Hacker News Reader

Curious how much that domain cost.

Their first domain was RapExegesis.com which has to be one of the worst all time domain names.

When you start you tend to take a (reasonable) free domain name. Later (when successful & have money) tend to get/buy a better one

It is portrayed wrongly in the movie "The Social Network": "drop the "the""

Whatever it is, it's likely worth it.

Wouldn't be so sure. Domains hardly matter when you have an established brand already, and genius.com isn't exactly synonymous with music. And it's no guarantee either (look at alice.com failing)

Very true, but it's more about solidifying a pivot away from music annotation than simply buying a new domain.

Now they can annotate anything. Imagine if the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy had granular explanations on annotation.

They can move into new territories without the brandname causing confusion.

My question is whether annotating anything else is actually profitable.

Is annotating anything actually profitable? Perhaps in an "enterprise" form for internal document review or whatever.

> genius.com isn't exactly synonymous with music

Nor should it be, as they want to do more than music. news.genius.com, rap.genius.com, academia.genius.com, etc. can all be created and enjoy a single umbrella brand.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com