Dot-com
Dot-com describes Internet websites ending with the domain suffix .com. Its widespread use was popularized in 1995 during the dot-com boom when companies and individuals began registering large numbers of .com domains on the Internet.
Between 1995 and 2001, the Internet experienced what is now called the dot-com bubble. During the dot-com bubble, dot-com companies were making enormous amounts of money from stocks and investments until the bubble began to burst in 2000, taking companies with it.
Since the dot-com bust, the Internet and companies that survived have fully recovered. Many people believe that with so many new Internet companies going public and others being sold for billions of dollars, we may be in another bubble.
What helped start the dot-com boom?
When the NSFNET (National Science Foundation Network) shut down, the government stopped running the Internet, which allowed more commercial companies to run websites and services.