Domain names are incredibly important to individuals and businesses as they are the real estate of the 21st century. Once you purchase a name, you hold the deed forever.

The price of an individual domain name depends on who you ask. Verisign is the company that controls all of the dot coms, and sets their wholesale price. After that, it’s up to the individual registrars as to how much of a mark-up they want. GoDaddy.com is currently the most popular registrar in the United States. Their current base price for a .com is $12.99 per year.

Power.com announced today that they will be offering for sale “Premium” e-mail accounts for sale @Power.com. They promise that you will “Own your @Power.com email for life. Members with accounts in good standing can keep them, give them to a child or even sell them on the open market. They are yours to do with as you please.”

June was a pretty good month for domain name sales. There were three six figure deals to go along with countless five figure sales. The top transactions included some speculative investments, some URL shorteners, some bargains and some reaches. Here are some of the top June domain sales from around the world, with a little bit of research on who the buyer is, and what their plans might be.

Today may be the most important day in the history of the internet. The first ever mass batch of new generic top level domains (gTLDs) and their respective applicants were revealed in London. Several of the biggest names in commerce laid claim to extensions they found beneficial to their brand, or they found to possess a high resale or utility value. This is where things get interesting.

The Sedo.com .Me week-long auction ended today with over $150,000 in sales. Here is a list of all of the domains that sold, and their final selling price. Although everyone would like to think they got a bargain for a particular domain, time will show that there were a fair number of both reaches and steals. It will be interesting to see how many of these premium names went to end-users (people who will build a website on them) and how many went to investors.

Want a chance to own a premium one word domain name, but can’t afford a .com? The world’s largest domain name sales marketplace, Sedo, kicked off a week long auction today for some of the most amazing dot me (.me) domains in existence! .Me is the fastest selling top level domain (TLD) in history. Rick Schwartz, investor, entrepreneur and consensus King of the domain industry, believes that there are currently only three TLD’s worth investing in: dot com, dot tv and dot me. Rick would certainly know, he was part of a group of investors that sold the domain ‘Meet.Me’ for $450,000 in late 2011.

As you may or may not be aware, ICANN the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has opted to open the floodgates, and expand the number of potential web addresses available to us online. While mainstays such as .com, .net, and .org will not be directly affected, we’re about to be introduced to a whole new world of domain names. You’ve probably already seen some new TLD’s or top level domains (the word or letters to the right of the dot) such as .Biz, .TV, .XXX and .Me. If you are still unfamiliar with the basics, you can learn a bit about them here. The norm is about to change, prepare to be subjected to hundreds and potentially thousands of new gTLD’s starting within a year.

In a shining example of the importance of an exact keyword domain name for a business, it has been confirmed that the domain name PrivateJet.com has been sold for just over $30 Million USD. PrivateJet.com is one of the most premium pieces of online real estate around; not only is a private jet one of the most expensive and luxurious things you can own, there are over 300,000 Google searches for that term per month.

With the world moving to the internet via computer, TV, or phone, domain names are as becoming more important than ever. Once you own a domain name, all you must do is pay for its renewal each year, and you’ll own it forever. Domain names that receive a lot of traffic are similar to a popular mall or tourist destination; they get access to a lot of visitors, and their wallets as well.

Early-adopters known as domain investors or ‘domainers’ have made a living off of owning premium domain names. Premium generic terms such as credit, jobs, and law reign supreme. Originally based on the core of .com, .org, and .net, the internet is rapidly expanding, creating many more opportunities to own a corner of the web.

One third of the people on our planet are now connected to the internet; that’s over two billion people worldwide. The internet has become a place where you can learn, do, watch, buy or sell anything you can ever imagine. The internet has all but eliminated the need for us to leave our house. We can get entertainment, human interaction, food, clothing, grooms and brides all from the comfort of our chair. This incredible boom has made the importance of owning your own personal domain name vital, as it is the hub for which you are known in the online world. Here’s some of the key reasons why: