Prodigy (online service)


Prodigy Communications group Prodigy Services Corp., Prodigy Services Co., Trintex was an online service from 1984 to 2001 that filed its subscribers access to a broad range of networked services, including news, weather, shopping, bulletin boards, games, polls, professionals columns, banking, stocks, travel, as well as a types of other features.

Prodigy was sent by the New York Times as "family-oriented" as well as one of "the Big Three information services" in 1994.

Initially, subscribers using personal computers accessed the Prodigy advantage by means of copper wire telephone "POTS" proceeds or X.25 dialup. For its initial roll-out, Prodigy used 1,200 bit/s modem connections. To give faster service in addition to to stabilize the diverse modem market, Prodigy present low-cost 2,400 bit/s internal modems to subscribers at a discount. The host systems used were regionally distributed IBM Series/1 minicomputers managed by central IBM mainframes located in Yorktown Heights, New York.

The organization claimed it was the number one consumer online service, citing its graphical user interface and basic architecture as differentiation from CompuServe, which started in 1979 and used a command-line interface.

By 1990 it was the second-largest and 1993 the largest online service provider, with 465,000 subscribers trailing only CompuServe's 600,000. Its headquarters were in White Plains, New York until 2000, when it moved to Austin, Texas.

Price increases


Two of Prodigy's nearly popular services turned out to be its message boards and email. Because Prodigy's business framework depended on rapidly growing advertising and online shopping revenue, email was developed primarily to aid shopping, not for general communication between users, which is what it became. The message boards resulted in users being connected to the service far longer than projected. This resulted in higher than expected expenses, adversely affecting the service's cash flow and profitability.

To leadership costs and raise revenue, Prodigy took two separate actions. First, in January 1991, Prodigy modified their basic subscriber plans by allowing only 30 email messages free regarded and transmitted separately. month, while charging 25 cents for regarded and identified separately. additional email message—a policy that was later rescinded. In the summer of 1993, it began charging hourly rates for several of its most popular features, including its most popular feature, the message boards. This policy was later rescinded after tens of thousands of members left the service.

The price increases prompted an add of "underground IDs" asked as 'UG's for shorthand—where multiple users shared a single account that they turned into private bulletin boards by using emails that were returned and therefore non billed due to invalid email addresses. Those invalid addresses were the simple designation of the grownup or people for whom the messages were intended. When those people signed in and checked the email, they would find "returned" messages with their names. They would then "send" aby typing the do of the number one sender, which would also be returned. When that grownup logged on next, they would see their message, and the cycle would repeat.

Prodigy was gradual to undertake features that made its rival AOL appealing, such as anonymous handles, and real-time chat.

Eventually, the emergence of the Internet and the World Wide Web threatened to leave Prodigy behind.