Wendy Woods Gorski had the idea to create an online publication out of what she was already writing daily for her broadcast news position in
San Francisco. As a reporter and editor working under the name "Wendy Woods," she compiled news leads for her assignment editors at CNN (San Francisco Bureau) and KGO-TV (ABC) in 1982 and realized these news story ideas could be of interest to the general public. These summaries included contact information for the sources. Newsbytes officially launched in 1983 as a "user publishing" feature on an online service called The Source, owned by
Reader’s Digest, based in McLean, Virginia. "Newsbytes", began to earn royalties and an audience. In its first few years, the weekly stories were written with a style that reflected television writing: succinct stories with an irreverent flair. "(Newsbytes) reflected her personality. It was, in some ways, the very first blog. It was infused with her being and when I joined her in 1985 I took that lesson to heart, putting my personality into my own work from
Atlanta", said Dana Blankenhorn, one of the service’s early writers. By the end of the first year Steve Gold, a journalist in
Sheffield, England, joined the company and contributed European technology news. Gradually the service evolved from summaries to fleshed-out stories and included the work of multiple reporters in different US cities and countries. Newsbytes stories were aimed at a broad cross-section of both business and consumer users of information technology, which contributed to the service’s wide appeal. Newsbytes was advertiser-free which gave it the added advantage of public trust and objectivity in a niche industry. During its nearly two decades of existence, Newsbytes News Network stories were syndicated to some 180 magazines, newspapers, newsletters, and online services worldwide. Among the largest online services were
Compuserve,
America Online, BIX, ZiffNet, The Information Access Co.,
Dow Jones News/Retrieval, PointCast, and other information providers located in the
United States,
Europe,
Asia,
Africa and
Australia. A Toronto-based company called Clarinet prepared the wire feed for Unix systems that went directly to corporate information technologists. Weekly estimated readership reached 4.5 million. In 1987, Wendy Woods Gorski teamed with Peter P. Vekinis, an entrepreneur at the time. Peter originated the
Workwriter computer package, was owner of the Technology Channel, creator of the
Picosat satellite system, and designer of a C language compiler for the
Amstrad 6128personal computer system. Peter and Wendy designed the content-specific format, created "push news" to clients (an unknown feature at the time). Peter devised a system where news would be delivered to the clients' remote printers, connected via modem so that breaking news would be delivered instantly. The company also expanded distribution to
CD-ROM subscriptions and
email subscriptions. Nels Johnson, a San Francisco-based programmer, created software that allowed PC owners to process the news feed offline and display headlines or full stories. Wendy also created a weekly TV newscast for The Computer Show at a
San Jose television channel. Woods also continued to be a correspondent for Computer Chronicles, a PBS program, from 1984-1990. Peter left Newsbytes in 1990 to pursue other interests and sold his share of the company to Steve Gold, an early Newsbytes contributor and co-owner. == Move to Minnesota ==