Answer: Swatch Internet Time

Introduced in October of 1998 by the Swatch watch company, Swatch Internet Time was part marketing technique and part honest bid to make a sort of universal time for global citizens of the burgeoning internet age. Swatch Internet Time, also called beat time, was an alternative time system based on “beats”. Each beat was 1 minute and 26 seconds and the notation style for the system was represented as three digits out of a thousand–thus 001/1000, written as @001 in beat time, would be 1 minute and 26 seconds after midnight.

Despite two years of solid promotion and quite a few beat-enabled watch models, the Swatch corporation gained little traction with their new time concept. Although Swatch no longer produces beat-enabled watches the concept lives on as a sort of novelty, via web-based and mobile apps, for those who want to confuse their friends with demands to meet at @893.