Looking Back and Looking Forward

December 20, 2007 · Print This Article

2007 is fast coming to an end. It’s a time for reflection – both of what has happened in the past and what may happen in the future.

Sahar has a couple of excellent posts about the early days of domaining. He starts out by discussing which domainer started out the earliest. He mentions Chris Hartnett who then proceeds to give one of the most interesting stories I have ever heard about the early days of the domain industry. Well worth a read.

I did some further research and found this list. It appears to be a list of all the domains that were known to exist on December 15, 1987 – a rudimentary web directory, if you will. The most popular extensions were .com and .edu, which is no surprise. Also, several of today’s common extensions – such as .us and .ca – did not have any domains registered.

Sahar, Elliot and the members of DomainState give their predictions about the domain industry for 2008. Well worth the time to read and think about how these trends will impact you and your domain portfolio.

One thing I’m sure about is that there will be more .mobi madness during 2008. Also, I’m not sure what effects the problems in the subprime mortgage lending market and housing market will have on the domain industry. I do worry that this could translate into some problems in the domain market, such as decreasing the liquidity of domains and possibly worse. That being said, I think that of all industries, domaining is one of the most protected from these sort of economic shocks. So, you’re still in the right industry – but it is good to keep this potential risk in the back of your mind.

I wish all my readers a happy and prosperous 2008!

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