Xoom.com was adding about 20,000 members a day in the fall of 1998. It gave them free web pages, email and chat. Then it emailed them deals, and that was the business: 69 percent of its revenue in the first nine months of 1998 came from e-commerce sold to its own members. By its December offering, Xoom.com had about 4.5 million members and reached over 13 percent of web users. Portal mania was in full swing.

Born as Atomsoft

The company was incorporated in Delaware in April 1996 as Atomsoft. It became Xoom in February 1998 and Xoom.com that October. Chris Kitze was chairman and Laurent Massa was chief executive. The bet was that free services would build a huge community, and that a community could be sold to. Members agreed to receive offers by email, and Xoom.com sold them software, computer accessories and consumer electronics. Nearly 30 percent of its revenue came from outside the United States.

A Year Later, NBC

Xoom.com priced 4 million shares at $14 in December 1998 and listed on Nasdaq as XMCM. Internet stocks were soaring that winter. In 1999 NBC combined Xoom.com with its stake in the Snap portal to form a new public company, NBC Internet, or NBCi. Xoom.com's members became part of NBC's push onto the web. NBCi did not last. NBC took it back in 2001.

Cover: The Comet, José Guadalupe Posada. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a comet (zoom, speed).