by "John Hunter"(and Kayla,
formerly Apple_Kay@wow.com) | ||
(This page was a mamber of the original Wowies Unite Webring)
Following is a WOW! mousepad, showing the WOW! Home screen. This image was sent in by a CompuServe employee who was not on the WOW! team.
