What is Digg?Sponsored by HowLifeWorks
How Private Online Shopping Clubs Work view!
howlifeworks.com - How to become a member and get discounts of up to 80% on must-have luxury goods
98 Comments
- markusagrippa, on 10/12/2007, -0/+35I worked for MP3.com from pre-IPO until it closed down. The furniture we sold at auction was bought for more than we paid for it, and a lot of the hardware was sold for 75%-125% of the value we bought it for.
MP3.com died not because our business model sucked - on the contrary, we had a ridiculously awesome business model. We had over 30 million registered users in 2000, and a single email newsletter was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in ad revenue. MP3.com died because we decided to take on the RIAA with our beam-it service and lost.
After we lost that case and got bought by Universal, the MP3.com tech team went on to create Pressplay, which was later bought by Roxio and turned into the new Napster. Many MP3.com engineers have gone on to found a myriad of companies, including trusonic.com, vmix.com, eventful.com, rabble.com, fullmotionracing.com, and many others that I cannot remember right now. - kgool, on 10/12/2007, -0/+22Interesting and a lot of wasted money. I have a friend who worked for a dotcom that went bust in '99 and he said people were loading SunFire servers in their cars.
- danielg, on 10/12/2007, -4/+25Neat.
Tip: Use the Opera browser's neat feature to go though the pictures. SHIFT+X fast forwards though the pictures. - S1mba, on 10/12/2007, -0/+19"They thought their name alone was valuable.."
It was valuable.
"I asked them if they were worried about a new music format overtaking MP3 and they said "It doesn't matter, people will always still call them MP3's.""
And guess what? They were right. Most people consider iPod to be an "mp3 player", despite the fact that iTunes music store stuff is not in mp3 format. When you read reviews of portable music players, they are using titled "mp3 player reviews", etc. - ziggystardust, on 10/12/2007, -1/+19That was a neat glimpse into the frivolous spending done by dot coms.
- monahmat, on 10/12/2007, -1/+18http://www.duggmirror.com/tech_news/mp3_com_Liquidation_Photos/
- MAdaXe42, on 10/12/2007, -5/+22Why do we care about your error message?
- bigteebo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14Too bad we can't use those mp3.com servers pictured to build another mirror.
- jimmajamma, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13I think some of you kids should do your research. I was there and watched the development of MP3.com from the start. It was a great idea that stood to rival the music industry "as we know and hate it" and took its first major downturn due to a lawsuit by "the industry." That lawsuit was about how you, the consumer, was allowed to listen to music you had already paid for. MP3.com offered free storage and streaming services for music that you already owned on CD - they were offering you services to free the music you already own from its format, so you wouldn't have to keep buying it on every new media format, and so you could access it from anywhere.
They were ahead of their time, but in my opinion would have survived had it not been for the forces that we all seem to unanimously hate - the RIAA.
They were a forum for up and coming artists, and a way to cut out the middle man of the music industry. They allowed artists to directly profit from their efforts and talents the way they should instead of through the normal industry scams of recording contracts and exorbitant "cuts" which normally leave all but the very most popular artists with nothing.
Instead of reveling in their .com demise, you should be kissing their hairy bean bags for fighting many good fights against a corrupt industry that serves no one but itself - at the expense of the artists and their fans. They also paved the way for services such as iTunes - which I guess you can take either way, as iTunes is really an indication to me that the RIAA won that battle unfortunately (99c per song is ridiculous - I wonder how much the artists see of that.)
If you want to read about it, go here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mp3.com .
MP3.com was one of the good ones. I'll miss it. - ayeroxor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12I think it's kind of hypocritical to mock mp3.com for being so 90's, when your own website is plain text links to pictures, and still can't support being dugg.
How about you put your images on an image host like imagevenue, and then make a page of thumbnails? Would that be too y2k for ya? - dudinatrix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12Or, use www.picsir.com to generate a gallery for you, no plugin needed:
TinyURL link to Picsir'd version: http://tinyurl.com/nyby9 - mellowsoon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12"It doesn't matter, people will always still call them MP3's."
They were probably correct. People call cotton swabs "Q-Tips", even though that is the name of a *brand* of cotton swab, and not the actual name of the product. The same goes for a thousand other products.
People tend to latch onto the brand name of the first kind of a product, and continue to call all derivatives of that product by that brand name. I know plenty of people who download Windows media files, and still call them MP3s. That's just human nature. - MateyO, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12History is exactly what it is. It's not any less relevant than desegregation, the Vietnam War, or 9/11. In terms of lives affected, you could say it was a BIGGER event than many others.
History doesn't rate events, it just notes it. (But usually only by the winners. ;) ) - lidflipper, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9If mp3.com wold have started doing today what it was doing when it first started it would be alive and well. They were just trying to operate in the wrong climate. I used the service and loved it. It was a big loss for indie artists.
- jgreene777, on 10/12/2007, -4/+13It's called the Digg Effect. It kills sites on a regular basis.
- S1mba, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10mp3.com probably would have survived... Except for some reason I have yet to understand, they did a sompletely site redesign and removed 99% of the music from their site and became totally lame.
Before they completely redid the site, mp3.com was a great place for finding good independant artists and such. But it became a totally worthless site after the redesign.
This should go down in history as one of the "Bad redesign kills business" examples. - tedder42, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9the servers were in locked rooms, and the unused computers were in a locked cage in a restricted-access area.
- lcarsdeveloper, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Coral works:
http://www.noveltynet.org.nyud.net:8090/content/culture/mp3_dot_com/index.html - artanis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8No.
Google actually has a source of revenue. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8I dident know I could do that, thats pretty neat. Thanks for the tip!
