PhotoDude.com

Tue. May 07, 2002

The Last Guard Retires

The Last Guard Retires: A Digital Remembrance – Once Upon a Time, in a land now far away (pre-merger NetLand) there existed an entity called Mindspring. Some called it a business, an Internet Service Provider, but to many, it became much more than that. Upon the ”merger” with Earthlink, it became much less. And now, "the last prominent link between the MindSpring days, which date to 1994, and EarthLink" is gone.

I signed up with them in early 1996, and for $35 a month, I got access to the internet limited only by my then blazing 28.8 modem speed, 5 MB of web space, software including Netscape 1.2, etc., the standard stuff for the era. But you also bought into a community. Internal newsgroups were populated by the most entertaining (and intimidating) mix of smart people I’d encountered in such numbers. And many of them were Mindspring employees.

It was a company that cared, that operated with Core Values, spelled out on their web site (and now long gone … in many ways). It was spelled out in everything they did, intentionally, and also in things never intended. I once called tech support with some problem, and after dealing with it professionally, the tech thanked me for putting my Olympics site on the web, as he’d been stuck at work and it was his way of seeing the Games. I was stunned into silence. Today, if something like that happened, I’d be certain it was part of some elaborate practical joke. In terms of fanatical client devotion, they were the Mac of ISP’s.

Charles Brewer started the company, at first running the servers out of his home, and the tech support number was the beeper of a guy named Robert Sanders. As long as you didn’t call during the Simpsons, Robert would respond 24/7. When Robert left the company years later, he was Chief Technical Officer of a company with 4 million customers.

Charles also hired a Chief Operating Officer, Mike McQuary, who used to joke that as C.O.O., he was one letter shy of cool. A standard quote from him in that era: ”As for company rules and policies, we have the Core Values and Belief’s, and our dress code – it’s good to be dressed. We also have one dress code recommendation – if you are going to be in a meeting with folks wearing suits, it’s recommended that you wear some form of footwear.”

Even as they grew to a customer base of over two million, Mindspring stuck to their roots, the things that had made them successful. In the internal newsgroup, we now spoiled customers held them to their high standards, calling them on their slips. And they responded. Mike McQuary was an occasional contributor, throwing down with the best of them (often in a self depracating tongue in cheek manner). They argued their case, and they listened to ours. They clearly shaped some of their direction on the give and take in those groups. And after years of red ink, they even moved into the black, the first sizable ISP to do so.

Then they blew it, Big Time. A ”merger” with Earthlink turned out to be anything but, and by August 2000, Brewer had resigned. As it was well said in what remained of the internal newsgroups (now a digital echo chamber), ”Make no mistake, Earthlink may have swallowed Mindspring, but apparently the best parts were sh*t out immediately.”

But Mike McQuary hung on, now as President of Earthlink. He gave a sliver of hope to those of us who remained, that maybe there was a small but importantly placed piece of Mindspring left. Now, he’s resigned as well.

"A close associate of MindSpring founder Charles M. Brewer, McQuary is the last prominent link between the MindSpring days, which date to 1994, and EarthLink, which moved its headquarters from California to Atlanta after the merger. Brewer briefly served as EarthLink chairman before leaving in 2000.

Brewer and close lieutenants like McQuary built MindSpring’s reputation through a commitment to customer service [...] MindSpring got the highest scores for satisfaction among 13 companies ranked by PC Magazine in 1997. The bond was so strong with customers that many of them, out of loyalty, still retain their MindSpring e-mail addresses within the EarthLink system…"

Indeed. I still use mine. In fact, it is somewhat the origin of this domain name. When I signed up in 1996, you had to give two options for your e-mail address (in case the first one was taken), and you were limited to eight characters. So, reidstott@mindspring.com was not an option. With only 19,000 Mindspring customers at that time, I was certain reid@mindspring.com would be available, so I didn’t put much thought into my second choice, and of course, that’s what I ended up with: grstott@mindspring.com. Hated it. So I requested they change it, and I had to come up with a eight letter pseudonym: fotodude. Later came the correctly spelled domain.

So much of my digital infancy was influenced by Mindspring. It was there that I first encountered the concept of an online community. In addition to the general discussion newsgroup, there were places you could get expert help on web authoring … at least it was expert to the rookie I was in early ’96. It was through these experiences that I learned, ”it’s all out there.” Every answer you might seek. The joke about Usenet is that if you want to know the correct answer to a question, pick the approriate newsgroup and post the wrong answer. In no time, multiple experts will appear to correct you, with facts and links to back it up.

I learned you could educate yourself, finding the answers documented by those more knowledgable, and if I couldn’t find it, I was part of a community where someone would know where to look. Usenet has decayed in many many ways since then, but for me, the community aspect of the Internet is still there. It’s even enlarged, but it has also evolved, just as the mediums for publishing on the Internet have evolved.

But I still note this passing with sadness, as we all wish for our roots to remain unchanged. In reality, the passing of Mindspring as a consumer choice came long ago, but this is like having the headstone delivered and placed on the grave.

Anyway, Mike isn’t dead, but he will be missed, and now I see where his time will be spent: "He said he will be concentrating on two things in the immediate future: his young family, including his 6-month-old triplets, and a new restaurant, the Madison Grill, at 17th and Peachtree streets—on the ground floor of the newly renovated EarthLink headquarters."

6 month old triplets! That’s no retirement. But at least he’ll be able to harass his former employees at the restaurant, fully stocked, I’m sure, with Mountain Dew and Jolt cola.

Best of luck to you, Mr. McQuary. I just hope you completed the brainwashing process before you left, but I have my doubts if it will take.