Dot-com’s disrupt, help bring in money
TEXT OF STORY
Steve Chiotakis: We’d like to take a moment to wish dot-com a happy birthday. Twenty five years ago today, the first-ever dot-com address — Symbolics.com — went live. Until then, there had just been dot-edu, dot-gov and dot-org. So what happened when the dot-coms joined the party? Brett Neely has more.
Brett Neely: Without the 80 million dot-coms we have today, we’d be a lot poorer, says Robert Atkinson.
Robert ATKINSON: There’s $1.5 trillion more of output across the globe every year because of the commercial Internet.
Atkinson runs the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation in Washington. It released a study today on the Internet’s economic impact. When you think “Internet,” Google or Facebook may come to mind. But Atkinson says the Web has had a much wider effect…
ATKINSON: In providing increased consumer choice, letting companies reach much bigger and more global markets.
That’s created millions of jobs, but at a cost. The Web has disrupted business models from travel agencies to newspapers. Atkinson says expect more disruption.
ATKINSON: We’re not at a place where the technology and its application are what would be considered mature.
He thinks dot-com’s next 25 years will be as unpredictable as its first 25.
In Washington, I’m Brett Neely for Marketplace.
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