Zip2 Corp. was a company that provided and licensed online

city guide A guide book or travel guide is "a book of information about a place designed for the use of visitors or tourists". It will usually include information about sights, accommodation, restaurants, transportation, and activities. Maps of varying det ...

software to newspapers. The company was founded in

Palo Alto, California Palo Alto ( ; Spanish language, Spanish for ) is a charter city in northwestern Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. Th ...

, as Global Link Information Network, Inc. on November 9, 1995, by Greg Kouri and brothers Elon and Kimbal Musk. Initially, Global Link provided local businesses with an Internet presence, but later began to assist newspapers in designing online city guides before being purchased by Compaq Computer in 1999.

History

Elon got the initial business idea from a summer internship in 1994. A

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, ...

salesman came into his employer's office to pitch buying an online business listing in addition to the traditional listing in the Yellow Pages book. Global Link Information Network, Inc. was incorporated in November 1995 by brothers Elon and Kimbal Musk and Greg Kouri in

, with money raised from a small group of

angel investor An angel investor (also known as a business angel, informal investor, angel funder, private investor, or seed investor) is an individual who provides capital to a business or businesses, including startups, usually in exchange for convertible de ...

s, plus US$2,000 from Elon, US$5,000 from Kimbal and US$8,000 from Kouri. In Ashlee Vance's biography of Elon Musk, it is claimed that their father,

Errol Musk Errol Graham Musk (born 25 May 1946) is a South African businessman, politician, and the patriarch of the Musk family. He was a member of Pretoria City Council from 1972 to 1983, and was a member of the Progressive Federal Party from 1980 to 1983 ...

, provided the brothers with US$28,000 during this time, Elon Musk initially denied this account, but later stated that his father had contributed approximately 10 percent of a US$200,000 funding round, clarifying that the investment occurred at a later stage. Initially, Global Link provided local businesses with an Internet presence by linking their services to searchers and providing directions. Elon Musk combined a free

Navteq Navteq Corporation (styled as 'NAVTEQ') was an American Chicago-based provider of geographic information system (GIS) data and a major provider of base electronic navigable maps. The company was acquired by Nokia in 2007–2008, and fully merged ...

database with a Palo Alto business database to create the first system. In 1996, Global Link received US$3 million in investments from Mohr Davidow Ventures and officially changed its name to Zip2. Davidow Ventures changed the fundamental strategy of Zip2 from localised direct to business sales to instead selling national back end software packages to newspapers to build their own directories. Elon Musk was appointed the Chief Technology Officer and Rich Sorkin became the chief executive officer. Zip2 trademarked "We Power the Press" as its official

slogan A slogan is a memorable motto or phrase used in a clan or a political, commercial, religious, or other context as a repetitive expression of an idea or purpose, with the goal of persuading members of the public or a more defined target group ...

and continued to grow. Zip2 struck deals with ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'',

Knight Ridder Knight Ridder was an American media company, specializing in newspaper and Internet publishing. It was bought by McClatchy on June 27, 2006, allowing the latter to become the second largest newspaper publisher in the United States at the time ...

, and

Hearst Corporation Hearst Corporation, Hearst Holdings Inc. and Hearst Communications Inc. comprise an American multinational mass media and business information conglomerate owned by the Hearst family and based in Hearst Tower in Midtown Manhattan in New York ...

, and its collaboration with newspapers made it a major component of "the U.S. newspaper industry's response to the online city guide industry", according to the ''

Editor & Publisher ''Editor & Publisher'' (''E&P'') is an American monthly trade news magazine covering the news media industry. Published since 1901, ''Editor & Publisher'' is the self-described "bible of the newspaper industry," with offices in Hendersonville, ...

''. By 1998, the company had partnered with about 160 newspapers to develop guides to cities, either locally or at full scale. According to chairman and co-founder Elon Musk, twenty of those newspapers led to full-scale city guides. ''

'' reported that Zip2 also provided newspapers with an online directory, calendar, and email alongside their core offering.

Product

Zip2 allowed for two-way communication between users and advertisers. Users could message advertisers and have that message forwarded to their fax machine. Likewise, advertisers could fax users and users could view that fax using specific URLs. One Zip2 product was called "Auto Guide". AutoGuide connected online newspaper users with local dealership or private party car sellers.

Merger and acquisition attempts

In April 1998, Zip2 attempted to merge with CitySearch, its main competitor. While Elon Musk initially supported the merger, he persuaded the board of directors not to proceed with it. According to ''The New York Times'', the two companies "cited incompatibilities in cultures and technology" as the reason for the merger's failure. In 1999, Compaq Computer paid US$305 million to acquire Zip2. Elon and Kimbal Musk, the original founders, netted US$22 million and US$15 million respectively. The company was purchased to enhance Compaq's

AltaVista AltaVista was a web search engine established in 1995. It became one of the most-used early search engines, but lost ground to Google and was purchased by Yahoo! in 2003, which retained the brand, but based all AltaVista searches on its own sear ...

web search engine.

References

External links

* {{Compaq 1995 establishments in California 1999 disestablishments in California 1999 mergers and acquisitions American companies established in 1995 City guides Companies based in Palo Alto, California Compaq acquisitions Defunct companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area Defunct computer companies based in California Defunct software companies of the United States Elon Musk Software companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area Software companies disestablished in 1999 Software companies established in 1995