Viaweb was a web-based application

Web application

A web application is an application that is accessed over a network such as the Internet or an intranet. The term may also mean a computer software application that is coded in a browser-supported language and reliant on a common web browser to render the application executable.Web applications are...

 that allowed users to build and host their own online stores with little effort and technical expertise, directly from their own web browser

Web browser

A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...

. The eponymous company was started in July 1995 by Paul Graham, Robert Morris

Robert Tappan Morris

Robert Tappan Morris, , is an American computer scientist, best known for creating the Morris Worm in 1988, considered the first computer worm on the Internet - and subsequently becoming the first person convicted under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.He went on to co-found the online store...

, and Trevor Blackwell

Trevor Blackwell

Trevor Blackwell is a computer programmer, engineer and entrepreneur based in Silicon Valley.Blackwell is a developer of humanoid robots. He is also the inventor of the Eunicycle, essentially a one-wheeled Segway. Dr. Blackwell is the founder and CEO of Anybots and a partner at Y Combinator.- Life...

. Graham claims that Viaweb was the first application service provider

Application service provider

An application service provider is a business that provides computer-based services to customers over a network. Software offered using an ASP model is also sometimes called On-demand software or software as a service ....

. Viaweb was also unusual for being partially written in the Lisp programming language

Lisp programming language

Lisp is a family of computer programming languages with a long history and a distinctive, fully parenthesized syntax. Originally specified in 1958, Lisp is the second-oldest high-level programming language in widespread use today; only Fortran is older...

.

The software was originally called Webgen; another company was using the same name so the company renamed it to Viaweb, "because it worked via the Web

World Wide Web

The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...

".

In 1998, Yahoo!

Yahoo!

Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine , Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping ,...

 Inc. bought Viaweb for 455,000 shares of Yahoo! stock

Stock

The capital stock of a business entity represents the original capital paid into or invested in the business by its founders. It serves as a security for the creditors of a business since it cannot be withdrawn to the detriment of the creditors...

, valued at about $49 million, and renamed it Yahoo! Store.

Viaweb's example has been influential in Silicon Valley's entrepreneurial culture, largely due to Graham's widely-read essays, and his subsequent career as a successful venture capitalist.

External links

• Archive.org Pre-Yahoo screenshots, via Archive.org
• http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/ecommerce/ Yahoo! Stores