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Access Provider Disk Report

September 10, 1996 by Danny Sullivan

Access Provider Disk Report

The Access Provider Disk Report was a site run by Danny Sullivan from August 1995 through April 1996 that reported on the disks that online access providers sent to him.

What? See, kids, back in the old web days, internet providers sent software disks to build their subscriber base. The disks let you access the “walled garden” content they offered and allowed you to get out onto the web.

So. Many. Disks. Like this:

aol disk

Overall, during the nearly year-long period that the report ran, I received over 60 disks. Here’s the month-by-month breakdown:

disks

The disks mostly (62%) came from America Online (AOL), followed by CompuServe (18%), Prodigy (15%) and others (5% — from Earthlink and Concentric):

service

AOL, toward the end, was the service pushing disks my way the most. The number received each month from AOL, Prodigy and CompuServe:

monthly

Most of the disks (82%) were 3.5″ floppies. The rest were CD-ROM:

media

Most came my way through magazines (72%) with the rest via direct mail:

source

I hope you enjoyed this bit of internet history. Hey, it was even recognized as the Netscape Cool Site: March 1996 and the Yahoo Pick of the Week for Feb. 3, 1996.

Filed Under: Internet, Uncategorized

About Danny Sullivan

Danny Sullivan is a former analyst and journalist who works for Google to help educate the public about search, to explore and explain issues that may arise with search, and take feedback from the public to help promote solutions.

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