MP3.com
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Type of site
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Music |
|---|---|
| Owner | CBS Interactive |
| Created by | Michael Robertson |
| Website | mp3.com |
| Alexa rank |
 36,107 (April 2014[update]) |
| Commercial | Yes |
| Registration | Optional |
| Launched | December 17, 1997 |
MP3.com is a web site operated by CNET Networks providing information about digital music and artists, songs, services, community, and technologies. It is better known for its original incarnation, as a legal, free music-sharing service, popular with independent musicians for promoting their work. It was named after the popular music file format, MP3. It was shut down on December 2, 2003 by CNET, which, after purchasing the domain name (but not MP3.com's technology or music assets), established the current MP3.com site.
MP3.com was co-founded in December 1997 by Michael Robertson and Greg Flores, as part of Z Company. Z Company ran a variety of websites: filez.com, websitez.com, and sharepaper.com, purchased from Lars Matthiassen.
The idea to purchase the MP3.com domain arose when Flores was monitoring search traffic on filez.com, a search site whose first incarnation provided an easy to use graphical interface for searching for various types of files including software, graphics, video and audio. The first version of files utilized an existing free search engine developed by graduate students (led by Tor Egge, who later founded Fast Search and Transfer based on this search engine) at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Flores noticed in his review of the search logs that people were searching for 'mp3'.
Robertson told Flores to search for a site that was working with legitimate MP3 information and see if that company would be interested in working with them. Robertson e-mailed the then-owner of MP3.com, Martin Paul, to purchase the URL. The business plan was to use MP3.com to drive more search queries to Filez.com, the source of most of the company revenue at the time. Filez.com's free search results contained pay-for-placement click-through results. MP3.com received over 18,000 unique users in the first 24 hours of making the URL live, and Flores received his first advertising purchase call within 18 hours of launch. The resulting advertising purchase and traffic caused the team to re-direct focus to MP3.com.
In 1998, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) refused to run an ad that MP3.com had purchased for inclusion in NARAS's Grammy Magazine. The ad said "What the whole world listens to…Future Grammy winners found here". NARAS's reason for pulling the ad was "the limited number of advertising positions available in the magazine in conjunction with the somewhat controversial nature of your product."
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