| Dow Jones Newswires | Twenty-five years ago this week, the Internet opened the door to business, and the world changed. Previously reserved for its academic and government users, the national computer network issued the first commercial domain name, symbolics.com, to a now-defunct computer company.
The dot-com trend started slowly. Only five other dot-com domain names were registered that year. Academics especially looked down on the idea of making a profit on the Internet, but the lure of lucre proved more powerful. Companies started selling e-mail addresses and service, then they started using the Internet to sell stuff. |
See also • 100 oldest ‘.com’ domain names • Sex.com to hot to be sold? |
By 1997, there were a million dot-com domains, and commerce was
everywhere. In the next two years, 20 million dot-com domains were
registered, and companies with dot-com in their names found easy access
to an older network known as Wall Street.
About a thousand Internet companies went public, launching the dot-com
boom and bust. Many investors are poorer for that experience, but the
world is much better because the Internet became a marketplace.
uhhh you better check your facts on this. you’re saying they opened up .com in 1985. way to phone it in, tribune.
Yes, that’s what they’re saying, which makes absolute sense. Remember, RFC 920 which actually established the idea in the first place was published in late 1984.
http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc920
And check the Tribune’s list of 100-oldest .com domains.
What “facts” do you think they have wrong?