Time Capsule: MP3.com Bought for $1,000 for 10,000 Visitors a Day
Thursday, February 25th, 2010
Entrepreneur paid $1000 for MP3.com domain name, got 10,000 unique visitors in the first day.
For an interesting domain name story, check out TWiST #42 with Michael Robertson, founder of what became MP3.com.
In minutes 54:00 to 58:00 of the show, Robertson discusses how he bought the domain name MP3.com for $1,000 back in 1997. The owner of the domain had registered it because his Internic handle was ‘MP3′, and he didn’t know anything about what an MP3 was. But Robertson still thought the $1,000 was a risk, and his wife wasn’t happy.
Robertson had been marketing file search engines web site for a while with limited results, but acquiring the domain name MP3.com changed everything.
“I turn it [the domain] on,” Robertson explains. “The first day, 10,000 unique visitors. All I did was turn it on.”
That’s the beauty of direct navigation. Robertson had been marketing his web site like crazy with limited results. Then he spends $1,000 for a domain name, doesn’t publicize it at all, and gets 10,000 uniques on the first day.
It’s well worth listening to his story — just click play below and the video will start at 54 minutes.
[Hat tip Bret Fausett @bretfausett].
Further Reading:
Just a little side note about coding youtube videos to start at a certain time…
Find the s=1 in two places in the embed code.
Change to s=54 in both places and video will start from whatever minute you specify.
Same thing happened with me with another domain from 98 to 2002.
I had almost sold it for $5k a couple of months earlier and then the most popular music download/transfer program to ever be hit the world took off like crazy. From 20 uniques a day to almost 8,000 a day because of the domain I owned was so similar.
I made a fortune that has lasted me to this day.
Thanks Rob. I tried that and it didn’t seem to work for some reason.
This is classic.
Sorry about that.
This will work.
1. Find this part in the embed code in two places:
feature=player_embedded&fs=1″>
and change to:
feature=player_embedded&fs=1start=3240″>
s=1 start at 1 second. The start=3240 means start at 3240 seconds which is 54 minutes.
Be sure to get the “> in the right place at the end.
Be sure to insert the start=3240 in two places in the code.
Now the video will start where you want it.
Sorry to be off topic but I come across this a lot so it’s a neat feature to know.
Awesome, Rob. And I thought you were only good for selling domains
Just one quick note, turns you you need one more & in the code b/t fs=1 and start=3240
I expect Robertson didn’t mention he was also found to be a typosquatter in some early WIPO judgments, pulling traffic to MP3.com by registering domains such as web-crawler.com and win-zip.com.
He truly was a pioneer.
Additionally, around the 2:04 mark they talk about the Sex.com domain auction and its value.
MP3.com was my lobbying client in the late 90s. That was a wild ride — but nothing compared to representing Kazaa against Hollywood for nearly 5 years. Even the nastiest domain name issue is a cakewalk compared to those fire fights.
Thanks for sharing this interesting domain history. I hope I were into domaining business in 1997 or earlier.
@ Kevin – we’ll cut him some slack. It was the 90s.