3 ms·

Big catalog = infinite specialty shops

23 points by icey 17y ago

transmit101 17y ago
We do exactly this at work. The great benefit which is not mentioned in the article is SEO - Google will love you for it.
- shawndrost 17y ago
  I don't get it -- why?
sabat 17y ago
The problem with this approach is that most people don't try new music because they're into, say, Brazilian chill. There's a need for a trusted reference -- a friend's suggestion, a review piques your interest, whatever. So just setting up a domain for people who like that genre isn't necessarily going to go far. Most of the music would probably be crap, and not worth my time -- hence that need for reference. I won't assume that a domain name means good music, but I do, for instance, take Anji Bee's (http://www.anjibee.com/category/podcast/chillcast/ http://www.anjibee.com/category/podcast/chillcast/) suggestions because she has a proven track record of finding and playing excellent chill.
coffee 17y ago
My perspective is that the problem with this IS seo. The article talks about buying 1,000 domains. One big seo factor is domain authority/trust. With 1,000 new domains, you have to build up 1,000 separate properties with authority/trust, that's no small feat as anyone who's tried building up 100 domains at the same time will tell you. The common tactic here is going after the long tail, which is the only way I can see this working and still staying within a sane budget. Beyond seo the article talks about marketing in general, and how great it will be to market laser targeted niche stores, all 1,000 of them. So if I've spent a couple of hours finding a great Japanese music site that is PERFECT for listing my Japanese niche music store/domain, then I've just spent a couple of hours on 1 domain, only 999 more domains to start marketing! Yay! That's horrific. If you take the approach of a niche property within the same domain, all of your seo and marketing efforts for 1 niche store will transfer over to the rest of your properties, since, of course, you'll inner link them all from within the same domain. This also works great from a long tail perspective. The marketing/seo execution of 1,000 separate domains is the challenge...
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eliotk 17y ago
I find it odd that there is so much enthusiasm for this idea in the comments on Sivers' blog because to me it seems a bit outdated. And I agree w/ coffee and sabat that sure, anyone can purchase and setup a bunch of niche sites w/ individual domain names, but gaining trust (both from SEs and from consumers) is the key factor and isn't easy. Google and other search engines won't index these sites well off the bat based on the domains and tailored but not_that_meaningful content. Maybe in the past that was true but certainly the SE ranking logic is smarter than that now. The other area of trust would need to come from consumers. I know personally, if I was into brazilian funk, stumbled onto a machine-generated site like Sivers describes and find an album that I'm interested in buying, I would just look up that album at Amazon (or CDBaby) because I trust them. And that cycles back to the first point in that since places like CDBaby and Amazon have the authority, the index of brazilian funk results in the SEs are going to include these sites. So setting up these niche sites might make sense for sites w/ authority already, but if they already have authority why bother?
- sivers 17y ago
  Good points. The enthusiasm is coming from musicians who like anything that might sell more of their music. (Most of the readers of my blog are musicians.)
  - redorb 17y ago
    I think like any good idea, its about execution / I would start with the low hanging fruit and 5-10 websites then re-invest those profits (if any) into other websites.... ~ how about getting the database into a "indie -pandora" so each site has it's own station that people can listen to ,,
  - mnemonicsloth 17y ago
    The top 3 Google results for "Brazilian Funk" are the Wikipedia article, an NPR story, and a compilation CD from CD Universe. Seems like the least you could do to put up a quick primer on the genre (it will be slicker than wpedia), swap links with prominent bands (better rankings), and maybe put up some announcements and a forum. You could focus the information on making it easier to transition from curious to interested to fandom. The big questions are how much the musicians would be able to support a site like that, and how willing they'd be to coordinate with each other.
RyanMcGreal 17y ago
Categorizing is the wrong way to go, because different people categorize different ways. Assuming you have enough users, it seems to make more sense to go with some kind of bayesian recommendation system, i.e. "People who liked this product also liked..." That way you conform to the implicit categories people already hold, rather than force-mapping a blob of messy, overlapping categories into arbitrary, artificial divisions.

