Hoover's Online - Hoover's Goes Online

HOOVER'S GOES ONLINE

The company that became Hoover's Inc. was established in 1990 as the Reference Press by entrepreneur Gary Hoover and former University of Chicago classmates Alta Campbell and Patrick Spain. The company's flagship publication was a reference directory called Hoover's Handbook. First published in 1991, the book contained profiles of more than 500 major corporations. It was aimed at general readers as well as professionals and was available in bookstores. When Gary Hoover left the company in 1992 to start a chain of travel superstores, Patrick Spain became CEO.

From the start the company was interested in exploring the electronic delivery of its informational database. Through a partnership with Sony, information from the Hoover's Handbook was made available in electronic form. In 1993 the company began licensing information from its database to America Online. In 1994 Time Warner, through its subsidiary Warner Books, took a significant minority position in the Reference Press and assumed responsibility for bookstore distribution of its titles. In 1995 the Reference Press launched Hoover's Online, a Web-based business reference service. By the end of 1996 the company had more than 20 online services and was on Inc. magazine's list of the 500 fastest-growing private companies. In August 1996 the Reference Press changed its name to Hoover's Inc., in recognition of the strong brand it had created. In November 1996 the company published Cyberstocks: An Investor's Guide to Internet Companies and launched a companion Web site that contained the full text of the book at no charge, along with other financial information and interactive services, including daily updates of the 100 stocks profiled in the book.