I originally posted the following to a What If? question Rick Schwartz posed on his blog. Owen Frager excerpted a quote, mentioned my interview in Forbes and placed it on his blog so I thought the whole piece should be here now since I am writing regularly on the web again.
In 1996 I was at a conference in Tampa, FL where Denis Waitley suggested to the 200 people in the audience that they should each buy their own name.com because “they” were only making one of them. His recommendation made sense.
I had little idea what the internet was and didn’t even know how to register a domain so I didn’t.
A year or so later, I figured out how to register a domain but still didn’t see the bigger picture.
My name.com was available and because I thought it was unique, I assumed it would always be available.
After Web 1.0 peaked and began heading toward its trough in early 2000, I decided it was time to enter the internet business.
I went to register my name.com and low and behold a Dr. Tim Cohn had registered TimCohn.com for the next ten years.
If a single individual can alter the market’s identification and perception of who that individual is simply by owning their name.com imagine the implications it has where millions even billions of dollars are at stake.
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