On January 28, 1878 the world’s first commercial telephone exchange opened for business in New Haven, Connecticut. A month later, 50 customers were listed in the world’s first phone directory, distributed on February 21. (One of the listed businesses was the Yale Daily News, which was founded on that very same January 28, 1878.) Reading through the history of the little Connecticut telephone company‘s struggle to grow, it’s fight against Western Union, developing the first New York to Boston line (a financial disaster that was eventually sold to AT&T;), bleak times trying to raise capital with its president taking little salary, dealing with blizzards that tore down lines and poles… it makes me think back to the first struggling startups of the Internet age, some who got to the party a little too early, some who put together luck and technology to create a communication medium so useful that we are starting to take it for granted.