"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 and Charles Stein, "Enjoy ads for 'dot com' till the shakeout," The Boston Globe, October 7, 1999
This word also makes appearances around the world disguised as
dot-com,
dot.com, and
dotcom. The earliest use I can find for any of these variations in the noun version is a table caption in the following citation:

"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, 1994
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