23 points by icey 17y ago

We do exactly this at work. The great benefit which is not mentioned in the article is SEO - Google will love you for it.

shawndrost 17y ago
I don't get it -- why?

sabat 17y ago

The problem with this approach is that most people don't try new music because they're into, say, Brazilian chill. There's a need for a trusted reference -- a friend's suggestion, a review piques your interest, whatever. So just setting up a domain for people who like that genre isn't necessarily going to go far. Most of the music would probably be crap, and not worth my time -- hence that need for reference. I won't assume that a domain name means good music, but I do, for instance, take Anji Bee's (http://www.anjibee.com/category/podcast/chillcast/ http://www.anjibee.com/category/podcast/chillcast/) suggestions because she has a proven track record of finding and playing excellent chill.

coffee 17y ago

My perspective is that the problem with this IS seo. The article talks about buying 1,000 domains. One big seo factor is domain authority/trust. With 1,000 new domains, you have to build up 1,000 separate properties with authority/trust, that's no small feat as anyone who's tried building up 100 domains at the same time will tell you. The common tactic here is going after the long tail, which is the only way I can see this working and still staying within a sane budget. Beyond seo the article talks about marketing in general, and how great it will be to market laser targeted niche stores, all 1,000 of them. So if I've spent a couple of hours finding a great Japanese music site that is PERFECT for listing my Japanese niche music store/domain, then I've just spent a couple of hours on 1 domain, only 999 more domains to start marketing! Yay! That's horrific. If you take the approach of a niche property within the same domain, all of your seo and marketing efforts for 1 niche store will transfer over to the rest of your properties, since, of course, you'll inner link them all from within the same domain. This also works great from a long tail perspective. The marketing/seo execution of 1,000 separate domains is the challenge...

deleted 17y ago
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eliotk 17y ago

I find it odd that there is so much enthusiasm for this idea in the comments on Sivers' blog because to me it seems a bit outdated. And I agree w/ coffee and sabat that sure, anyone can purchase and setup a bunch of niche sites w/ individual domain names, but gaining trust (both from SEs and from consumers) is the key factor and isn't easy. Google and other search engines won't index these sites well off the bat based on the domains and tailored but not_that_meaningful content. Maybe in the past that was true but certainly the SE ranking logic is smarter than that now. The other area of trust would need to come from consumers. I know personally, if I was into brazilian funk, stumbled onto a machine-generated site like Sivers describes and find an album that I'm interested in buying, I would just look up that album at Amazon (or CDBaby) because I trust them. And that cycles back to the first point in that since places like CDBaby and Amazon have the authority, the index of brazilian funk results in the SEs are going to include these sites. So setting up these niche sites might make sense for sites w/ authority already, but if they already have authority why bother?

sivers 17y ago
Good points. The enthusiasm is coming from musicians who like anything that might sell more of their music. (Most of the readers of my blog are musicians.)
- redorb 17y ago
  I think like any good idea, its about execution / I would start with the low hanging fruit and 5-10 websites then re-invest those profits (if any) into other websites.... ~ how about getting the database into a "indie -pandora" so each site has it's own station that people can listen to ,,
- mnemonicsloth 17y ago
  The top 3 Google results for "Brazilian Funk" are the Wikipedia article, an NPR story, and a compilation CD from CD Universe. Seems like the least you could do to put up a quick primer on the genre (it will be slicker than wpedia), swap links with prominent bands (better rankings), and maybe put up some announcements and a forum. You could focus the information on making it easier to transition from curious to interested to fandom. The big questions are how much the musicians would be able to support a site like that, and how willing they'd be to coordinate with each other.

RyanMcGreal 17y ago

Categorizing is the wrong way to go, because different people categorize different ways. Assuming you have enough users, it seems to make more sense to go with some kind of bayesian recommendation system, i.e. "People who liked this product also liked..." That way you conform to the implicit categories people already hold, rather than force-mapping a blob of messy, overlapping categories into arbitrary, artificial divisions.