American History 1988
Chapter 300 - 290 Exponential Growth

Chapter 300: Chapter 290 Exponential Growth

Bruce was a professor at Cornell Law School, and he was also a partner at a law firm.

As a member of the social elite, Bruce had gotten used to using computers early on.

Not only at home, but there were also computers on his desks at school and at the law firm.

Because Bruce’s specialty was law, and facing the vast ocean of legal regulations, no one could remember them all.

Even if one specialized in one area, it was hard to master without decades of accumulation.

In the past, when he needed to look up information, he could only rely on physical books on his desk.

But after all, a small office desk has limited space; it couldn’t hold too much material.

Then came computers, and everything became much simpler.

Now, there were only one or two frequently used law reference books on Bruce’s desk; the rest of the materials were on the computer.

He marveled at the progress of technology; this was a way of working he had never imagined before.

With a few keystrokes, he could view the library’s materials at school.

Bruce could hardly imagine anything more sci-fi than this as an office method.

However, his amazement lasted only two or three years before the internet came along.

The school’s library could only search for files that had been entered into the database.

But the internet could transmit news of a trial on the West Coast to the East Coast here within five minutes.

This near-instantaneous transmission efficiency, of course, amazed Bruce.

As a professor and a lawyer, he needed to obtain firsthand legal materials and judgment records.

The internet got him used to looking up legal materials online, and there were dedicated websites and sharing forums built within the industry.

Bruce really liked these websites because the cases they offered usually involved very recent events and were highly timely.

This was beneficial for enriching his professional knowledge, whether it was teaching students or facing clients; he could always talk confidently.

However, Bruce recently encountered a little trouble: those websites he often visited were now hard to display in full.

The reason was that these legal information websites had been upgraded; they began to present their content to users in hypertext format.

Compared to the previously read-only mode, the upgraded websites now supported downloading related materials.

That is to say, websites edited in hypertext language gave users more interactive operations.

This was a good thing, but to experience this convenience, a user’s computer had to access the site through a browser.

There were many browsers available for free on the internet.

But Bruce still couldn’t access those legal websites because all his office computers ran on the Windows system.

The browsers online were all developed based on Unix, so he couldn’t use them.

Bruce was distressed about this for a long time; he even thought about asking the school to develop similar software tools.

Until today in class a student told him that there were already browsers for the Windows system available online, and they were very easy to use.

Awaiting impatiently, Bruce had just returned to his office and began searching for that browser on his computer.

Explorer, Bruce typed this name into the shared site.

This BBS was very famous; many pieces of software, when first released, chose here as the downloading point.

With the press of the Enter key, soon lines of information appeared, densely filling the entire screen.

It was clear that the software was popular, and Bruce saw lots of discussion threads.

He didn’t pay attention to those comments but clicked on the download directly.

The software here was free, and downloading was very straightforward, just move the mouse.

This was why Bruce liked to use the Windows system; graphical operations were much simpler than Unix commands.

After all, he wasn’t a computer professional; he was just an ordinary person who knew how to use a computer simply.

Soon the software was downloaded, and Bruce immediately proceeded to install it.

Following the double-click of the mouse, the subsequent steps were guided by windows.

Bruce only remembered clicking confirm three or four times, and then everything was set up.

An icon similar to the letter "e" appeared on the desktop, and the software opened automatically.

"Wow~" Bruce curiously looked at the browser window; it looked very neat.

That was Bruce’s first impression; all the toolbar icons were arranged tidily.

With just a glance, Bruce could guess what they meant.

For instance, a magnifying glass followed by a "+", would mean to zoom in on the page.

"-" of course would be to zoom out, and icons like little bookmarks would probably represent favorites or reading position markers.

It was straightforward, clear at a glance.

However, the UI window only briefly caught Bruce’s attention, as his gaze was quickly captured by the home page that the browser brought up.

Price’s List? News section, Lifestyle section, Real Estate, Flea Market...

The dazzling array of icons and titles overwhelmed Bruce; he had never seen such a "colorful" website.

Yes, colorful.

The website not only had a variety of colors but also paired with various icon logos.

A house represented real estate, a shopping cart represented the second-hand market, a briefcase for hiring, and an exquisite female figure represented...

Wait! This icon is interesting.

Bruce looked around, most of his colleagues were not there.

With a cough, Bruce quietly clicked on that exquisite icon.

"Outstanding home services within the New York area, special requests accepted."

A simple sentence followed by a photo of someone in revealing attire.

Hiss~ Bruce was shocked!

