Seeqpod Starts Shopping Domain Name, Acquisition Talks Nearing Close

It’s been a tumultous few months for Seeqpod, the powerful music search engine that skimmed the web for music files hosted on other servers. In March the site finally cracked under the weight of multiple lawsuits brought on by the major record companies and filed for bankruptcy protection. Then came word that it may-or-may-not have been acquired by Microsoft, though the deal still has yet to be confirmed.

Today we’re hearing that Seeqpod has started looking to sell off its seeqpod.com domain name, pending an acquisition deal that is about to close. We got in touch with CEO Kasian Franks, who refused to confirm the rumors, saying that a deal has “not officially closed” and that a decision to unload the domain is still “up in the air”. It may not be official yet, but given that the company has apparently begun prodding for buyers for the domain, it sounds like it’s nearly finalized.

Franks was willing to talk vaguely about the pending deal, saying that multiple major suitors are involved. He also noted that any acquisition would be about the company’s technology, and not necessarily the Seeqpod brand. While Franks still won’t name the companies involved, he says that they have no issues with acquiring more traffic, which is why the company may wind up selling Seeqpod.com.

Update: As commentor Spencer Schoeben points out below, visiting Seeqpod.com and clicking the site’s logo will take you to Microsoft’s new Bing search engine. So, yeah — it’ll be very surprising if Microsoft isn’t ultimately named as one of the companies involved with the acquisition.