You can tell an old-school New Yorker by their area code: If someone still has a phone number that begins with 212, they’ve been holding onto that number for years.
Once, all of New York carried the 212, but around 1992, 718 came onto the scene for the outer boroughs while 212 held strong. Eventually, there were just too much demand for new numbers. Now a new Manhattanite will be slapped with 646 before the rest of their number. It’s the sign of the times.
The same could be said for the “.com” era of domain names. At the beginning of the Internet, that domain moniker was the only real game in town. Soon .net and .org encroached on the realm in order for even more businesses to set up shop. It was still relatively easy to find a decent domain name. [Read more…]