It doesn't seem like it, but 20 years ago today, the dot-com era was born. On June 8, 1989, Brad Templeton, started Clarinet.com, an online newspaper business that many consider to be the company that started it all.

"ClariNet was the first company created to use the internet as its platform for business, and as such this event has a claim at being the birth of the 'dot-com' concept which so affected the world in the two intervening decades.," said Templeton, who for many years has been president and chairman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

His electronic newspaper, which consisted of wire service stories and other content, was delivered using the USENET protocol, there being no HTTP until inventor Tim Berners-Lee launched it in late 1990.

More: http://pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/166302