The Surprising Impact the 1992 Presidential Election Had on the Modern Internet

Let’s ponder the impact that technology had on the 1992 campaign.

1. Prodigy, the early online service that directly competed with AOL for a time, launched a 1992 campaign database for users to track candidates.
2. For his 1992 primary campaign, current Gov Jerry Brown (D-CA) innovated by using a 1-800 number to solicit donations.
3. Gov Brown also used Compuserve to reach voters
4. The 1992 campaign was a hot topic on Usenet, the decentralized newsgroup system which is best described to those who never experienced it in person as the Reddit of its day.
5. In 1992, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ran a number of email-driven bots on the campaign92.org domain, allowing users to request position papers for any campaign on the ballot in at least half of US states.