Recognise Symbolics.com? Probably not. But 25 years ago this week the Massachusetts computer maker played a bit role in history - it was the first company to register a .com address on what would eventually become known as the World Wide Web.

Only five companies would join Symbolics.com in 1985 in registering their dotcom names with DARPA, the Pentagon technology research agency which was behind the precursor to the internet.

Ten years later there were 120,000 dotcoms and "today we have close to 85 million dotcom names registered," said Mark McLaughlin president and chief executive of VeriSign, the company which runs the dotcom infrastructure.

"In some ways (dotcom's) become somewhat of a proxy for the internet," Mr McLaughlin told a gathering of internet policymakers and leaders here to celebrate the 25th birthday of dotcom.

"Dotcom's becomes part of our lexicon, our way of life, how we communicate, how we interact with each other, how we do business online," Mr McLaughlin said. "It's a platform for business, entertainment, sports, finance, culture and how we connect with people."

Robert Atkinson, president of the Washington-based Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, said none of this was envisioned when Symbolics.com and the others were registered as the first dotcoms.