There are presently over 200 domain suffixes.  In early March 2000, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICAAN), voted to issue another 6 to 10 domain suffixes for the United States.  It has not been decided what they will be or when they will be released.  They will likely be released within a year or two of that decision.  In the United States, the top in rank are .com, .net and .org. After these come .to, .cc, .gov and .edu. 

So what do they mean?

The list goes on. Almost every country in the world has a domain suffix assigned to it.

        What effect this will have on the Dotcom boom is yet unclear. That will also have somewhat to do with browser options. It is likely that browsers in the future will come with options where you can set up your own domain suffix preferences. So that when you type in "myname", it could go directly to the .net or .shop first instead of .com.

        UH OH!! I just made a few hundred thousand people very angry with that comment. The Dotcom buyers and businesses who have paid big bucks to get into Dotcom City with the right name won’t like the sounds of that. Dotcom City is a reference to all domains with a suffix of .com. As you read further you will begin to understand my reasoning behind this.

        Relax!! I would expect browsers to be installed with .com as the default setting and you know how long it takes all of us to go in and change our preferences in all of our software. Any browser that didn’t would likely face a boycott from some of the Internet’s strongest users. Considering this, Dotcom is still going to be the biggest city on the Internet.

Why Dotcom?

        Mainly, because most browsers have a default setting so that when you type in myname, the browser will automatically direct you to the http://www.myname.com address.

        Everyone wants to have their business right downtown in the biggest cities.  This is what having a domain in Dotcom is all about. In my view, Dotcom is presently the biggest city on the Internet and also the fastest growing. When your business is in a high traffic area, you are destined to get more visits.

        Bear with me as I use an analogy between a big city and the Internet. When I view the Internet, I view it as the biggest city in the world.

        Since the Internet is a brand new city and growing, I am going to use Los Angeles, California as my example because it is a city with a fairly short but successful history. After I tell this story, you may want to think of your nearest big city what it’s history is. I am giving a general overview and not the technical aspects of everything, so all you techies out there don’t beat me up for this and don’t carry the analogy to the extreme.

        In 1769, The area of Los Angeles was discovered by a group of European explorers. At that time there were only a few thousand natives living in the region. Over the next 79 years, very few migrated and made use of the land in the area. It was too distant from the East Coast where most lived and it was very perilous and expensive to get to California. And if you could get there, how would you survive in an unknown environment?

        In 1849, the gold rush began and a few left their well established businesses and lives to find hidden treasure in California. Some found it, and most did not. Many worked day and night to find just enough gold to keep food on the table. But some did make some good finds and mined them out, creating large mining operations with many employees. Some found good stakes and sold them, who’s predecessors found that it was only a small claim that soon dried up.  Some even peppered a bare mine with gold to make a fraudulent sale.

        In the 1880s, a land boom began in Los Angeles because it was found that oranges could be grown there. Many properties were bought and sold without ever being developed during that time. Many fortunes were won at that time but some bought, stayed, and built a future for themselves.

        By 1900, the population was 102,000, oil had been discovered and oil wells were popping up all over the area. The city was growing by leaps and bounds with new people migrating in every day. Some had spent everything they had just to get there and some had a little nest egg they managed to save to help them get a good start when they got there.

        I'll stop with the story here and resume it in another chapter about the future of the Internet because I believe that we are in that early of a stage on the Internet.

        In my view, we’ve been through the discovery of a new territory and small town. I believe that right now there we are in the gold rush and land grabbing stage by speculators.

        A fair amount of domain trading is yet to come, as domains can be compared to bare land on the Internet.

        I see the Dotcom frenzy that is happening right now. People are buying every name that they can conjure up in hopes that it is a good piece of land. Most are in hopes that they can turn around and sell them immediately with huge profits, and a select few will. Some are going to find that they will have to wait and register their names for a couple of years before they can get what they expect out of them. And many are going to find that they purchased properties that cannot be sold for business purposes at all.

        Some are in the process of developing their domains into websites. These are not speculators, they are straight out business men and women. While some of us try to make a living buying and selling domains, some of us will build upon them, open stores and begin to make a permanent place for ourselves on the Internet.

        I admit that I have bought up my fair share of domains while they are still available (speculating), but I am also aware that I will not be able to sell them for some time to come. So while I wait for the market to firm up and have a demand for good names, I will be developing some of the domains that I have.  

        I, personally, am in hopes that I can create couple of sites that will put me into business on the Internet.  I may have one of those million dollar names, then again I may only have a few good parcels that when built upon will generate a steady income for years to come.

        Most of the domains that I have bought, I can develop myself.  These are the best domains to buy, because if you cannot sell, at least you can build an Internet business with a good location.