Technology Blog

Back in the mid-80s, the idea of transferring funds, checking your email, buying stocks and booking a trip online was all a faraway dream. But if you happened to be in France at the time, you might've already been wired up and doing these things for years -- thanks to the state-subsidized Minitels that were in each and every household. The country was far more interconnected than any other and proud of the text-only terminals, even though government-owned France Telecom monopolized access and you had to be newspaper company to supply any content. It took off anyway, and soon faux-newspaper companies sprung up everywhere for the not-so-secret purpose of delivering paid Minitel services. They supplied information, financial access, ticketing, online shopping, and even some naughty text-based services (sacré bleu!). At its apogee in 1998, the system generated over a billion dollars a year in revenue, and accounted for nearly 15% of the annual income for online retailers 3 Suisses and La Redoute, to name