- tedder42, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8mp3.com wouldn't have survived- there wasn't a viable business model there. There were some neat things going on, but nothing to support it. The furniture was neat, but it wasn't the core of what was going on. The engineering offices were the best I've ever worked in- I miss them, and still regard them as a great model for office design.
the best was a clip from Jon Stewart's Daily Show, talking about the lawsuit, saying our execs were searching for "warm climate plus no extradition".
-ted, mp3.com 1999-2003 - Gullop, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Great, even dugg mirror is down.
- whisk3rs, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8mp3.com is as much a piece of American history as Napster is. These were pioneers on the internet, if anything, they are legends of internet history.
- wapp, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8digg dugg dead
- Rounin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7The fugliest looking offices and equipment I have EVER seen.
- tedder42, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6about the CD sales- the number never really improved, it stayed fairly steady at 1000 CD sales per day. Not a lot, and the business model behind them needed some revisions- compilation CDs would have been nice, but indie artists didn't like the concept because they were greedy and the CDs would have cost too much to pay off every artist for every track.
good times.
-ted - strictnein, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7The domain mp3.com was bought by cnet and the first thing they did was dump all the old content. The reason? Because the original site/business plan wasn't profitable and was extremely expensive. It was a great site, but how many times did most people order CDs from the artists? I ordered a grand total of 1, mainly because the guy was from my area and I liked his music.
- templest, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Firefusk -- http://firefusk.mozdev.org/
Because pictures are meant for lookin' - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Bah, slow. Digg effect. Diggers, go elsewhere. I want to go look and laugh derisively.
- mellowsoon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Jesus.. I can't imagine working for a company that has dozens, and dozens of computers and servers, sitting in a closet somewhere, still in the boxes/plastic wrap.
I would walk into that room and go nuts. Later I'd be caught sneaking computers into my car. :) - pezholio, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Mmmmmmmmmm! Comic Sans tastic! :)
- headzoo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5The upside of the dot-com bust, is startups these days have learned from the mistakes of companies like mp3.com. The last time I saw pictures of the Digg offices, I didn't see the kind of money wasting excess you see in these photos.
- yllabianbitpipe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5As another example of .com craziness, mp3.com offered pre IPO shares to anybody who had music posted on the site... I kid you not. Do you think digg will do that for any of us? Probably not, but that's another example of how crazy the .com times were. Ah the memories.
- Amything, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9Is there some Firefox plugin that can do that?
- festivalman, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7duggmirror is even slower than the original site. :(
- catoutfit, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4the irony of duggmirror...
- Murdats, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5so thats what q-tips are, thats been bugging the hell out of me since I watched all of scrubs (I live in the rest of the world)
but most people dont know what mp3 stands for, to them mp3 = (music files from tha computer or intarwebs) instead of mp3 = (mpeg1 audio layer 3)
also I find the name "music" is a suitable substitue for mp3 - AJwonder, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4why is the rum/dugg gone? :(
- WarpedMinds, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4The site is a little misleading. Comment like "Ok... this takes the taco... a HUMVEE!" and "Every business needs a HARLEY DAVIDSON!” Helps the site to prove its point, but when you dig a little deeper you find out that they were one of the partners private items, that he wanted to sell and the auction was a great place for him to do it. "Partner Adam Alexander is using the auction to sell his own Hummer and Fat Boy Harley Davidson motorcycle." Quote from Wired News ( http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,62584-0.html )
- lonnieh, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Poor guys, I wouldn't have given* [sic] up Raiden II that easy!
- actionscripted, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3No digg for a lack of an image gallery and ***** COMIC SANS.
http://bancomicsans.com/home.html
Even the Comic Sans creator says it shouldn't really be used in daily life. - jimmajamma, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"...you've NEVER heard."
That was part of the movement they were trying to create. To expose listeners to music they'd never hear on the radio because the radio stations are no longer independent bodies playing music based on its merit, but paid flunkies of music industry.
Ever wonder why you hear the same new Britney song 20 times a day on the major radio stations? Seems kinda crazy doesn't it, considering there are thousands of great artists that get no airtime?
Keep smiling that MP3.com died, and that the same crap is being played on your public airwaves. - Nobi-Wan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Why is tedder being dugg down? He actually worked there so his info is viable.
- H011yJ3susB411s, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I'll come back to this link after few days,,,,
- Wil0, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3What you say is completely true, Mp3.com was great, and it should have carried on, if it were around today, they would be nearly as big as myspace i think. back in the day, everyone was on mp3.com...
- storminnorman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I was actually at that auction, lived in SD at the time. spent a good 3 hours walking around. I remember the couches, all these funky purple look like they belong in a brothel couches. I bought a few compaq servers, turned a nice little profit on ebay. the other thing I remember most was the 3 refigerator sized tape backup machines, with the huge robot arms. and sun boxes, lots of big iron sun boxes. it was a fun day to walk around there.
- davidstory, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I had a great time working at mp3.com. The people there were awesome, and are continuing to do great things...
- UnderLoK, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2They weren't the only ones. Redhat and VA Linux Systems did the same for contributors to their distributions. Coincidently I think they are both the #1 and #2 record holders for price jumps. I don't remember the numbers off of the top of my head, but of coarse I will make a wild guess and see if someone actually bothers to look it up! ;)
Redhat went from something like $16 -> $120 a share in a few days and VA Linux Systems went from $14 -> $220 in a couple weeks (or maybe it was the other way around). - JViz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I actually have one of those servers sitting right next to me now.
- UnderLoK, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2More than likely someone that put up a pretty penny to own a slice of the company.
-
Show 51 - 98 of 98 discussions
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is