Yanoff list
A regularly updated text file listing everything you could connect to on the internet — the precursor to web directories, run by one person.
Scott Yanoff at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee started compiling Special Internet Connections in 1991: Telnet addresses for library catalogues and weather databases, finger accounts that returned earthquake reports, Gopher servers, chat systems and game servers. The list was posted to Usenet at regular intervals and mirrored on FTP sites, and anyone who wanted to know what the network actually contained fetched the latest copy.
The format was spartan — one line per service, a short description and an address to type in by hand. But it solved the same problem Yahoo would later build a company around, and it did so without ads. Once the web took over, the list became a list of links, and then a list nobody needed.