"Cyberslice" walked so delivery apps could run

In an age of mobile orders, it's hard to remember a world when online ordering was novel, but at one time, it was a practice reserved for science fiction. One of the world's first online food delivery services was named Cyberslice, and according to its founders, it was inspired by the 1995 movie "The Net" where Sandra Bullock orders a pizza using a computer. The company caught the attention of Steve Jobs, was its first customer before the site's official release in 1996.

Bringing science fiction to life was an ambitious endeavor.

CyberSlice wanted to list only local restaurants, and to define delivery zones using global GIS data years before Yahoo or Google Maps. Engineers would have to calculate using the curvature of the earth's surface in order to estimate distances, and fetching GIS data required use of raw query languages to identify delivery zone boundaries.

Pizza expert Steve Green for Appstorey

The company partnered with local restaurants in various cities, building them websites with a "Little Italy" theme. I enjoyed scrolling through the CyberSlice Brochure, which includes early internet ephemera like the photo below, as well as a page dedicated to "William H. Webb" who defines internet terms such as e-mail, URL, and links.

CyberSlice Brochure