Today in 1979, 5 years before Mark Zuckerberg was born, CompuServe launched one of the first consumer online services, initially marketed as MicroNET through Radio Shack. By the mid-1980s, CompuServe was the largest consumer information service in the world due to the popularity of its online innovations such as moderated forums and online chat. In 1989, CompuServe was the first online service to offer Internet connectivity by allowing its proprietary email service to communicate with Internet-based email addresses. By 1995, CompuServe had three million members (paying customers) but started to lose money with the rapid expansion of the World Wide Web. It was sold to WorldCom for $1.2 billion in 1998.