This was probably the earliest form of presence information for remote network users. Information on who is logged in was useful to check the availability of a person to meet. The finger program was written in 1971 by Les Earnest who created the program to solve the need of users who wanted information on other users of the network.
The Name/Finger protocol is based on Request for Comments document RFC 742 (December 1977) as an interface to the name and finger programs that provide status reports on a particular computer system or a particular person at network sites.
