‘Dot Com’ turns 30

Thirty years ago this innovation was used for the first time and everything changed.

A belated Happy 30th Birthday to the very first dot com!

If it wasn't for .com, you wouldn't be reading this story on NJ1015.com.

Symbolics, a now defunct Massachusetts computer company registered the first .com domain on March 15, 1985.  Symbolics originated the concept of computer workstations. They even got a mention in the movie "Jurassic Park".

The .com idea didn't exactly takeoff quickly. During the first two years only 100 domains were established. Today, there's a dot com registered every second.

Today, nearly three billion people are online around the world.  Domains generate more than 300 billion dollars a year in U.S. e-commerce.  Worldwide internet transactions total more than 1.3 trillion dollars.

Thirty years, three billion people, $1.3 trillion and it's almost all because of three little words.

In addition to .com we have .net, .gov, and .edu.  According to GoDaddy.com, in the not too distant future, over a thousand new domains will be rolling out including .food, .video, .goo, .rocks and many more.

So little did they know in 1985, .com would give a whole new meaning to the phrase "surf's up".