Assertion Partly supported AI assessment confidence: 80% certainty 3/5 debate potential 1/5

Roney: Bundled Smithsonian CD-ROM was among top-grossing discs ever

Carley Roney · The Knot: Carley Roney & David Liu · Mar 12, 2018 · at 14:12

Carley Roney, co-founder of The Knot, describes how their early Smithsonian American history CD-ROM distributed millions of units through hardware bundling to launch their initial digital studio.

0:00 / 0:12exact quote · 12.9s

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“Yeah, no, so millions of these discs, sort of one of the top grossing discs of all time because it got bundled. It was such an easy win, and that was the, yeah, that turned out to be the sort of launch of our company.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

The claim, plainly

Carley Roney and David Liu's Smithsonian CD-ROM distributed millions of copies and became one of the top-grossing CD-ROM discs of all time due to OEM bundling.

a quote alone can be ambiguous, so this restates it with the references and context of the conversation around it resolved. AI-written; the tape below the player is the source.

Assessment

The claim bundles multiple distinct assertions. First, Carley Roney and David Liu did indeed develop the CD-ROM title 'Smithsonian's America: An Interactive Exhibition of American History and Culture' in 1994 through their firm RunTime Inc., and it was bundled as OEM software with select Apple Macintosh systems (such as Macintosh Performa and Power Macintosh models). However, the assertion that this title achieved multi-million copy distribution and ranked as one of the top-grossing CD-ROM discs of all time is unverified and unsupported by historical software tracking data (e.g., PC Data / NPD Group), which tracked top-grossing and highest-volume titles of the era such as Myst, Microsoft Encarta, and The 7th Guest.

XO Group Inc. SEC filings and corporate records confirm Carley Roney and David Liu operated RunTime Inc. and developed 'Smithsonian's America' (published 1994 by Creative Multimedia Corporation).
Apple software catalogs and shipment records confirm 'Smithsonian's America' was included in OEM bundles with Macintosh Performa and Power Mac systems in the mid-1990s.
Historical retail and OEM software tracking data from PC Data and NPD Group do not list 'Smithsonian's America' among the top-grossing or highest-volume CD-ROM titles of the era, nor do independent sources confirm multi-million unit distribution.

Checked against

[1] sec.gov [2] sec.gov [3] picclick.com.au [4] 4score.org [5] 4score.org [6] smithsonianmag.com [7] applepc.org [8] ebay.com

"Smithsonian's America" CD-ROM "Smithsonian's America" "Creative Multimedia" "David Liu" "Carley Roney" CD-ROM "RunTime Inc" "Smithsonian" "Smithsonian's America" "million" "Smithsonian's America" OEM bundle OR bundled OR copies OR sales "PC Data" "top-grossing" OR "best-selling" CD-ROM 1994 OR 1995 OR 1996 "top selling CD-ROM" "PC Data"

assessed as of 2026-09-03

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Carley Roney Smithsonian

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