The market for these unique addresses would not heat up for years, but this click heard 'round the world would eventually provide just about anyone a place in cyberspace to call their own.
Owning your own domain is nothing to brag about anymore, while trying to get one that resembles your name or something personally meaningful has become an exercise in futility. But a quarter of a century ago, when Symbolics took the first step, there was barely an internet -- it was years before the world wide web and graphical web browsers.
In those early days, even before AOL, the internet was a noncommercial medium that only eggheads and propellerheads used. It was more of a military and academic tool than today's vast playground, time suck and, for some, golden goose now central to everyone's waking moments.
Back in 1985, nobody thought to register, say, sex.com, the most expensive domain ever. It was bought from Network Solutions in 1994 and changed hands in 2006 for a reputed $14 million, and it goes on the auction block later this week to the highest bidder, starting at $1 million.
The entire cybersquatting era was a decade away, as was the rush to acquire a personal domain to customize and control e-mail and to make blogs memorable in name, if not in content.
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