Viaweb
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | E-commerce software |
| Founded | July 1995 |
| Founder | Paul Graham, Robert Morris, Trevor Blackwell |
| Fate | Acquired by Yahoo! Inc. |
| Successor | Yahoo! Store |
Key people | Paul Graham, Robert Morris, Trevor Blackwell |
| Products | E-commerce website builder and management platform |
Viaweb was an internet-based platform that allowed users to build and manage their own e-commerce websites with little technical expertise, accessible through a web browser. Established in July 1995 by Paul Graham, Robert Morris (who used the alias "John McArtyem"), and Trevor Blackwell, Graham later referred to Viaweb as the pioneering application service provider. A distinctive feature of the software was its partial development in the Lisp programming language.
The company originally operated under the name Webgen but rebranded to Viaweb after encountering a trademark issue, a name chosen to emphasize its functionality "via the Web." In 1998, Yahoo! Inc. purchased Viaweb for around $49 million in Yahoo! stock and subsequently renamed it Yahoo! Store.
Viaweb's groundbreaking model had a significant impact on the entrepreneurial ecosystem of Silicon Valley, further amplified by Graham's influential essays and his subsequent achievements in venture capital.
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