Twenty-five years ago on this date, the first company registered a Web address with the now prolific .com extension. In recognition of that milestone, we've asked Internet industry leaders to take a look back at the impact of .com and share perspectives on the future direction of the Internet.
We're also honored to have Facebook and its founder Mark Zuckerberg nominated as one of the the ".com 25"—a recognition of the 25 companies and people whose contributions were fundamental to shaping the Internet as we know it today. Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates are among the 75 nominees. The final ".com 25" will be honored May 26 at a gala in San Francisco.
Mark McLaughlin
CEO, VeriSign Inc.
Looking back at the first .com 25 years ago is a little like discovering what was the original document to come out of the first printing press. It's interesting but what came after is the real story. And what came after symbolics.com, the first .com registered, has defined a generation.
Twenty-five years ago when the first .com name was registered, I was a freshman at West Point, with no concept of a connected world. Our idea of communications was our weekly lineup at the pay phone waiting to call our parents. Not long ago, I was back at West Point and I saw cadets carrying their world in their pocket with smart phones. Emailing, texting, and calling. They've never known life without the power of the Internet.
That's what the Internet has done for all of us. It has reshaped our perspective—about how we interact with each other and our relationship with the entire world. The social impact alone is staggering. With over 400 million users, Facebook would be the third-largest country in the world. Every day over 200 eHarmony members get married. And Apple just celebrated it 10 billionth iTunes download.
At VeriSign, all that Internet activity translates into 18 trillion website and email lookups a year that we handle. So, just as Johannes Gutenberg must have looked at the printing press and asked, "what's next?" we all wait to see where the Internet will take us. And, as the operator of .com we know that we won't dream up its uses, we just need to stand ready to support it.
Alec Ross
Senior Advisor for Innovation, Office of the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
To me, the rise of .com has meant the near end of isolation. Growing up in West Virginia, I saw firsthand how life opportunities are limited by the information people are able to access. Grow up in an information-rich environment, and you are well-positioned to compete and succeed in knowledge-based sectors of the global economy. Grow up with a deficit of information, and you are positioned for the service industry, folding bed sheets and busing tables.
Dot-com has brought people and marketplaces more closely together. It has both created and strengthened communities by allowing them to take root in virtual spaces. In the coming years, I see the tectonic shift made possible by .com increasingly being about education. The innovations that have taken place connecting people to marketplaces and to each other will now connect people to educational resources in a way never previously imaginable. And because of it, kids will have an unbounded opportunity to learn.
Susan Crawford
Founder, OneWebDay
I remember the first email address I ever saw, and I distinctly remember thinking that it was ridiculous. What was that loony "@" sign doing there? Why was everything in lower case? The exuberance and the essential humanity of the Internet took everyone by surprise, and all of those fireworks started with .com. We've adapted since then, and we're used to lower-case billions. But the story that changed the way the world learns, trades and communicates began with .com addresses and their decentralized, flexible nature.
What's coming next? Things are changing quickly, and .com is receding in importance as other namespaces and places become central. Internationalized domain names, in other scripts, are long overdue. There's a fight for gate-keeping control, and many of the players in that fight would prefer not to be relying on domain names. Nothing goes away, though, and we'll be seeing .com in lights for generations to come.
David Gross
Former Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy, U.S. Department of State
During the past 25 years, .com—also known to its friends as "Dot Com"—has done more to change the world than any person or event. It has opened the world to potentially unlimited access to information and has encouraged people and governments to recognize—as they did at the UN's "heads of state" World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)—that "freedom of expression and the free flow of information, ideas and knowledge are essential" and that we are universally committed "to the freedom to seek, receive, impart and use information ... for the creation, accumulation and dissemination of knowledge."
From virtually every corner of the world, people are able to use .com to connect with friends and family, learn about economic opportunities, interact with governments (including the opportunity to tell "truth to power"—sometimes at great personal risk), save lives, help others and to make the world a better place for future generations. It doesn't get better or more powerful than that. Thank you .com and happy anniversary/birthday!
Andrew, manager of policy communications at Facebook, is looking forward to tomorrow's policy forum in Washington, D.C., to discuss the impact of 25 years of .com on our lives and our world.
We're also honored to have Facebook and its founder Mark Zuckerberg nominated as one of the the ".com 25"—a recognition of the 25 companies and people whose contributions were fundamental to shaping the Internet as we know it today. Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates are among the 75 nominees. The final ".com 25" will be honored May 26 at a gala in San Francisco.
Mark McLaughlin
CEO, VeriSign Inc.
Looking back at the first .com 25 years ago is a little like discovering what was the original document to come out of the first printing press. It's interesting but what came after is the real story. And what came after symbolics.com, the first .com registered, has defined a generation.
McLaughlin
That's what the Internet has done for all of us. It has reshaped our perspective—about how we interact with each other and our relationship with the entire world. The social impact alone is staggering. With over 400 million users, Facebook would be the third-largest country in the world. Every day over 200 eHarmony members get married. And Apple just celebrated it 10 billionth iTunes download.
At VeriSign, all that Internet activity translates into 18 trillion website and email lookups a year that we handle. So, just as Johannes Gutenberg must have looked at the printing press and asked, "what's next?" we all wait to see where the Internet will take us. And, as the operator of .com we know that we won't dream up its uses, we just need to stand ready to support it.
Alec Ross
Senior Advisor for Innovation, Office of the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Ross
Dot-com has brought people and marketplaces more closely together. It has both created and strengthened communities by allowing them to take root in virtual spaces. In the coming years, I see the tectonic shift made possible by .com increasingly being about education. The innovations that have taken place connecting people to marketplaces and to each other will now connect people to educational resources in a way never previously imaginable. And because of it, kids will have an unbounded opportunity to learn.
Susan Crawford
Founder, OneWebDay
Crawford
What's coming next? Things are changing quickly, and .com is receding in importance as other namespaces and places become central. Internationalized domain names, in other scripts, are long overdue. There's a fight for gate-keeping control, and many of the players in that fight would prefer not to be relying on domain names. Nothing goes away, though, and we'll be seeing .com in lights for generations to come.
David Gross
Former Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy, U.S. Department of State
Gross
From virtually every corner of the world, people are able to use .com to connect with friends and family, learn about economic opportunities, interact with governments (including the opportunity to tell "truth to power"—sometimes at great personal risk), save lives, help others and to make the world a better place for future generations. It doesn't get better or more powerful than that. Thank you .com and happy anniversary/birthday!
Andrew, manager of policy communications at Facebook, is looking forward to tomorrow's policy forum in Washington, D.C., to discuss the impact of 25 years of .com on our lives and our world.