My Dot Com Bubble Theory
In the mid 90’s domains were more expensive than today, but there was optimism in the air, and many companies were ready to take the leap. These companies saw the future and were ready to grab the bull by the horns. The concept was very simple to understand, and the risk seemed minimal. The internet was to be a tool to cut out the middle man, allowing manufacturers and large distributors to bypass the overhead associated with retail stores and affiliates. These companies in my opinion had great vision, and saw what needed to be done, yet attempted to dive in head first without testing the waters. By 2001 many of these companies had bought thousands of domain names, collectively invested millions into development of their websites, and were ready for the visitors to just start pouring into their websites. But as we all know, that did not happen, and the Dot Com Bubble Supposedly burst.
These companies all had the right idea, but acted prematurely. Purchasing great domains, that would be commonly typed into a browser (keyword domains), was the best move that any of these companies could have made, but developing the websites for these domains, and trying to market them to the 10-15% of the population that had computers at the time, was stretching it too far.
Now let’s fast forward to modern day, and understand why these companies acted prematurely and how these same actions would have had different results today.
It is estimated that 66.5 % of North America’s population, 47.4 % of Oceania/Australia’s population, and 31.6 % of Europe’s population now have access to the internet in 2005 (these Internet Usage and Population Statistics were updated on February 3, 2005). As you can see this is a large difference from the percentage of users in the mid and late 90’s. With more people searching and browsing the internet daily, the chances of your website being seen are much more likely, or the chances of someone seeing your commercial on television, and then surfing to the site to buy your product are higher. With limited access in the past this was not possible. Many companies still fear taking a chance on the internet, but need to understand that the infancy stage is over, and now is the time to claim your presence on the net. There are a few venture capital companies that see the light and are taking the initiative, but many are being left in the cold, and will have a very rough time catching up.
Tomorrow’s article will focus on the importance of choosing the right domain to brand, choosing alternative domains to feed traffic to your site, and why you should start doing this now.
