online service

(1) An organization that provides an information service over the Internet. Examples are search engines, online backup services and application service providers.

(2) An organization that provides access to the Internet as well as proprietary content. Before the Internet became widely used by the general public, all online services were self-contained organizations known for their unique mix of databases and resources. If e-mail was provided, it was only within the same service.

After the Internet became popular, all the services either provided Web access to their specialized databases or added general-purpose Internet access such as AOL and CompuServe. Proprietary e-mail systems were either switched to Internet e-mail protocols (SMTP) or their formats were routinely converted back and forth to the Internet format. The following online services predate the Internet explosion of the mid-1990s and are here for historical purposes: See portal.

America Online, Inc. (AOL)
Internet access, variety of databases
www.aol.com

CompuServe Information Service, Inc.
Internet access, variety of databases
www.compuserve.com

DataTimes Corporation
(acquired by ProQuest)
Newspapers, magazines, financial
www.proquestcompany.com

DIALOG (a Thomson company)
Largest collection of databases
www.dialog.com

Dow Jones Interactive
(now Factiva.com)
Finance, daily news & news searching
www.factiva.com

Genie (now defunct)
Internet access, BBSs, roundtables

LexisNexis
Legal and news information
www.lexisnexis.com

National Library of Medicine
MEDLINE and MEDLARS databases
www.nlm.nih.gov

Prodigy (owned by SBC since 2001)
Internet access, variety of databases
www.prodigy.com

Questel - Orbit
Patent, trademark, scientific, chemical,
business and news information
www.questel.orbit.com

West Publishing/WESTLAW (a Thomson company)
Legal databases
www.westpub.com