ElectricMinds.org is a technology blog
Title
Electric Minds
Description
About Electric Minds
Electric Minds (commonly abbreviated "EMinds") was founded in 1996 by Howard Rheingold (EMinds user ID
In 1997, Softbank, which had been the major investor in Electric Minds, pulled its funding, causing Rheingold to sell Electric Minds to Durand Communications, Inc., an Internet company from Santa Barbara, California, which used a conferencing platform of their own design, CommunityWare. The developers at Durand labored in a two-month crash program to make their conferencing software work like WellEngaged, to ensure that the community enjoyed some continuity. This effort proved successful, and Electric Minds became the largest online community hosted by CommunityWare, with over 100,000 user accounts. Rheingold stayed with Durand as a consultant and host of the Electric Minds community for a time, but later left, and the role of Electric Minds community host was filled by longtime user and conference host Harry Pike (EMinds user ID
When Durand Communications was acquired by Online System Services Inc. of Denver, Colorado (now Webb Interactive Services Inc.), CommunityWare was combined with OSS' existing product and became the "WebbMe" portal system, with Electric Minds still featured prominently. The community continued to function even as Webb's technological focus shifted away from WebbMe and towards its newer AccelX product line. However, due to budgetary constraints and the lack of available space at Webb's NOC facility in downtown Denver, WebbMe was finally shut down at the end of January, 2001. The remaining members of the Electric Minds community gathered in their temporary home, a private conference at Cafe Utne, facing an uncertain future.
Languages
English
