Applied Videotex Systems/Boston CitiNet
Started in 1983, AVS was a pioneering developer of local online services supported by both advertising and user fees.
The IBM PC had been introduced in the summer of 1981, by 1983 there were many IBM and compatible PC's, Commodore was the force in home computers, Apple had shipped 1 million computers and Hayes began shipping a 2400 baud modem. Yellowdata ("let your computer to the walking") was started in 1982 as a supercharged BBS and grew to be the first example of a free, advertisier-supported information service that also provided fee-based membership services (very similar to today's Yahoo portal model). Most services available at the time were either hobbyist BBS boards or we subscription-only services like CompuServe, Delphi, GEnie and The Source. May of these services were delivered over the Tymnet & Telenet dial-up networks.
In late 1982, Yellowdata was running as a skunk works project out of the offices of Considine Computing Services (CCS), in an old A&P store in Waverly Square in Belmont, MA. Tom Considine and his consultants were programmers extrordinairre and a leading DEC systems integrator. Tom wrote the book on Datatrieve and DEC flew him around the world to teach classes. Yellow, as it was fondly called, was built on a PDP 11/73 running RSTS. Richard Koch, the other original Yellowdata partner, was an ex-Boston school teacher who had built a successful consulting business helping businesses deploy and manage PCs, networks and applications.
The original plan was to run a free service for modem equipped PC users in the Boston area, build a large user base through partnerships with groups like the Boston Computer Society and the Boston Convention & Visitor's Bureau, to sell mailboxes and access to chat as premium services ($9.95/year) and to convince The Boston Globe or New England Telephone to buy acquire the business. 
Myron Kassaraba joined with Koch and Considine in 1983 to form Applied Videotex Systems, Inc. that set out to pursue a more ambitious commercial vision of selling/franchising the Yellow services platform to local media companies throughout the US. The name of the flagship service was changed to Boston CitiNet.
Myron Kassaraba joined with Koch and Considine in 1983 to form Applied Videotex Systems, Inc. that set out to pursue a more ambitious commercial vision of selling/franchising the Yellow services platform to local media companies throughout the US. The name of the flagship service was changed to Boston CitiNet.Though CitiNet was called a videotex service (that was the trendy buzzword back then) the service supported 300/1200/2400 baud modem users and a straight ASCII text interface. The basic features of the service are listed on the menu below. While Tom and CCS
focused on running their SI business (Reebok was an early large customer), Richard and Myron set about to build the content and get sponsors for Yellowdata/CitiNet. Some of the early supporters were several local employment agencies, auto leasing agencies, magazine publishers such as Byte Magazine and a large movie theater chain (Sack Theaters). The first major partnership that resulted in a substantial growth in traffic and members was to be the "official online service for the Boston Computer Society". In addition to the forums and chat services, many BCS members paid $9.95.yr. for a mailbox. By the spring of 1985, Boston CitiNet had over 5,000 registered users and a growing base of advertisers. AVS started to attract a lot of interest and attention from newspaper publishers and telcos throughout the country. Folks like Knight Ridder had invested millions in services like Viewtron which never got off the ground and they were extremely fearful of the Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOC) which were formed by the breakup of AT&T. At the same time, the RBOCs were thinking that their new found freedom was going to allow them to get involved in the information services business (later to be curbed by Judge Green and his interpretation of the MFJ) and were spending money on pilot projects and research.
With projects from both New England Telephone and Pacific Bell providing some cash flow, efforts were ramped up to franchise the regional online service platform under the CitiNet brand to local operators. AVS would supply the systems and software as well as a standard package of content and the local franchisee would sell the advertising and manage the service. John Pollock, a seasoned cable industry exec. joined the team to head up franchise development.
AVS not only pioneered advertiser supported online services, it developed one of the first integrated
multi-channel interactive services offerings called SkiData. A relationship was established with the New England Ski Areas Council (NESAC) where they sent AVS's servers the same ski conditions data feed they sent to the newspapers and other media outlets. This feed was reformatted and made available on CitiNet. AVS had been experimenting with DECTalk and talking to some local videodisk kiosk producers (Fred Raab). SkiMarket, a leading Boston ski retailer and Michelob signed up to co-sponsor SkiData - which included the online ski report on Boston CitiNet, a 24-hour ski phone (which was driven from the NESAC data to a DECTalk machine) and an in-store kiosk which not only would provide up to date conditions, but would also provide multimedia content from the areas and ski manufacturers! An expanded sponsorship program was put together for the ski resorts to get premier listings and major ski manufacturers were also approached. The service was a success and was even covered by BusinessWeek (see below).
By the end of 1985, the Boston CitiNet service was continuing to draw users at a pace of 80 new users per day with over 20,000 registered users. CitiNet became a hotbed of innovation as entrepreneurs who had an idea to do things online all wanted to partner with AVS. AVS made the investment to intgrate these applications as they added value to the overall platform offering and the revenue potential for AVS and its franchisees. One group called Tradecard International was a barter exchange and a major effort was put into building a service called RealNet for online real estate listings and and online grocery service was also developed but never rolled-out. In 1986, AVS sold franchises to local operators in Houston, TX and Kansas City. Boston CitiNet's user based peaked at over 40,000. AVS changed its name to American CitiNet and in 1988 and 1989 participated in several RBOC gateway projects including NYNEX's InfoLook. In the end, Judge Greene's MFJ (modified final judgement) ruling in 1987 restricted the RBOCs entry into information services enough that the traditional media folks pulled the plug on their online initiatives and went back to publishing newspapers and the local online services market went into dormancy for the next decade. Service providers such as America Online, AppleLink, CompuServe and Prodigy became the leaders in services that were targeted at a national/international user-base.