Today, the Internet is comprised of over 16 million top-level domains, over 50 million websites, over 70 million users and over 1 billion individual pages of information. The Internet is growing so fast that these are only estimates, these numbers could actually be much higher.

        The Internet has multiplied by nearly 1,000 times the size and speed that it was just 10 years ago. Many businesses are buying and selling many things on-line now. Confidence in credit card transactions is very high, despite the occasional hacker group that makes headlines from time to time.

        In the past 10 years, there have been many instances of hackers disrupting and breaking into systems, but few have resulted in any great loss. Hackers on the Internet are basically just vandals that spray paint on the side of a business. Some are actually very bright young computer whizzes and would do much better to sign on with a new company just starting out. Their future there could be very promising because many companies are hiring young people who are able to create websites straight out of high school with little or no college education.

        The Internet is the future for many businesses, especially retail and service businesses.

        At present new technologies are springing up to provide faster audio and video to be incorporated into websites.  Those who do not make use of these will find themselves left behind the pack very soon.

        Most of the premium domain names have been bought up, though there are still many left for the less high-tech and less popular industries.  Almost all of the one-word English names in .com are taken, but many are still remaining in other languages. And all of the one, two and three character domains in .com, net and org have been gone for some time now.

        Even though most of the domains have been bought, you can still acquire many of them on the aftermarket.  That is, you can buy them from those who grabbed them up in bunches hoping to make great profits.  Many who have bought their domain names have realized that they are not worth as much as they thought in the beginning.  You might have been able to buy them for $15-75 each as the original purchaser, but today you may be able to buy that name you want for just $100 to $500 while the market is still soft.  We will be covering this in a later chapter.

        And yet, the internet is still young. It has a long way to go until it has fully matured. Those that get in now and do it right will be the business leaders of tomorrow.  Today is the day to get in!!