Overseas investors target the UK commercial property
Uproar over the newest railway line for a century
Sir Norman Foster launched plans for a tower on the former Baltic Exchange site
These were some of the first headlines written on EGi when it launched 20 years ago today.
It was the summer of 1996, the Spice Girls had just burst onto the music scene with Wannabe; Prince Charles and Diana Princess of Wales divorced and Estates Gazette launched a new electronic service, Estates Gazette interactive costing “as little as £10 a month”.
Google was still two years away but EGi burst onto the scene with a number of extensive property database offering “dynamic details on deals” and a news service which meant surveyors did not have to wait until the end of the week to get the latest stories.
SEE ALSO: Tech guru Antony Slumbers looks back on two decades of the world wide web in celebration of EGi turning 20
The launch at one point looked like it might not happen at all.
It was a Friday night in the summer of 1996 in a crowded Soho London internet café and the European Championship football was on. A group of about 40 people – a mix of RBI employees and customers – crowded around desktop monitors to witness and celebrate the launch of RBI’s brand new, internet-based service. It was called EGi and was a huge leap into the unknown.
Only four hours earlier it looked unlikely the launch would take place. The Cyberspy Café was changing ownership that day, but no one had informed the EGi team who spent a frantic afternoon promising to pay staff wages and fighting off people trying to claim furniture from the building. Just in time the new owners were tracked down, the café opened and the service went live at 6.45pm.
Two years earlier, on the fifth floor of the Wardour Street building, W1, where the Estates Gazette magazine was based, Mark Kelsey, who was then managing director, started setting up a new team to create and develop the new digital proposition, EGi. With the decline of print looming, the business needed to explore where it would go next, and how. EGi would provide a test case for the future of Reed Elsevier (now RELX Group), and building out from one of its most respected and successful brands seemed like the right place to start. The rest as they say is history.
Some of the early highlights and lowlights along the way.
1996: EGi deals
EGi deals, a dynamic database
Industry remembers
“Ashwell Rogers first opened its doors on a sunny morning in January 1996. We had one computer, one mobile phone, four Partners, no staff and a dream. It’s been the best 20 years of my working life” – Ash Sharma, partner
1997: New media age
Launch wins EGi the New Media Age Best Business Magazine Website Award
1998: RBI free service
Early adopters need not apply. Free internet and e-mail for all
2002: Estates Gazette November
A rebrand on the Estates Gazette site sees the yellow and blue branding make its first appearance
Others who share a birthday with EGi
Ashwell Rogers first opened its doors on a sunny morning in January 1996 with one computer, one mobile phone, four Partners, and no staff
• To send feedback e-mail nadia.elghamry@estatesgazette.com or tweet @NadiaElghamry or @estatesgazette
