Non-English-speaking internet users reached 50% in summer 2000. (Users living outside the U.S. reached 50% one year earlier, in summer 1999.) According to Global Reach, a consultancy promoting the localization of websites, non-English-speaking users reached 52.5% in summer 2001, 57% in December 2001, 59.8% in April 2002, 64.4% in September 2003 (including 34.9% non-English-speaking Europeans and 29.4% Asians), and 64.2% in March 2004 (including 37.9% non-English-speaking Europeans and 33% Asians). This was a turning point for a multilingual internet, although much still needed to be done to offer more websites in languages other than English, as well as more bilingual and plurilingual websites. July 2000 > Stephen King, a best-selling author and a digital pioneer In July 2000 began the electronic (self-)publishing of The Plant, an epistolary novel by Stephen King, who was the first author of best- sellers to make such a bet. Stephen King started his digital experiment a little earlier, with the distribution in March 2000 of his short story Riding the Bullet, which was downloaded 400,000 times during the first 24 hours. All this was followed with a lot of interest by the media. Then Stephen King created a website to self-publish his novel The Plant in episodes. The chapters were published at regular intervals and could be downloaded in several formats (PDF, OeB, HTML, TXT). After the publication of the sixth chapter in December 2000, the author decided to step down and stop this experiment, because more and more readers were downloading the chapters without paying for them. Stephen King went on with digital experiments though, but this time in partnership with his publisher. August 2000 > Barnes & Noble.com opened its eBookStore Barnes & Noble.com started its eBookStore in August 2000, following a partnership with Microsoft in January 2000 to sell digital books for the Microsoft Reader. Barnes & Noble.com also partnered with Adobe in August 2000 to sell books for the Acrobat Reader and the Glassbook Reader - Adobe had just bought Glassbook, its reader and its digital bookstore. September 2000 > GDT, the largest bilingual online French-English dictionary