William von Meister

Meister has at least one brother, Peter. Bill von Meister died of cancer in Great Falls, Virginia, at the age of 53, leaving behind his son, Frederick William von Meister. Frederick passed away in 2004, leaving behind a son, Maximilian.

In 1983, Control Video Corporation was founded by Meister. The company originally ran the GameLine dial-up service for the Atari 2600, which Meister claimed to be able to handle up to 100,000 users.

In 1978, Meister founded The Source, the first popular online services company. The Source was eventually sold to Reader's Digest and later acquired by rivals CompuServe.

After leaving Georgetown in 1973, von Meister started a wholesale liquor company, but found it "boring" and decided to move into consulting. After creating a database for Litton Bionetics, he was hired by Western Union to create a computerized billing system.

William F. von Meister (February 21, 1942 – May 18, 1995) was an American entrepreneur who founded and participated in a number of startup ventures in the Washington, D.C., area. These included The Source, an early online service and CompuServe competitor, and Control Video Corporation, a predecessor company to AOL.

William Ferdinand von Meister was born of noble German descent on February 21, 1942 in New York City, to F. W. von Meister and Eleanora Colloredo-Mannsfeld. His father, F. W. von Meister, was the godson of Kaiser Wilhelm II, and his mother was a countess.