![[Small logo of Thornwood girl]](http://chotank.com/girtouc.gif)
This page has history of web start-up in Cambridge, England
"It was just the sort of thing you'd expect, Chotank's Web History Starting as a British
Broadcasting Corporation Networking Club site, The original internet address was www.worldserver.pipex.co.uk/nc/CHOTANKERS/index.html.
After months of planning stretching back into 1993 and several delays announced month-to-month, the BBC Networking Club offered one of the first UK internet-connection services. According to London newspaper archives, the Club launched internet services to the public on 1 August 1994, four months after publishing its first worldwide web pages for "The Net". The Independent reported: The club has been modelled on other BBC groups, such as the Gardening Club, and has been launched with funding from BBC Education, with the personal backing of controller Michael Jackson.
It was supposed to go live earlier this year to coincide with a BBC series called "The Net", but was delayed due to internal technical reasons unconnected with Unipalm [Pipex]. A revised launch of 20 June was also missed but the club will officially open for business tomorrow. For 12 GBP per month plus VAT, computer owners with modems will be able to log on to the BBC's computer bulletin board -- christened "Auntie" -- to exchange news and views on BBC programmes with other members and with programme-makers . . . The idea is to further encourage viewer and listener participation in programme design -- a key plank of recent BBC policy.
Avon Edward Foote, former editor of the Educational Broadcasting Review for the National Association of Educational Broadcasters, became one of the first international associate members of the BBC Networking Club in November 1994. Foote, a professor with the UNA program at the University of London in 1990 and 1991, had been at BBC Television Centre both years and recognized the advantages of official BBC interactive, digital support. During the 1991 trip, BBC staffers staged a lavish welcoming tea and discussion following a Television Centre tour for a large UNA group including students, University President Robert Potts, Professor Foote, and Professor Gerald Crawford of the UNA College of Business. David Ogle, Head of Cameras and Lighting, British Broadcasting Corporation, took personal responsibility for the UNA tour, graciously rolling out the red carpet complete with afternoon tea and biscuits. Foote, before leaving Alabama, had made the 13 August 1991 arrangements with John Barlow, Head of the BBC Film Unit at Ealing Green. The oldest film studios in the world, Ealing Studios is best remembered for Michael Balcon's productions that preceded BBC's purchase of the studios from Balcon in 1956. During the first three decades of BBC television, memorable shows were created on film at Ealing Green. But, digital convergence, already changing BBC radio in early 1990s, made film seem less and less the best technological solution to solve production challenges in the approaching new century. As it prepared to bring new media into the radio/television mix by adding an international Networking Club, the BBC sold the film studios in March 1992.
Another recollection from a key engineer from among BBC technical support, the so-called "far-sighted researcher", tells about his first step to reserve the URL designation: I registered bbc.co.uk with NRS, the UK academic naming body, in Oct 91. At that time we were TOLD by NRS that we should be registered in the UK (that was all they were prepared to let us do) and to prove I really represented the BBC and wasn't trying to spoof the domain . . . the application form had [to] be signed by a director of the company. In this case I had the form signed by Mr C. Dennay, Director of Engineering at the time. I still have a copy of that. [Dr. Bill Dennay was BBC's Director of Engineering until 1993 when the Department was abolished at the BBC.]
On 18 December 2007 the BBC outed, after sitting on the staff member's identity, the name of the far-sighted researcher that Chotank.com described in this account as "a key engineer". One of the new BBC Internet Blog writers announced on that day his own contributions to Internet's history that included reserving the main domain name for the BBC in 1991. He is: Brandon Butterworth "a Principal Technologist in the BBC's research and development team" at Kingswood-Warren. Dr. Foote thanks Martin Ellen,
Foote also expresses appreciation to Dr. Tilly Blyth, Curator of Computing and Information, Science Museum, London, for asking him in 2005 to help in search for archived documentation on BBC Networking Club start-up in 1994. The
largest and best-connected server in Europe when CHOTANK was founded, the WorldServer became a part of MCI-WorldCom, the famous Mississippi company that began in Hattiesburg. Worldcom's first customer was the University of Southern Mississippi in 1983. Twenty years later, the WorldCom headquarters moved from Mississippi to Virginia after the company announced it would be changing its name to MCI, the Washington-based long-distance phone company acquired several years earlier by WorldCom. Frank Kyle Spain of Tupelo (who married Holly, Dick Biddle's daughter, sister of Rick) originally owned MCI Mid-South and was in a partnership on MCI Southeast. But, WorldCom growth mired after financial and legal violations were revealed; the company wanted to shed its Mississippi identity and associations with founder/CEO Bernie Ebbers, who was found guilty 15 March 2005 of management fraud in his New York trial and sentenced 15 July to 25 years in prison. Ironically, by changing the WorldCom name to MCI the new managers with backing of US Courts reconfirmed, rather than buried, WorldCom's Mississippi history.
