The Man Who Owns LiveSearch.com (No, He Doesn’t Work For Microsoft)

topics

News From Us:

Our latest report; our new video section; and jobs with paidContent.org and paidContent:UK

The Man Who Owns LiveSearch.com (No, He Doesn’t Work For Microsoft)

One thing that has likely hampered Microsoft’s efforts to boost Live Search’s market share—and perhaps contributed to its decision to consider renaming the search engine—is that it does not own the LiveSearch.com domain name. The domain belongs instead to Tyler Tullock of Bothell, Wash., who says he has rejected several offers for the site. “I’ve had many offers—they’ve always been really stealthy—saying ‘I represent a client blah blah blah,’” Tullock told us. He says that the most recent offer came about six months ago, when an entity offered him $40,000 for LiveSearch.com. Tullock asked for $800,000. They countered with $200,000, but Tullock had to answer within a day. He says he passed. Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) did not confirm whether or not it—or one of it proxies—had tried to buy the domain.

Tullock took control of the domain name about 13 years ago, when he was running an internet-marketing company, LocalSeek Advertising. He used Livesearch.com and other domains to advertise his services, which included a relocation business. Microsoft introduced Live Search in 2006, hosting the search engine on Live.com—a domain that it does own (Tullock says he never tried to challenge Microsoft’s decision to call its search engine Live Search).

Nowadays, Tullock runs a chain of seven music schools in the Seattle area, and parks Google (NSDQ: GOOG) ads on LiveSearch.com. “It makes me plenty of money sending all that Microsoft business to Google,” he says. Tullock won’t disclose how much the site brings in.

According to the WSJ, Microsoft is expected to announce a revamp of Live Search this week, probably under a new brand name. Tullock says that for at least three years now, he has been thinking about a new concept for LiveSearch.com, although he was somewhat concerned about legal issues. “If they’re going to be abandoning the name, I can move ahead with it,” he said.

Related Stories

Joseph Tartakoff

@josephtartakoff May 24, 2009 6:00 PM ET

Posted In: Search, Technologies / Formats, Companies, Microsoft

latest headlines

Heather

Anthony, you really think he's making US$200k on adsense revenue? No freaking way. People aren't typing in 'live search' and going to his site. If they are, they're already on a search engine. livesearch.com is ranked #5,xxx,xxx on Alexa - ok, so Alexa is not accurate, but I reckon he'd be lucky to be making US$100 a month on adsense.

Unless somebody is foolish enough to pony up more, he'll regret the US$200k.

George Huger

@Imran - Good point, but its not an apples-to-apples comparison. The problem is that Live can't be used as a verb, and Microsoft also uses the phrase "Live" for so many other initiatives. Thus in a national ad campaign they'd have to call it "Live Search", and they'd need to own the domain. Google doesn't have this problem.

I think its smart of Microsoft to abandon the Live brand for search and move on to Bing. Bing is easy to remember, there's no confusion with other products, and its a decent brand name. Sure they'll be losing some of what little momentum they'd built with Live.com, but the problem had to be addressed before they'd have a chance to compete with Google or even Yahoo.

Regarding the $200k, I'm surprised he didn't take it but I also think $800k was an absolutely reasonable price given the context. Win some, lose some.

More of my thoughts on the matter here:
http://illuminatikarate.com/blog/bing-microsofts-new-search-engine/

Anthony

Why would he regret taking the $200k when he's probably making that every couple of years just on ad revenue…?

Jack

It doesn't matter what Microsoft calls it. Their search effort will be a failure regardless. Microsoft needs Yahoo just to stay in the game, let alone have any chance of beating Google.

Alex

You sound like a pompous ass Hudson Bryce.

He's not a bottom feeder if he's owned the damn thing for 13 years and realizes now that this mega corporation is in a bind by naming a major service without doing any due diligence on something as simple as, "does someone own the $15 domain already"? He runs music schools which doesn't sound like your typical domain squatter now does it? I don't feel one bit sorry for Microsoft, who can pay up for this IP if they really want it, otherwise let them rebrand the whole mess and call it something just as goofy.