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MediaScreen, by
Internet standards, is positively Jurassic since it has been read online by home-theater
aficionados since 1990.
As a part of Critics Inc. MediaScreen was first
published on the now defunct online service Delphi in 1990. Two years later Critics Inc.
moved to America Online at its inception, and remained AOL's premier movie and video
review site, with an average of 2 million visitors a month, until September 1998.
Because of an exclusive distribution agreement with AOL we could not publish any of our
features on the web. Therefore, while we've been available online longer than pretty much
any web-based publication, we were accessible only to AOL subscribers.
Founded in 1990, Critics Inc. was – as far as I can tell – the world's first
online movie and video guide (to put things into perspective, in 1990 any references to
the term "web" were of an entomological nature) and perhaps the oldest
web-publishing company on the planet. By Internet standards, we're positively Jurassic.
We've made it this far, through Delphi and AOL and now on the web, so to paraphrase Sally
Fields' immortal and inimitable exclamation, you must like us a lot.
Under the Critics Inc. umbrella, our laserdisc and DVD reviews were featured most
prominently on AOL's video channel, and we've acquired a fanatical following of high-end
videophiles. But it was always frustrating to know that there were so many readers we
would never reach because they were not AOL subscribers.
Our contract with AOL expired on September 30th, 1998 and we were free to make our DVD and
laserdisc reviews available on the web.
Hence MediaScreen.
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