Skype Founders Launching Rdio.com, Which They Bought at Sedo
Thursday, June 3rd, 2010
Rdio.com didn’t cost much, but good luck pronouncing it.
Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis are launching a streaming music service at Rdio.com.
First thought: bad domain name. My first assumption was that this is supposed to be like “Radio” but with out the “a”, like a typical web 2.0 spelling. But this Businessweek story explains otherwise: Rdio is pronounced “AR-dee-oh”, a play on the words “radio” and “audio.”
Ouch. Anytime you have to tell someone how to pronounce your name, you’re in trouble. That said, if someone told you to visit Skype.com, you’d probably think skipe.com or scipe.com at first. (The latter is owned by Kevin Ham’s company, but has parking disabled.) And they still did alright with that venture.
The good news for Zennstrom and Friis is they didn’t have to break the bank to buy the domain name. They picked it up at Sedo last year for $5,001.
Still, I would think they have the funds to invest a bit more in their name — saving them the headache of having to tell everyone how to pronounce the name.
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Tags: janus friis, niklas zennstrom, rdio.com, skype
I heard it on the rdio ! LOL.
Couldn’t agree more regarding the pronounceability, not a pretty looking domain name either. Luckily the Skype founders will surely have deep pockets with which they can brand and market the name in order to make it well known enough to avoid confusion over what it is and how to spell it.
For super hiper popular sites domain doesn’t matter so much. So rdio.com will do for them. Maybe it will be even better that radio.com, because it is more brandable.
I guess they didn’t do the ‘radio test’?
But, lets look at some major company names that were not normally part of our vocabulary until they became well known.
Yahoo, Google, Amazon, Enom, Sedo, Xerox, Exxon, eBay, Napster, Tucows, Vonage, Cisco, Wal-Mart, Hertz, etc etc.
Branding strategist always suggest a company name or brand name be unique. Instead of Book Store, Fast computers, Online Store, etc.
@ Coffee Break – true, but many of those names are pronounceable. The ones that would be somewhat challenging are Xerox, Exxon, Tucows, Cisco
Kevin Ham, the man who owns the Internet, and every typo of it!
They also own RD.IO
Look at there site and see the contact us and press mailto
There email are @rd.io
This is one of those domaining situations where luck falls into your lap…via patience.
No way they can get away with developing this without owning ardio.com. (No affiliation, jmho, etc.)
Ugh. This is one of those rare cases where; assuming they didn’t want to spend what Radio.com would cost them (if it could even be bought); they should have gone w/some other extension they could have acquired; i.e. Radio.info, .biz, even .me.
Better that then the ridiculous “RDIO.”
These are not typos, they are brands or word “stylizations”. Any brand can become a household name given plenty of exposure over time.
Acro: These type of domains are brandable if you have good project and budget for promo.
But Rdio.com is somewhat different, you need speech defect to say it fluently
And then competition will popup on readyYO.com
Rdio would end up being pronounced -
rad e o
However, Larry F. and A. would end up being the major beneficiary if RDIO becomes popular.
radio.com owner must be happy to enjoy free traffic