dot com
n. A company that runs its business on and derives its revenues from the Internet.
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1999
You can't turn on the television, listen to the radio, or drive down the highway without being bombarded by advertisements for "dot com" companies.
—Steven Syre & Charles Stein, “Enjoy ads for 'dot com' till the shakeout,” The Boston Globe, October 07, 1999
1999
New Jersey is home base for at least a dozen Internet firms whose names end with dot com. Since the company name is also the Internet address, consumers have a self-evident way to locate dot coms online.
—Beth Fitzgerald, “Names outlast stocks of Internet firms,” The Star-Ledger (Newark, New Jersey), May 28, 1999
1994 (earliest)
According to an analysis of 14,726 companies registered with Internet Info of Falls Church, Virginia, as of April 1994, the Big Apple led the country in commercial firms connected to the Internet. If you take the California cities of San Jose, San Francisco, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale and Palo Alto together, however, Silicon Valley leads by a longshot.

Where Are the dot.COMs?

Registered City / State Companies
1 New York NY 291
2 San Jose CA 260
3 San Francisco CA 218
4 Boulder CO 194
5 Santa Clara CA 175
6 Cambridge MA 59
7 Sunnyvale CA 157
8 Palo Alto CA 155
9 San Diego CA 154
10 Mountain View CA 143
—“Who's Wired — How U.S. Cities Stack Up,” Industries In Transition, July 01, 1994
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