The other day, I posted something about stumbling across an old Online-News e-mail discussion list archive.

Proud Papa Steve Outing linked to the post.

Scott Anderson saw that link and spent some time digging through the archive and found an e-mail by Joe Shea listing the top news sites of 1995, the results of a survey by Wired.

There are some big media names on that list, and a few smaller papers that were ahead of the curve and doing great work, such as the Raleigh News and Observer (NandO), the Casper Star Tribune, Akron Beacon Journal, Saskatoon StarPhoenix, etc.

I don’t remember the list at all. I was a subscriber to Online-News at the time, but I must have missed the post, because this is one post I think I would have remembered.

Here’s the bottom of the list:

60. Tampa Tribune (Tampa)
61. London Free Press (London
62. MIT The Tech
63. Digital Missourian
64. OC Register
65. Orlando Sentinel America Online
66. East County Online(San Diego)
67. Evansville Courier (Evansville)
68. Newsday Direct Prodigy
69. Capital Gazette (Annapolis)
70. On Wisconsin Milwaukee Journal Prodigy  

Holy crap! East County Online, the site I started on a shoe string (thanks to Ron James) and a beginner’s HTML book was, in 1995, among the Top 70 most popular news and information sites according to Wired.

I had no idea. Or I had forgotten.

Of course, Jeff Perlman had to rain on our parade … but good ol’ Joe Shea rides to the rescue … (and the exchange demonstrates, somewhat, what the list culture was like back in the day, and maybe why I didn’t follow this thread (and read this one, too).

I still think it’s amazing that ECO made the list.

Also,
due credit to Steve Saint, who owned Forum Publications at the time and provided ECO with most of its content.