The Whole Earth Catalog was an American counterculture catalog published by Stewart Brand between 1968 and 1972, and occasionally thereafter, until 1998. Although the WECs listed all sorts of products for sale (clothing, books, tools, machines, seeds — anything for a self-sustainable ‘hippie’ lifestyle) the Whole Earth Catalogs themselves did not sell any of the products.
Instead the vendors and their prices were listed right alongside with the items. This led to a need for the Catalogs to be frequently updated. Apple Inc. founder and entrepreneur Steve Jobs has described the Catalog as the conceptual forerunner of the World Wide Web, stating that it was, ‘sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along.’
The Daily Omnivore 