Released on: August 20, 2008, 2:03 pm

Press Release Author: Apress

Industry: Computers

Press Release Summary: New book from Apress chronicles the history of the internet
and who set it free.

Press Release Body: Berkeley, CA-June 2008- On the Way to the Web is the story of
the opening of the Internet, and parallel developments in the alternate world of
computer bulletin board systems. It's a chronicle of the inventive, individualistic
and often cantankerous individuals who set the Internet free-and the online
population who created a new culture and turned the frontier into their vision of
the future. On the Way to the Web is a business book and a chronicle of popular
culture set in the online era preceding the Web, with a rich vein of human interest.
Michael A. Banks will introduce you to the innovators who laid the foundation for
the Internet and the World Wide Web, the man who invented online chat, and the
people who invented the products all of us use online every day. You'll also find
these stories of people and events on the way to the Web:

. CIA agents in search of military hardware for sale online.
. The first online privacy scandal, three decades ago.
. The first instance of online censorship in 1979
. How in 1980 the FBI demanded the ID of a CompuServe user who tried to sell 3,000
M16 rifles online
. Early con artists

What people are saying:

"This is a thorough, entertaining, informative, useful history of how our world was
transformed during my adult life. Many people in their thirties now have no memory
of ever living in a house without a computer of one kind or another. Most people in
their teens don't know what it's like to live in a world that isn't online."
-Orson Scott Card, author of Ender's Game, from the Foreword


Michael A. Banks is the author of more than 40 books, among them several titles that
deal with Internet topics, including The eBay Survival Guide; Web Psychos, Stalkers,
and Pranksters; The Modem Reference; PC Confidential; and Welcome to CompuServe. He
is co-author of CROSLEY: The Story of Two Brothers and the Business Empire that
Transformed the Nation (Clerisy, 2006), the biography of 20th-Century
industrialist/entrepreneur and communications magnate Powel Crosley, Jr. (This book
made the New York Times extended bestseller list, the Wall Street Journal hardcover
business book bestseller list, and the BusinessWeek bestseller list. Having sold
45,000 copies during its first three months of existence, it received a full-page
write-up in the February 12, 2007, issue of Publishers Weekly.)
He has written hundreds of magazine articles and served as a contributing editor and
columnist for Computer Shopper, Windows, and other magazines.
Banks has been online since 1979, when he caught his first glimpse of CompuServe.
During the 1980s, he was involved in a number of Internet firsts, including online
book promotion. He has helped maintain BBSs, was a SIG manager on DELPHI for a
number of years, and worked in a consulting capacity for CompuServe and The Source.
He wrote one of the first guides to online services, The Modem Reference
(Brady/Simon & Schuster), which introduced hundreds of thousands of users to modems
and the online world. Because of his reputation as a modem and telecommunications
expert, GEnie and BIX (Byte Information Exchange) created special online forums for
Banks-early blogs. He has also advised a number of businesses in the area of online
marketing.


Web Site: http://apress.com

Contact Details: Steven Wiley
2855 Telegraph Avenue, Suite 600
510-549-5930