The Non-Virtual Face of Failure

We've written about the defunct megasite mp3.com from time to time, because in our view it was an extraordinarily rich cultural clearinghouse for "off the radar" music of the late 1990's which, sadly, was destroyed by CNet when it was taken over in late 2003.

A non-ghost site site called NoveltyNet.org contains a fascinating, somewhat eerie collection of more than 100 photographs of MP3.com's assets just before they were sold in what the site terms was "the last great dotcom liquidation auction." These photos are nicely categorized (Computer Equipment, Toys and Recreational Equipment, Ugly Furniture and Tacky Art, Expensive Sound and Video Equipment, and Miscellaneous) and as the writer claims, much of this gear is "droolworthy". But a lot of it is kind of sad, including photos of washing machines, recreational video game gear, and exercise equipment (the young people who labored at mp3.com never seemed to go home).

With the MP3.com archives deleted from our collective memory, all we really have left are these photos, which is perhaps the saddest fact of all.