In 1999 more than 3 million people had signed up to play games and talk live on Mpath's websites. Its Mplayer.com let gamers meet online, and HearMe.com let people speak to each other over the internet with voice and music. Most of the web was still pages you read alone. Mpath was betting on real-time crowds, and in April 1999 it brought that bet to Nasdaq.

Mplayer and a Microphone

Mpath Interactive began operations in January 1995 in the Bay Area, with Brian Apgar as founder. It built technology that let thousands of users share one live session through graphics, text and sound. Mpath ran its own sites and licensed the technology to partners including Yahoo!, Excite, Intel and Sega. By March 1999 visitors spent an average of more than 300 minutes a month on its communities.

Eighteen Dollars to Liquidation

Mpath priced at $18 a share and listed on the Nasdaq National Market under the symbol MPTH. Soon after, it renamed itself HearMe after its voice service. The dot-com crash cut off advertising and investor money. In 2001 the board proposed a plan of liquidation and dissolution, including the sale of substantially all of HearMe's assets. Shareholders met to vote in September 2001, and the company wound down.

Cover: Listening to the cuckoo's cry, Utagawa Toyohiro. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for listening to a bird's call (voice).