Entrepreneur and innovator Robert Hoffer has been working behind the scenes with some of the best-known Internet companies for more than 20 years – from online yellow pages

Yellow Pages

Yellow Pages refers to a telephone directory of businesses, organized by category, rather than alphabetically by business name and in which advertising is sold. As the name suggests, such directories were originally printed on yellow paper, as opposed to white pages for non-commercial listings...

, to instant messaging

Instant messaging

Instant Messaging is a form of real-time direct text-based chatting communication in push mode between two or more people using personal computers or other devices, along with shared clients. The user's text is conveyed over a network, such as the Internet...

, to web-based scratch-off games

Online scratch card

Online scratch cards are the on-line version of the lottery scratch cards that are usually purchased at stands. Online scratch cards are played by clicking on designated areas to reveal information used to determine the card’s prize value...

. He has worked with, consulted at, and created technologies for such global companies as Apple Computer

Apple Computer

Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad...

, AOL

AOL

AOL Inc. is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York. Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services...

, Xerox

Xerox

Xerox Corporation is an American multinational document management corporation that produced and sells a range of color and black-and-white printers, multifunction systems, photo copiers, digital production printing presses, and related consulting services and supplies...

, PepsiCo

PepsiCo

PepsiCo Inc. is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Purchase, New York, United States, with interests in the manufacturing, marketing and distribution of grain-based snack foods, beverages, and other products. PepsiCo was formed in 1965 with the merger of the Pepsi-Cola Company...

, Playboy

Playboy

Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...

, Citibank

Citibank

Citibank, a major international bank, is the consumer banking arm of financial services giant Citigroup. Citibank was founded in 1812 as the City Bank of New York, later First National City Bank of New York...

, and Lipton

Lipton

Lipton is a brand of tea currently owned by Unilever.-History of Lipton Tea:Lipton was created at the end of the 19th century by a grocer, Sir Thomas Lipton, in Glasgow, Scotland. In 1893, he established the Thomas J. Lipton Co., a tea packing company with its headquarters and factory in Hobo ken,...

.

Inventions

His work has included executive positions in marketing, operations, finance, and business development, but Hoffer's focus seems to be on innovation. He is known for his sometimes controversial opinion that "everything old is new again" - that is, most of today's inventions are simply repackaged versions of old ideas. This may be the driving force behind his work as co-founder of several Internet companies including: Infospace Corp., an Internet directory services provider; Query Labs, offering third-party directory services to newspapers and media firms; and Typo.net, which launched the hotly debated concept of interstitial advertising

Interstitial webpage

On the World Wide Web, interstitials are web pages displayed before or after an expected content page, often to display advertisements or confirm the user's age. Most interstitial advertisements are delivered by an Ad server....

. His vision is often credited with bringing products to market that today are used by millions of people, and have been purchased by companies like Yahoo, Microsoft

Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

, and others for millions of dollars. For example, in 1995, Hoffer was instrumental in bringing the first web-based national Yellow and White pages online, which were later licensed and co-branded with Yahoo, Nynex

NYNEX

NYNEX Corporation was a telephone company that served five New England states as well as most of New York state, except the Rochester area, from 1984 through 1997....

, American Express

American Express

American Express Company or AmEx, is an American multinational financial services corporation headquartered in Three World Financial Center, Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States. Founded in 1850, it is one of the 30 components of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is best...

, Excite@Home, Lycos

Lycos

Lycos, Inc. is a search engine and web portal established in 1994. Lycos also encompasses a network of email, webhosting, social networking, and entertainment websites.-Corporate history:...

, and others.

Patents

As the co-founder of Colloquis

Colloquis

Colloquis, previously known as ActiveBuddy and Conversagent, was a company that created conversation-based interactive agents originally distributed via instant messaging platforms. The company had offices in New York, NY and Sunnyvale, CA....

 in 2000, Hoffer created the first commercially viable online robot for instant messaging, securing a controversial patent for the technology. In 2006, Microsoft purchased ActiveBuddy (now Colloquis) for $46 million.