Article: The Sky’s The Limit? Not Anymore…
By: Keith White, Sedo.com Customer Relations Representative
(Some paragraphs not directly related to the topic, were omitted for the sake of conciseness and brevity.)
Picture this: the moon's been colonized, and the land there is seemingly limitless. Countless thousands of people have migrated from Earth and are speculating and investing in property at a staggering rate. But what is property on the moon worth? Who regulates the acquisition and marketing of this new land? The same questions could be and have been asked of the domain aftermarket. When real estate began, nobody would’ve given the cyberspace world much thought, but when the internet became a reality, it presented a new era for an old practice.
In the United States, the real estate industry was inching its way into existence by the early 1800s. The government gave away millions of acres of land for a fee of $1.25 USD per acre which was considered a hefty sum in those days. However, many couldn't afford the steep land costs, and the Free Soil Movement, which lobbied for a different method of distributing the same land, soon began. In 1862, the Homestead act was passed and provided free land with the expectation that settlers would improve it over time. This practice, and variations of it, continued until late in the 19th Century. All in all, the government gave away roughly 360 million acres of land. That initial land rush sparked the beginning of the real estate industry as we have come to know it. Although there have been many advancements and changes along the way, the industry has remained fundamentally unchanged. Anyone familiar with the history of the real estate industry should notice a close resemblance to the domain secondary market.
Flash forward almost 200 years later (March 15, 1985, to be exact) and SYMBOLICS.COM was one of the first – and now oldest – .COM domains registered, initiating the internet land-rush in which the government had given out domain names for free. (For a complete list of the 100 first .COMs registered back in the 1980s, see the table at the bottom of this page.) Eventually, there was a push for regulation within the market. Consequently, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) was created by the US Department of Commerce to be the regulatory body for domains, and with it, the system of registrars and registries domainers have become quite familiar with. Now, there are registration fees for owning virtual land, and a full-fledge internet real estate industry to boot. Sound familiar?
Everyone knows a bustling intersection is a prime location for building a storefront. A busy street will garner extra business, even from those who weren’t intending to visit. While not exact in comparison, a recognizable extension combined with a memorable or generic name, can provide the same kind of traffic for an internet business. However, should marketing power be introduced, a domain name, like a less-busy street corner, can become a real estate power-house. Like the land that was given away by the government hundreds of years ago, [virtual property, or domain names, have become] highly-desired [and valuable] as well.
