An Example of Buying Ahead of the Curve: HTML5.com

Old domain is suddenly relevant.

There’s been a bit of buzz lately regarding the domain name HTML5.com, which was redirected to a page at Apple.com regarding HTML5. A quick look at the whois shows that Apple did not buy the domain name, but it recently came out of privacy with a fresh owner’s name. [Update: someone else bought the domain on GoDaddy for $5500 in December.]

Is HTML5.com worth a lot of money? It’s certainly not chump change. That’s why an archive of the site from 1999 (thanks Reddit) is entertaining:

OK, so I might have just spent good money on a name that’ll mean nothing, ‘cos XML might take over, but it’s worth the gamble

This is a perfect example of buying ahead of the curve. Every day fresh terms enter the fringe lexicon and some of them later go mainstream. For example, the term “blog” wasn’t around during the original 1990s domain name landrush. There are plenty other examples of recently invented terms that may well be worth a lot as a domain name 10 years from now.

(I can’t figure out the original source that spotted that HTML5.com was now redirecting to Apple. If you know, let me know so I can link to it.)