MP3.com Domain Is for Sale. Got $1,000,000?
Back in the late 90s when we were only beginning to understand the power of the Internet when it came to music, Michael Robertson registered the domain MP3.com. He got it cheap, mainly because few people knew what an “mp3” was.
For a while, MP3.com looked like it was going to be the Internet site that shook up the music industry when it came to distribution and access to digital files. But then Robertson was sued up the ying-yang by an industry who would have none of this new technology interferring their business model of selling overpriced pieces of plastic to consumers.
Eventually, he unloaded the site and moved on to other projects. But past week, he was offered an opportunity to buy it back. Here’s his story from Hypebot:
I recently got a call from the owner of this iconic domain name asking if I was interested in buying the MP3.com domain name. MP3.com was the digital music pioneer I founded which offered free MP3 downloads of initially unsigned bands, but eventually the biggest names in music.
It also sold the first MP3 player in the US, built the first cloud locker with other advances which made it the largest digital music company in the world at the time. It went public on NASDAQ in 1999 and eventually sold to Vivendi/Universal for about $400 million. Vivendi sold the domain name to CNET, which was then purchased by the media conglomerate CBS who called me and told me of a pending auction of their domain names.
While MP3.com used to be a technology and industry leader, it has now withered to irrelevance under a series of new owners. Presumably since I was the founder and CEO of the original MP3.com, CBS called me asking if I would buy it to preempt an auction. They suggested they believed it was worth multiple millions of dollars.
There’s no denying it’s a memorable and historic domain name. Many people think all it takes for business success is to secure a desirable domain name. They’re wrong. Creating a viable business requires more than just a domain name. It’s not a shortcut to success. In fact, the cost of digital real estate may hurt your chances of success by siphoning money away from making an investment in the core service. Buying an expensive domain name is like renting a location on Rodeo Drive or Times Square. Plenty of businesses fail after renting a desirable location.
So how much? And is it even worth it? Keep reading.
