CDNOW
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| Founded | February 1994 |
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| Headquarters | Ambler, Pennsylvania, United States |
| Key people | CEO and Founder Jason Olim, CTO and Founder Matthew Olim |
| Website | http://www.cdnow.com |
| Launched | August 1994 |
CDNow.com was an online retailer. The company was founded in February 1994 by twin brothers Jason Olim and Matthew Olim of Ambler, Pennsylvania. Initially launched as a Telnet service in August 1994, CDNow became a retail website in September 1994.
The operation was started in their parents' basement, using Valley Records Distributors as a drop-ship fulfillment center. With three employees, the company moved its headquarters a few miles down the road to a train station in Penllyn, Pennsylvania, which it outgrew when it reached 55 employees. It then moved to the old Strawbridge & Clothier building in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, where it went public in February 1998, with 110 employees and annual (1997) revenues of around $18 million. A short time later, CDNow acquired its largest competitor, another Philadelphia area company, N2K, whose online properties included Music Boulevard, Jazz Central Station, and other popular sites. During its extensive growth campaign, CDNow was an early innovator in Internet advertising, preference-based retail recommendations, online video, the use of editorial content as a means to promote interest in all sorts of music, one of the first significant online vendors of video (movies, etc.), the creation of the first affiliate marketing program on the Internet, email marketing, and more. As the company moved to Fort Washington, its employees numbered over 500 (with offices in New York City, London, and Los Angeles), and revenues exceeded $130 million. By 2000, CDNow downsized to about 400 employees, and was eventually bought by Bertelsmann.
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