Dear colleagues,

We are happy to announce the publication of our new book, Minitel: Welcome to the Internet.

Minitel: Welcome to the Internet
Julien Mailland & Kevin Driscoll
The MIT Press, June 2017
https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/minitel

In the 1980s, the French Minitel network was the first online system to reach mass-market penetration at the level of a country. With its unusual balance of public and private control, Minitel offers an alternative model for thinking about platforms, policy, and public culture.

For a taste of our argument and approach, check out this recent article in the IEEE Spectrum, "The Online World France Built Before the Web":
http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/networks/minitel-the-online-world-france-built-before-the-web

And for a deeper dive, visit the Minitel Research Lab, an independent digital archive featuring hundreds of Minitel artifacts, from terminal hardware to synthpop records:
http://minitel.us/

Sincerely,
Kevin Driscoll and Julien Mailland