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As of 1993, 20 newspapers worldwide — and a few magazines and newsletters — were published electronically, mostly on online services such as Prodigy and Compuserve. During 1994, the number of online newspapers reached 78.

The next year, however, online publishing exploded — largely because the World Wide Web exploded. While the birth of the Web occurred in late 1990, it was three years later that the Mosaic browser software — developed by Marc Andreesen, who later went on to start a company called Netscape (sound familiar?) — became available, and use of the Web took off. While some tech-savvy computer owners had figured out ways to access and view the Web, it wasn't until early 1995 that doing so became relatively effortless. As more potential readers gained access to the Web, more publishers were determined to reach them.

According to Tomorrow's News Tonight, 5th Edition, the number of newspapers publishing electronically soared from 78 in 1994 to 511 in mid-1995. Of those, 471 were publishing on the Web, and the other 40 were publishing on, or committed to publishing on, commercial online services connected to it. As the calendar changed from 1995 to 1996, the number of online newspapers exceeded 1,000.

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