Tom Galvin- The .com domain turns 25 today. Our baby is growing up. It seems like just yesterday that .com was a gangly teenager causing all types of trouble. Remember Webvan? That was awkward. And, of course, for a while it had its wild side. It took some doing to finally get rid of that whitehouse.com site. Ugh.
But today, it's all grown up and serious. In fact, so many people rely upon it sometimes it seems it won't be able to keep up. Night and day, just work, work, work. And I'm afraid people are stating to take it for granted. But it never seems to bother it, just goes about its work, all 84 million of them.
But at least it gets to hang out with some powerful people. I heard President Clinton is stopping by tomorrow to wish it a Happy Birthday in Washington. .Com was a mere 7-year-old when President Clinton came to town. How times have changed. Back then, you could have a piece of .com for a song. Why didn't I think to grab facebook.com when I had the chance? Or Google.com, such an obvious name (not).
Oh well, hindsight is 20/20. Nowadays I feel like I see com wherever I am. I was on the road the other day behind the most beat-up old clunker of a pick-up I ever saw. Yet right there on the back was a big old sign promoting the trucker's website. I sometimes worry if .net and .org get jealous. Never mind, .biz. All that attention and all that glory. But those other domains are kinda cute, in their own way.
I also wonder what .com will look like at 35 or even 45. Then I remember that I turn 45 this year and that's not pretty, so I try not to dwell on that. Maybe by 45 it will be a little paunchy and grey, and will have to talk off its glasses to see up close. Or maybe it will stay fit because it's always working out, like 53 billion DNS queries a day. That's a lot of crunches, it's in better shape than me, for sure.
Hopefully it will stick around a while, since a day without .com would be like, well, a day without the Internet. Happy Birthday old friend, but no, don't take the day off to celebrate.
