Two of the hottest classical music domains on the planet, Bach.com and Beethoven.com are going up for sale for the first time, and DomainAdvisors has been picked as the exclusive broker. These domains have an interesting history and I had a chance to speak with the owners and learn a bit more about when they first heard about domain names and why their vision was long before its time.
The owners of Bach.com and Beethoven.com come from the radio world and when the names were registered they owned WTMI (Miami), WQRS (Detroit), and WFLN (Philly) and wanted to make a foray into the online radio scene. Here’s the thing, while this might make a lot of sense to all of us now, the concept of online radio didn’t exist back then. Beethoven.com, being the more popular classical musician became the home of one of the first online radio stations.
Taking the online radio concept even one step further, Beethoven.com allowed visitors to make requests just like listeners would call into a DJ. Remember, these guys knew the radio industry like the back of their hand, and they extended the model onto the net. The site grew to over 100,000 visitors a month, which at the time meant a serious chunk of change in hosting fees. This early lesson is one that so many online radio stations encountered in the early days of online radio, and a subscription model was added to the site.
While offers have come in on both of these domains over the years the owners had never thought of selling them. For them, these domains meant a lot more than Internet real estate, these meant owning another radio station, but unlike the other stations they own, these stations are online. Don’t worry though, these guys haven’t stopped innovating, they are the current owners of WCCC in Connecticut (the station where Howard Stern started) and have grown the Facebook fan page to over 31,000 fans. In fact someone they even have a full-time social media manager keeping them on the cutting edge.
It’s always great to see people with real vision, and even more exciting to see people turn that vision into a reality. Now it’s time to pass the torch, and with DomainAdvisors as the broker I’m sure these two domains will weave a rich and exciting history for years to come! For more information please email info(at)DomainAdvisors.com.
