Viaweb was a web-based application that allowed users to build and host their own online stores with little effort and technical expertise, directly from their own web browser. The eponymous company was started in July 1995 by Paul Graham, Robert Morris, and Trevor Blackwell. Graham claims that Viaweb was the first application service provider.[..] In 1998, Yahoo! Inc. bought Viaweb for 455,000 shares of Yahoo! stock, valued at about $49 million, and renamed it Yahoo! Store.
