Via Nashua Telegraph:
There’s nothing like an anecdote to show how much the online world has changed in the 21 years – that’s right, 21 years! – since Litchfield’s Mark Mallett first registered MV.com as a domain. So here goes:
“Back then, there wasn’t any way to find out who owned a domain, there wasn’t whois. So BBN published a book of domain owners that listed every single dot.com owner in existence, and it mailed a copy to every domain owner!” Mallett said, after being prodded for a little online nostalgia. “If you wanted to do a whois search, you looked it up in the book!”
OK, that anecdote may lack punch for younger folks who’ve never heard of “BBN” or “whois” – not to mention members of the Twitter Generation a little unsure about “book” – but it sure is telling.
As far as I can tell, 107 million different domains exist at the moment, with 150,000 new ones cropping up in the past day or so, and about 100,000 disappearing. Try putting that in a book!
More domain history here, here, and coincidently, a related history story today on Rick’s blog.
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