Teletext peaked between 1981 and 1983, when Time Inc. invested USD 25 mn in the technology, before dying out by 1984. Cecilia D’Anastasio tracks the history of Teletext, a service to transmit text with colorful designs to the television, for Vice’s Motherboard. It started out as a means for transmitting text about news headlines and lifestyle, with users able to navigate through “pages” of text. "It was almost like Twitter," said Jim Pensiero, former news editor at Time Teletext. "Superficial. Not Pulitzer-prize-winning journalism," he added. "We were on the frontier trying to wrestle the beast onto the ground." The service quickly turned to — of course — gaming. By late 1982, Time Teletext service had reached 5,000 households in California and Florida. But soon after, the trend slowed down and died away quickly. Users were disappointed by the deteriorating quality of the service, especially how it became overpriced. "The whole basis for Time moving into teletext was using the straight news and lifestyle content represented in magazines like People," said Bob Spielvogel, former editor at Time Teletext. "It was disconcerting for them to see that what they thought was ancillary, bonus stuff turned out to be the main draw." It was Game Over for Teletext.

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