He had never seen a website like this, these girls, this service advertisement...

This... isn’t this just an online version of "Seekers of Pleasure"?~

Bruce picked up his cup and took a sip of coffee, only then slightly alleviating the dryness in his mouth.

He glanced around the office once more to make sure the few people present were at a considerable distance before he resumed surfing the net.

What a great website! Bruce marveled at the progress of technology.

It wasn’t until the phone rang on the desk next to him that Bruce, engrossed in Price’s List, snapped back to reality.

He lifted his wrist to check the time, damn it! It’s almost time to leave work!

An hour and more had gone by, what was he supposed to be doing again?

Oh right, looking up legal information.

He subconsciously wanted to click the close button in the top right corner, but at the last second, Bruce stopped himself.

He saw "Log In" and "Register," two big blue words.

Why not register an account, so he could easily check the news or browse the flea market later?

Yeah, that’s right, Bruce was deeply impressed by these two sections of Price’s List, although he had never clicked on them.

After another look at the delicate curves, Bruce reluctantly typed in the legal website he often visited.

The visit went smoothly, the website had added many new features compared to before.

But Bruce felt rather bored; all the charms of the internet were on Price’s List.

...

Mountain View, 128 Farley Street.

A red facade with off-white railings, this was a modest three-story building.

At the edge of the rooftop of the top floor, a green billboard with "Netscape" printed on it hung.

Yes, this was the current office location of Netscape.

But don’t get it wrong, Clark didn’t rent the entire building; Netscape only occupied one office within it.

Standing on the street below and looking up, if it weren’t for the billboard on the roof, passersby might not even find the company.

Tsk, it’s downright shabby.

This was Dean’s first impression of Netscape, Clark was just too stingy.

Seemingly noticing his gaze, Clark defended himself with pride.

"We currently have no possibility of making a profit, so Netscape must save costs wherever possible."

Not bringing in a cent for a whole year? Clark, temporarily in charge of Netscape’s affairs, counted every penny.

When the two reached the third-floor office, a space nearing 100 square meters had been partitioned to create two separate offices.

These were the private workspaces for Clark and Teresa, with everyone else in the common office area outside.

When Dean walked in, most of the ten or so employees were busy at their desks.

But what was odd was someone holding a hammer, banging away at an office desk lying on the floor.

"What is he doing?" Dean couldn’t make heads or tails of it.

This is Netscape, right? Shouldn’t the employees be wrestling with computers? But why hammers and desks?

Clark introduced with a hint of pride, "He’s assembling his own desk, it’s the one thing every new Netscape member has to do when they join."

Dean blinked, almost visibly confused with the question, "Why?"

"Cough, it’s a good exercise of their hands-on skills.

Of course, assembling their own desks also saves on the installation fee."

"My god, you really caught me by surprise." Dean was astonished by Clark’s penny-pinching.

"Every time I think about Netscape not making a dime for a whole year, I get restless." Clark said, gravely.

This was his second startup, and he absolutely didn’t want to seek venture capital unless absolutely necessary.

His experience with Silicon Graphics had made him extremely wary of venture capitalists.

Dean wanted to say he had money, but after thinking it over, he held back that comment.

"Our browser has been released for a week, how are things looking?"

This was the main reason for Dean’s visit to Netscape today; he was just as invested in the business.

"Come with me." Clark led Dean to Teresa’s office with pride.

"Teresa, how many downloads did the Explorer browser have yesterday?"

Upon entering, Clark cut straight to the chase.

"It’s up again, just yesterday on several major BBS sites, our Explorer was downloaded over 1300 times!"

Reporting the good news with a beaming smile, Teresa then noticed Dean entering the room.

"Boss~" She quickly stood up.

"Great work, Teresa, I just heard the good news."

Over 1300 downloads yesterday? That’s a pretty good score.

"Haha, Dean, do you know how many downloads Explorer had on its third day of release?"

Clark was animated, he had been following Explorer’s performance since day one.

"How many?" Dean curiously asked.

"500 times! On the third day of its release, my Explorer got over 500 downloads in 24 hours.

It’s been increasing every day since then, and the rate is getting faster! I have a premonition, Dean."

Clark’s face was flush with excitement.

"The growth of Explorer is absolutely exponential, it hardly has any competition on the internet!"

Network effect? Dean also brightened up at the thought.

"Actually, we can’t say it has no competition." It was then Teresa cautiously reminded from the sidelines.

"Hmm?" Both Clark and Dean turned their attention toward her.

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