I wonder what the story is behind nordu.net being the first registered domain name (I'm assuming it's the same nordu.net that exists today; I don't actually know although the dates seem to match up.) It is associated with research networks but it still seems a bit odd that they registered before BBN, Berkeley, and organizations like those.
Oldest domains in the .com, .net, and .org TLDs
51–60 of 141 posts
Re: Oldest domains in the .com, .net, and .org TLDs
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nobody saw a value in domain names. People didn't think we'd run out of domains. People didn't think that the internet would become mainstream, or that it would continue to exist in that form for a long time.
For that matter, /8 blocks were given out, if not quite like candy, certainly with considerable abandon. A fair number of the early universities and companies who registered ended up with complete /8 blocks all to themselves. [EDIT: Duh. Of course, it was actually Class A blocks at the time.]
Just to nitpick, this was before CIDR, so you're probably referring to Class A blocks, of which there were only 125 (the first octet being 1-9,11-126).
Re: Oldest domains in the .com, .net, and .org TLDs
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe they were done by email or online form (edited to be more accurate), but were all verified by a human and entered into the database manually. So you had to wait for the processing run to get your domain in, which was at the whims of the person who had to process them.
>...web form... Note that this actually precedes the web by several years
Good point, I should have been more specific and said gopher form, but I didn't want to confuse the youngins. :)
Re: Oldest domains in the .com, .net, and .org TLDs
#54That's really interesting data! I threw up a quick viz of the data: https://public.tableau.com/profile/braxtone7168#!/vizhome/Ea...
Re: Oldest domains in the .com, .net, and .org TLDs
#55The oldest domain is still going strong http://nordu.net NORDUnet is a collaboration between the National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) of the five Nordic countries; Denmark (DeIC), Iceland (RHnet), Norway (UNINETT), Sweden (SUNET), and Finland (Funet). The Nordic region (five countries and three autonomous areas) has a population of 25 million, 9 official languages, and a strong tradition of collaboration.…
.net (and .org) used to have more cachet, interesting how these things evolve.
.net defiantly as it was originally only for players in the industry .org was always more open.
Re: Oldest domains in the .com, .net, and .org TLDs
#56Lots of business and org names are acronyms, but it really stands out to me how most of the early ones are short. I guess in the age of excessively-long UUCP addresses, it was immediately obvious that short domain names would be preferable to longer ones.
The two letter domain names really stuck out to me. I had a boss ask me back in the early 2000's to register a two letter domain and I was surprised to find that Network Solutions would no longer do that. I didn't spend much time on it so maybe another registrar would but as far as I can remember two letter domains just weren't an option at the point. I guess TI, GE and HP were smart to grab them when they could!
Ironically, from what I've come to expect comparing popular websites to phishing websites, I have a knee-jerk worried reaction when I see a URL that isn't 'centre-heavy'.
Re: Oldest domains in the .com, .net, and .org TLDs
#57Top 20: symbolics.com - Still exists bbn.com - Redirects to raytheon.com think.com - Dead mcc.com - Redirects to thecryptogenius.com (sometimes, not sure what's going on with it) dec.com - Redirects to paulkocher.com northrop.com - Dead xerox.com - Alive, Xerox website sri.com - Alive hp.com - Alive, HP website bellcore.com - Dead ibm.com - Alive, IBM website sun.com - Alive, sun website (oracle.com) intel.com - Aliv…
Think.com was owned by Oracle for a long time.
I always forget that dashes are allowed in domain names.
Re: Oldest domains in the .com, .net, and .org TLDs
#58Re: Oldest domains in the .com, .net, and .org TLDs
#59Top 20: symbolics.com - Still exists bbn.com - Redirects to raytheon.com think.com - Dead mcc.com - Redirects to thecryptogenius.com (sometimes, not sure what's going on with it) dec.com - Redirects to paulkocher.com northrop.com - Dead xerox.com - Alive, Xerox website sri.com - Alive hp.com - Alive, HP website bellcore.com - Dead ibm.com - Alive, IBM website sun.com - Alive, sun website (oracle.com) intel.com - Aliv…
northrop.com should’ve been kept and redirected to http://northropgrumman.com
It doesn't surprise me that Northrop were early into domain registration, they always were an unconventional-thinking company.
Nor does it surprise me that the post-merger leadership abandoned the domain name. I think that says a lot about their attitude ( acquire, grow, acquire )
Re: Oldest domains in the .com, .net, and .org TLDs
#60Top 20: symbolics.com - Still exists bbn.com - Redirects to raytheon.com think.com - Dead mcc.com - Redirects to thecryptogenius.com (sometimes, not sure what's going on with it) dec.com - Redirects to paulkocher.com northrop.com - Dead xerox.com - Alive, Xerox website sri.com - Alive hp.com - Alive, HP website bellcore.com - Dead ibm.com - Alive, IBM website sun.com - Alive, sun website (oracle.com) intel.com - Aliv…
Funny that the 20th domain ever registered had a hyphen in it (bell-atl.com). They probably thought it would be easier to read than bellatl.com or bellatlantic.com
Maybe they saw domains as variables: don't use more than 8 characters ?