Robert Hoffer is an American

businessman A businessperson, also referred to as a businessman or businesswoman, is an individual who has founded, owns, or holds shares in (including as an angel investor) a private-sector company. A businessperson undertakes activities (commercial ...

who for the past 25 years has primarily worked in technology and

software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...

. He initially developed and launched one of the first online

yellow pages The yellow pages are Telephone directory, telephone directories of business, businesses, organized by category rather than alphabetically by business name, in which advertising is sold. The directories were originally printed on yellow paper, ...

. Hoffer is also credited with developing instant messaging agents and web-based scratch-off games. Over the course of his career, he has worked for and consulted for many large corporations, including

Apple Computer Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, in Silicon Valley. It is best known for its consumer electronics, software, and services. Founded in 1976 as Apple Computer Co ...

AOL AOL (formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City, and a brand marketed by Yahoo! Inc. The service traces its history to an online ...

Xerox Xerox Holdings Corporation (, ) is an American corporation that sells print and electronic document, digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. Xerox was the pioneer of the photocopier market, beginning with the introduc ...

PepsiCo PepsiCo, Inc. is an American multinational corporation, multinational food, snack, and beverage corporation headquartered in Harrison, New York, in the hamlet of Purchase, New York, Purchase. PepsiCo's business encompasses all aspects of the f ...

Playboy ''Playboy'' (stylized in all caps) is an American men's Lifestyle journalism, lifestyle and entertainment magazine, available both online and in print. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, funded in part by a $ ...

Citibank Citibank, N.A. ("N. A." stands for "National bank (United States), National Association"; stylized as citibank) is the primary U.S. banking subsidiary of Citigroup, a financial services multinational corporation, multinational corporation. Ci ...

, and

Lipton Lipton is a brand named after its founder, Sir Thomas Lipton, Tom Lipton, who started an eponymous grocery retail business in the United Kingdom in 1871. The brand was used for various consumer goods sold in Lipton stores, including tea from 1 ...

Inventions

Hoffer often promotes the message that "everything old is new again," arguing that many 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. His vision is often credited with bringing products to market that are used today by millions of people and have been purchased by companies like

Yahoo Yahoo (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web portal that provides the search engine Yahoo Search and related services including My Yahoo, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, y!entertainment, yahoo!life, an ...

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

, 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 Corporation was an American telephone company that served five states of New England (Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont) as well as most of the state of New York from January 1, 1984 to August 14, 1997. Histo ...

American Express American Express Company or Amex is an American bank holding company and multinational financial services corporation that specializes in payment card industry, payment cards. It is headquartered at 200 Vesey Street, also known as American Expr ...

Excite@Home @Home Network was a high-speed cable Internet service provider from 1996 to 2002. It was founded by Milo Medin, cable companies Tele-Communications Inc. (TCI), Comcast, and Cox Communications, and William Randolph Hearst III, who was their fir ...

Lycos Lycos, Inc. (stylized as LYCOS), is a web search engine and web portal established in 1994, spun out of Carnegie Mellon University. Lycos also encompasses a network of email, web hosting, social networking, and entertainment websites. The company ...

, and others.

Patents

As the co-founder of

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, New York, 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

) for $46 million."Got A Question? Microsoft's Newly Acquired Software May Have The Answers"
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Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hoffer, Robert American computer businesspeople Living people Year of birth missing (living people)