An online information and bulletin board service that closed its doors at the end of 1999, much to the dismay of its many users, some of whom were still chatting when the plug was pulled. Genie (General Electric Network for Information Exchange) was set up as a joint venture between GE and Ameritech in 1985, and in time was acquired by Yovelle Renaissance Corporation and then by IDT in the mid-1990s. Its roundtable discussions, chat lines, games and Internet access attracted a niche of science fiction aficionados as well as horror and fantasy writers. The growth of other online services affected Genie's traffic, which in those early days, peaked at some 400,000 users. See
online service. See also
Jini.