Blog Sold for $315 million

[OnlineMarketing]

Ok so it was more an online newspaper than a blog but the Huffington Post was sold this week at the SuperBowl(AOL President and Arriana Huffington did the deal in a private box watching the game). Revenue for the Huffington Post was believed to be around $60 million and analysts think it was making a few mill profit so that figure is huge compared to its current real valuation but AOL wanted to get their hands on those eyeballs. Arriana Huffington has run her business since day one around SEO and viral campaigns. Just shows you the value of unique content, if you haven't already seen the site it is a left leaning news site that tends to give a bit more insight than the standard news offerings, giving another valuable commercial lesson.....when the big boys(in this case CNN,Fox etc) dominate a niche with one homoginised offering this is a great opportunity for a niche operator to dive in between the cracks.

[Dave A]

Just shows you the value of unique content

And perhaps the value of Superbowl fever

I wonder how many of them woke up the next morning going "What have I done?"

[derekjay]

Haha... Yip, website/blog flipping is a booming industry. Flippa.com is a great resource for anyone wanting to learn more / get involved.

[adrianh]

Haha... Yip, website/blog flipping is a booming industry.

So is flipping hamburgers, doesn't mean that every man and his can make a fortune from it!

[derekjay]

So is flipping hamburgers, doesn't mean that every man and his can make a fortune from it!

Thank goodness for that!

[adrianh]

Thank goodness for that!

Unless the man is a Chinese dog breeder...

[OnlineMarketing]

I wonder how many of them woke up the next morning going "What have I done?"

Yep Dave that was my feeling especially when i heard their comments section is bursting already with regular readers complaining they have sold out and it will now become more mainstream. I bet AOL secretly enjoy that though they may lose a % of their audience but the extra publicity this has got will have a positive impact on eyeballs and unless they are stupid they will leave the editorial theme well alone. I must say i think it is a good product(i think of it as a newspaper) and probably has plenty of growth in it as well as multiple language versions so generating 60 million in revenue from what i understand as advertising only is a strong base to build from.

[ava_camen]

good content always makes a difference

[wynn]

The Huffington Post is just a 'news agregator' in other words when Ariana Huffington started it she just gave headlines and a sweetener with a link to the original article or articles in some or other news papers or blogs, after a while she earned enough money from advertisers (a few million a month!) to hire journalists to add editorial.

Perhaps this is an opportunity for as many of us local TFSA'ites, who are interested, to start the 'TFSA POST' with every registered member contributing sweeteners and links (LINKS, LINKS, LOVERLY LINKS) to other articles we have read on other sites and in other publications.

At first we can earn from google and other adwords and afterwards get real advertisers (Mercedes etc.) to pay for advertising.
Shareholder splits every three months?

The idea is that any reader will get a good idea of what is happening in ZA and the world without having to sift through any number of publications all reporting on the same subject because in the 'TFSA POST' there is an article on, say, Libya with links to all the articles written by M&G, Business Day, Mercury, Cape Times, New york Times, etc.

Then we let all the 'busy body know it alls' blog to their hearts content for FREE!! to bulk up the page.
Comments on sport, religion, dairy farming, child care what ever.

It would be like having a “LINK FARM” with daily changes to content LEGALLY.

[Dave A]

Perhaps this is an opportunity for as many of us local TFSA'ites, who are interested, to start the 'TFSA POST' with every registered member contributing sweeteners and links (LINKS, LINKS, LOVERLY LINKS) to other articles we have read on other sites and in other publications.

Out of interest, who would be game for something like this?

[bjsteyn]

Eyeballs, a while back I read a internet marketer referring to it , and since then it sticked.

If only whe could sell our Eyeballs and take PTC to the next level. Maby we should start an Eyeball For Sale website, build up 1 billion users and then sell it. Every Eyeball gets asserted a certain value depending on the eyeballs buying to viewing ratio . Every Eyeball gets multiple assigned values for every different niche.

Then split the traffic fee, between the website and the eyeballs.

And if only we had more eyeballs each, just imagine how much they could be worth.

:-)

[wynn]

I'll contribute