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Definition: online service


(1) An information service activated and accessed from a computer. See cloud computing and online.

(2) An organization that provides access to the Internet. See ISP.

(3) An earlier organization that provided proprietary content online. Before the Internet became available to the general public, online services such as AOL and CompuServe contained a unique mix of databases and resources available via dial-up modems. If email was provided, it was only between members of the same service.

After the Internet became popular, all the proprietary services added Web access to their content. Email systems were either switched to the Internet's SMTP mail protocol or their proprietary formats were automatically converted back and forth to SMTP. The following online services predate the Internet explosion of the mid-1990s and are here for historical purposes. See AOL, CompuServe, portal and SMTP.

 AOL (America Online)
 Internet access, variety of databases
  aol.com


 CompuServe
 Internet access, variety of databases
  compuserve.com


 DataTimes
 Newspapers, magazines, financial


 DIALOG
 Largest collection of databases
  dialog.com


 Dow Jones Interactive
 Finance, daily news & news searching
  factiva.com


 Genie
 Internet access, BBSs, roundtables


 LexisNexis
 Legal and news information
  lexisnexis.com


 National Library of Medicine
 MEDLINE and MEDLARS databases
  nlm.nih.gov


 Prodigy
 Internet access, variety of databases
  prodigy.com


 Questel - Orbit
 Patent, trademark, scientific, news
  questel.orbit.com


 West Publishing/WESTLAW
 Legal databases
  westpub.com