Domain Name Evolution

I was thinking about domain names tonight, and I wanted to write this down. I would also like your feedback and take on this.

198x – 1996 In the begining, domain names pretty much matched the company.

Example: ibm.com, microsoft.com, sun.com, cisco.com, apple.com, netscape.com, etc. In fact, most ISPs had a .net name (sprint.net, uunet.net, bbn.net)

1995 – 1998 Once netscape launched, the first big change occurred and the domain land rush occurred. Oddball, but valid dictionary names started to appear.

Example: yahoo.com, isn.com, pets.com, business.com, search.com, goto.com, x.com

1998 – Now Then we had invented names or obscure names. The key was that they were easy or catchy to remember and spell.

Example: quokka.com, ebay.com, napster.com, google.com

Then there was the whole foolish attempt to start up alternate TLDs. (.biz, .info, .us, etc)

There were also fads. I think these are the most interesting. For example, there was a whole: [ie].com – (Shout out to Alan Braverman, the guy who chose egroups.com) my.com era *topia.com era (possible mix with *opolis.com) *er.com ?? *ster.com era (napster, friendster, etc.) *ornot.com era (the best being AMIbiosOrnot.com) swapping (cks with ‘x’ or s with ‘z’) – (netflix.com, orbitz.com) *pop.com – infopop.com *space.com – infospace.com