Research
Interviews, books, articles, blogs, documentaries, podcasts, specs etc. form the foundation of dot com et al.
If you have domain stories, opinions, resources, or even questions to share, email hello@dotcom.press!
Interviews
I'm interviewing lots of people for the book, so I may publish a list of who all I interviewed (with permission, of course).
Books1
- The Domain Game: How People Get Rich From Internet Domain Names, David Kesmodel
- Weaving the Web: The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee
- How the Internet Happened: From Netscape to the iPhone, Brian McCullough
- How DNS Works, Julia Evans
Technical specs, documentation
Documentaries
Podcasts
- The Taliban Stole My Domain, syntax.fm
- Where to Register a Domain, syntax.fm
- Buying and Selling Domain Names, syntax.fm
- Domain Management, syntax.fm
- The Domain Name Game, syntax.fm
- The TLD Game, syntax.fm
- Real domain sales results in 2025 - DNW Podcast 547
- This year's top domain sales (so far) - DNW Podcast 546
- AI is changing the domain business - DNW Podcast 545
- Domain investing on a small budget - DNW podcast 544
Articles, blog posts
- The Disappearance of an Internet Domain, Gareth Edwards
- Buying a domain for $85K, Justin Duke
- Domain second thoughts, Tom MacWright
- Billions Registered, Josh Quittner
- The Perils of an .xyz Domain, Gordon Hempton
- How I Got the Chess.com Domain Name, Erik Allebest
- Google is shuttering its URL shortening service, goo.gl
- Amazon is celebrating its 25th birthday. Here's how the e-commerce giant got its name.
- Battle of the Domain Investors - $500, 1 Year, Who Wins?
- HOST.TXT (Naming Computers)
- How does one connect a country to the internet?
- How I Got the Chess.com Domain Name
- How To Buy And Sell Domain Names
- How to Secure a Premium Domain - (Escrow, Brokers & Creative Tactics That Actually Work)
- ICANN’s Accountability and Transparency - A Retrospective on the IANA Transition
- IO domain names aren’t going away
- List of most expensive domain names
- Maybe Friend wasn’t crazy for spending $1.8M on a domain after all
- Removal of the .YU domain formerly representing Yugoslavia
- The ‘queer.af’ Mastodon instance disappeared because of the Taliban
- The creator of WordPress on why .blog was worth $19 million
- The Perils of an .xyz Domain
- The Story of bob.com
- The Unfinished Business of a Yugoslav Internet
- Yugoslavia's Digital Twin
Reddit threads, forums, etc.
Publishing resources
I also read and listened to a stack of resources on publishing. If you are a first time author, Jane Friedman's book is the place to start.
- The Business of Being a Writer, Jane Friedman
- Crafting "Crafting Interpreters", Bob Nystrom
- 640 Pages in 15 Months, Bob Nystrom
- How My Book Launch Went, Bob Nystrom
- Zero to 353 Pages: Bringing My Web Book to Print and E-book, Bob Nystrom
- The publishing world is changing. Jane Friedman tells us how, Grammar Girl
- Blog Your Way to a Book Deal of Bestseller with Jane Friedman, Published
- Be A Non-Fiction Author with Jane Friedman, UFJ Podcast
- Is Print-on-Demand a Class Issue? with Jane Friedman, A People's Guide to Publishing
- Jane Friedman: The Work of a Writer-Entrepreneur, Simply Write
- Jane Friedman — The Publishing Industry is Changing
- How successful self-publishers share their excerpts
The fine print
(1) Books include Bookshop.org affiliate links, so if you buy one I'll earn a 10% commission on the profit (but regardless of my affiliation, Bookshop.org is a terrific Amazon alternative and way to support independent bookstores).