Two days before Christmas, 1995, Avon Edward Foote launched a mirror site in the USA of the BBC Networking Club's Chotankers pages from Cambridge, England. About the same time, Washington's UUNET, an important internet backbone business established by Department of Defense (DoD) employees and other employees from DOD's Washington-area contractors, acquired Pipex, which owned and operated the WorldServer. Later, to gain control over the worldwide internet distribution system, WorldCom from its Clinton, Mississippi, headquarters purchased UUNET. The mirror version of Chotankers from Chotank.com, that is the source of this history page, still resides on servers of the world's first internet-hosting company, WebCom, Santa Cruz, California. WebCom has been owned since 1999 by NTT-Verio, Dallas. NTT is a Japanese company.
Starting September 2002 and for over five years until 4 July 2008, CHOTANK has been Google,Yahoo, and MSN top choice for "Gulf War News" On 2 October 2006 The Times Daily, Shoals newspaper owned and operated by The New York Times, published an AP
story on the millennial generation. The Gulf War of 1991 was described as one of two major events shaping the "formative years" of the baby-boomers' children. The Gulf War Video Collection, University of Maryland, is highlighted in special Chotank pages. Jump to www.chotank.com for links to Collection pages.
Ealing Studios is back in 2007 Hollywood news for production work on The Queen, that is receiving Golden Globe and Academy Award honors. Foote visited the Studio in May 2006 to make photos of old sound-stages exteriors and extensive new construction. And, he was given a complete tour of the new Ealing Media Institute adjacent to Ealing Studio at Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College. The BBC cooperated in design decisions for the new 11.5 million GBP College building, insuring that the Institute has outstanding, state-of-the-art digital film and video facilities. The Chotank home page has more ranking/ratings history.
CHOTANK topic pages are independently produced by Avon Edward
Foote and are for design/writing technique development and practice. The producer/web developer is a professor of "MultiMedia and Internet Authoring" and Radio-TV-Film/Broadcast Journalism at the University of North Alabama, Huntsville-Decatur-Florence DMA, as historically defined by the television ratings services. CHOTANK was never intended to represent official policy of the BBC or the University of
North Alabama. Foote attributes his understanding of the internet and other future media to Richard B. (Dick) Biddle, who with canty foresight, mapped the changes to be faced by analogue media in a 1983 talk to Foote's college students at North Alabama. Read when JAVA coding was new, and Chotank.com was new, TOO!
|
![[BBCNC]](/bbcncaef.gif)
CHOTANK opened its very first web home on the PIPEX WorldServer in Cambridge, England in November, 1995. Google discussion group archives for Usenet show announcement postings by Avon Edward Foote using his BBC, London email to rec.art.disney groups for 19 November and 27 November 1995. Enforcing an anti-posting edict by installing a system censorship filter, the University of North Alabama computer administrators absolutely prohibited postings by faculty and students from the unaalpha.una.edu email server in the beginning. Foote resorted to BBC email support through third-party servers to publicize his Disney's America web pages. Planning for the CHOTANK web site had commenced on 13 April 1995, when the BBC announced it would add Networking Club member webpages. The planning significantly preceded NBC's announcement in August 1995 of the first full-scale, TV network site in US. And, CHOTANK could have launched even sooner, if the BBC had not, at first, denied site support to international associate members living outside the UK. But, after several e-mail exchanges, the BBC changed policy in October 1995 and awarded space on the WorldServer to CHOTANK the following month after UNA web developer Avon Edward Foote renewed his BBC Networking Club membership.
retired BBC employee, for his help. Ellen wrote to Avon Edward Foote -- on 30 July 2007 -- about the closure of the 
!["Disney [in Virginia]",
"Jesse Owens" &
"Go Home" will
take you there](/smthdis.gif)
Reviewed . Revised . Refreshed 29 August 2008 Our 13th Year
