Why Can't Sex.Com Get It Up?
February 22, 2010 7:36 PM Subscribe
Sold for $14 Million a few years ago, now on auction and in foreclosure, the "jewel in the crown of the Internet" seems to be underperforming The Sex.Com domain is once again in the news, this time because it's on the auction block. Acquired by Gary Kremen (founder of Match.com) in 1994 as a free registration during the early years of the domain name system, it was stolen a little over a year later by Steve Cohen, an ex con with a nose for where the money is. In 2000, Kremen recovered the domain in Federal Court after a three year battle chronicled in a series of Wired articles, a Playboy article, and a couple of books. In 2005 he sold it to Escom, LLC, apparently with some financing, that's gone south, and now with the domain in "foreclosure," it's being auctioned off to those with a million bucks to put down as the opening ante. Anybody wanna guess what it will sell for?
This post was deleted for the following reason: um, the article links to your book. Not cool, man. -- mathowie
Anybody wanna guess what it will sell for?
The same as in town?
posted by CynicalKnight at 7:39 PM on February 22, 2010 [7 favorites]
The same as in town?
posted by CynicalKnight at 7:39 PM on February 22, 2010 [7 favorites]
I've always wondered whether sex.com was valuable because it was an obvious destination or because it was an easy to sell to advertisers because it was an obvious destination.
posted by fatbird at 7:44 PM on February 22, 2010
posted by fatbird at 7:44 PM on February 22, 2010
The great lesson of the internet is that in the age of Google the domain name is completely unimportant. Nobody goes to sex.com. They Google for sex.
posted by unSane at 7:48 PM on February 22, 2010
posted by unSane at 7:48 PM on February 22, 2010
The cache of such "visible" domain names seems to rest upon the (improbable) idea that people still 1) prefer to search the internet by dictionary attack, in English, at the domain level, and that 2) neither the browser nor the ISP will intercept this and re-route.
I'm not sure how many people search for porn by hammering "sex" into the Firefox URL line (as opposed to a search engine), but even that routs to anywhere but sex.com.
posted by kid ichorous at 7:52 PM on February 22, 2010
I'm not sure how many people search for porn by hammering "sex" into the Firefox URL line (as opposed to a search engine), but even that routs to anywhere but sex.com.
posted by kid ichorous at 7:52 PM on February 22, 2010
what unSane said
posted by kid ichorous at 7:52 PM on February 22, 2010
posted by kid ichorous at 7:52 PM on February 22, 2010
You can foreclose on a domain name? Crazy old world.
posted by spilon at 7:54 PM on February 22, 2010
posted by spilon at 7:54 PM on February 22, 2010
Can you bulldoze one?
posted by furiousxgeorge at 8:17 PM on February 22, 2010 [2 favorites]
posted by furiousxgeorge at 8:17 PM on February 22, 2010 [2 favorites]
I can never imagine the person who just types in "www.sex.com". You must really be dealing with the very dumbest, uninformed, desperate users.
It should sell for eleventy billion dollars!
posted by lattiboy at 8:21 PM on February 22, 2010
It should sell for eleventy billion dollars!
posted by lattiboy at 8:21 PM on February 22, 2010
Also, wouldn't it be prudent to actually link to the "series of Wired articles, a Playboy article, and a couple of books." ??????
posted by lattiboy at 8:22 PM on February 22, 2010
posted by lattiboy at 8:22 PM on February 22, 2010
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Too much money! Next?
posted by JHarris at 7:38 PM on February 22, 2010