Today MTV announced the launch of a new music sitecalled HypeMusic.com
The domain name HypeMusic.com was purchased last November for $2,688 from BuyDomains.com and was part of our weekly Afternic report.
Here is how the whois record read prior to the sale:
Administrative Contact: Buydomains.com Inventory Management (brokerage@buydomains.com) +1.7818397993 Fax: +1.7818392801 738 Main Street, #389 Waltham, MA 02451 US
After the sale the domain ownership went to proxy at Godaddy and remains so today.
Here is the press release announcing the new service:
“MTV, a division of Viacom Inc. (NYSE: VIA and VIA.B), and Extreme Music, the production music arm of Sony/ATV, have announced the official launch of the Hype Music website: www.hypemusic.com. Hype Music, the remarkable, first-of-its-kind, hybrid music licensing partnership brings together the two industry powerhouses, along with the incomparable talent-spotting genius of Nic Harcourt as Chief Creative Consultant, to incubate, nurture and introduce some of today’s hottest, emerging, independent artists to professional music users.”
“When you harness two of the industry’s most credible taste-making teams and then add the uncanny talent-spotting genius of Nic Harcourt, you unleash a king-making force that can pick the next big thing with predator drone-like precision,” said Russell Emanuel, Extreme Music CEO. “We’ve launched with a truly stunning roster that oozes cred and comes with a cast iron guarantee that you will absolutely hear no evil.”
“Hype backs its “Hear No Evil” slogan with a rigorous selection process and a no submission policy, guaranteeing all artists introduced through the partnership will be discovered by the Hype team. Once signed, all acts receive a seal of approval from music insiders including reviews and opinions by an A-list lineup of the industry’s music supervision elite including Nic Harcourt, Kathy Nelson, Gary Calamar, Matt Kierscht, Lucius Dillion, Nick Martin and Liz Gallacher, to name a few.”
“The launch of the Hype site represents an exciting step forward in MTV’s commitment to emerging talent. Hype artists = MTV artists and this platform is yet another destination for them to break through.” said Joe Cuello, Senior Vice President of Creative Music Integration for MTV.”
“In addition to first-look consideration for placement in MTV shows, Extreme will be distributing and licensing Hype songs to their global client base of professional users. MTV will also serve as music distributor for all contracted songs, delivering music to the artists’ fans through multiple digital music services. The Hype Music site will include interviews, videos and buzz along with reviews and views to provide an educated, inside look at the emerging talent.”
“To celebrate the launch, MTV and Extreme will host a industry insider showcase on June 16th at The Village Studios in Los Angeles that will be hosted by Nic Harcourt and feature several of the Hype artists.”
an incredibly good deal for MTV and Sony!
Must be a bitch for the previous owner to wakeup and read who bought it…………..
You only get what you ask for. MTV/Sony got extremely lucky with this deal.
They could have had musicvideos.com
Alan
Previous owner was buydomains.com
Its part of selling domains, they buyer knows what they want the domain for you don’t.
So when a company like BuyDomains.com sells hundreds of domains a week, some of them are going to wind up going to one of the big boys
MTV lost its “music video roots” after the ’80s.
It was a 2003 reg, so one of buydomains older domains, so the buyer wins on this deal, buy domains still have less than $100 investment in on this, and for any business that is a great % return, but they also have a lot of dead inventory to subsidize.
If they come around looking for hype.co I won’t be so gentle with their wallets.
Hype.co is easily the greatest “.co” domain ever!
@Chris
You’ll never know! Keep an eye on your mailbox and keep us posted for any offers.
Just because it went to Sony, doesn’t mean they were budgeted to pay some huge price for it. It’s not that great of a domain.
You guys have really got to start understanding that outside of industry defining descriptives, there’s an infinite world of alternate choices and the green monster will (and likely have) cause you to lose very lucrative sales that won’t ever come knocking again.
… and sometimes, they just aren’t budgeted for spending a ton on a domain.
In the last week, I had an under-the-radar corporate “domain whisperer”- who I won’t mention by name, but is fully established as having been an intermediary for Microsoft at least once before- inquire about one of my domains (Movie Fanatic). They lowballed @ 2k, I LOL’d and countered in low-mid XX,XXX range- which is a very fair price- they apparently weren’t budgeted for it.
Oh well. That’s how the game is played. They’ll just go find something adequate for $3k or $5k and use that…
have = has
Oh well…..BS domain=BS website…
Opps..I forgot…what is the name of the domain got bought?
LS Morgan – you never know, maybe they will come back to you and counter offer, or pay your price. If they only approached you in the last week, it’s still early. IF you had sold the name for 2K or 5k, and later found out it was Microsoft, you’d have to feel a little remorse. I’m sure you are comfortable NOT selling the name for that price, and waiting for a better offer.
The thing is, BuyDomains probably had a $2688 BIN price on hypemusic.com, or the buyer inquired about the price and BuyDomains followed up over time with discounts like they normally do – So we will never know what MTV/Sony was willing to pay. My guess would be they would have paid more. BuyDomains won’t lose any sleep over it because they sell so many names, but the ‘average’ domainer with this sale would be kicking themselves a little or a lot.
Yes there is an “infinite world of alternate choices” but within that infinate world there is great, good, ok and bad quality. If they wanted their brand to be called Hype and it’s a Music website, then HypeMusic.com is arguably the second best choice to Hype.com
For the average domainer, a buyer with deep pockets coming for your domain could be a once or twice in a lifetime occurrence, so it would be worth missing out on a few $xxxx sales if you think your name is worth $xx,xxx or $xxx,xxx. Especially if you think domains will hold their importance in coming years, and that a decent domain (not even a great one) will be harder to find in the .com extension.
There comes a time when you have to calculate expectation, or else you’ll go broke.
I’m a pretty big fan of domains that could be the basis for a smartly constructed brand. HypeMusic.com loosely falls into that category, but carrya portfolio of 10,000 names like that, you’ll run red for a long, long time and when the “big sale” finally does crop up, it may not be enough to bring you back to even.
There’s a lot of ways to skin the cat.
There’s the buydomains “stack ’em deep and sell ’em cheap” method, there’s the Frank Schilling “don’t waste my time for anything less than XX,XXX” method. I’m not a mega portfolio holder, so I don’t have to worry about doing that math or what it takes to win, playing that game.
Either way probably has merit, but it would be interesting to see who’s netting more cash from resales- the high price, lower volume method or vice versa.
HypeMusics dot com is still available 😉
Hype machine is a music blog aggregator that’s been around for a long time. Their url is Hypem.com . Also wonder how MusicHype.com are going to feel about it. I can get them eSongs.com with a trademark, but it would cost considerable more.