After my comments about old content networks in my previous post about online identity, I had to share this gem about CompuServe attempting to trademark the word “EMail” in 1983. (From Modern Mechanix) Imagine if they had succeeded!
Last Night We Exchanged Letters With Mom, Then Had A Party For Eleven People In Nine Different States And Only Had To Wash One Glass…
That’s CompuServe, The Personal Communications Network For Every Computer Owner
And it doesn’t matter what kind of computer you own. You’ll use CompuServe’s Electronic Mail system (we call it Email™) to compose, edit and send letters to friends or business associates. The system delivers any number of messages to other users anywhere in North America.
A salient point from the CompuServe Wikipedia entry:
As the World Wide Web grew in popularity with the general public, company after company closed their once-busy CompuServe customer support forums to offer customer support to a larger audience directly through company websites…
That’s pretty hilarious. For a while there were arguments over whether it was a word or not, and then now to spell it. (I’ll be happy when my spellchecker recognizes the word “blog’).
Speaking of funny trademark attempts, I also heard that someone recently tried to trademark the term “SEO”