... And one you have probably never heard at all. Google is excited to announce the appointment of Larry Brilliant as executive director of Google.org. (I'm reminded of other curious names like "Faith Popcorn" - Can that really be the name he was born with?)
Brilliant's contribution to Ann Arbor history included founding NETI Technologies, and that company's creation of an online conferencing software package called Picospan. You can see the legacy of that software if you telnet in to Grex or Arbornet, both of which use newer software which is still very reminiscent of the original. The rise and fall of NETI's stock might also have been taken as a cautionary tale for those who invested in Internet companies "before the bubble burst", had any of them been interested in cautionary tales. For more than you ever wanted to know about early computer conferencing in Ann Arbor, and a little bit more on top of that, here's a summary.
