Nov 13 2007
Blogs Sales Galore
As usual I’m a bit behind on the goings on in internet world but better late than never, I guess. A couple blogs that I read on a regular basis have been sold and it seems as though there are plenty of others that have been offloaded recently as well. I’m not really sure what to think about this flurry of blog sales. Part of me is confused, part is annoyed and part is impressed.
- The confused part - I don’t read that many blogs regularly. The more I like what the blogger is doing or has to say or the more interesting I find them, the more likely I am to become a regular reader. Based on this, I wonder why people buy blogs. Sure they’re getting a design that is up and running but they could pay a lot less for a much better custom WP design. True, they’ll be adopting a set of regular readers but how many of them are likely to continue reading? Lots of incoming links is a good thing I guess but that’s not hard to do with some serious commenting. I figure if a blogger is good they should be able to start a blog on their own. If they’re crap then people won’t read the blog anyways so it’s a big waste of money.
- The annoyed part - I think blogging is about building relationships and when the author sells the blog it sort of feels like a very nerdy betrayal. I thought he loved me… I guess I was just another notch on his RSS belt. *sniff*
- The impressed part - I have to give kudos to anyone who can create something from scratch and turn it into a saleable item in a few months. Even though the whole process leaves me feeling used and abused, I can’t help but admire them for it.
Are there are people out there who flip blogs like real estate? It might be an interesting thing to look into if you’re a talented writer and know how to turn a new blog into an established one pretty quickly. I wonder if they’d be able to continue attracting readers to their new blogs after each sale. I would be unlikely to read a blog knowing that the author plans to sell it in a few months.
I wonder how many more blogs will be sold during this mini-frenzy? I would feel strange selling my blog, I think. I would need bucketloads of money to sell any of my websites and I’d have a hard time letting go of them because of the zillions of hours I’ve put, in. I guess everyone has their price though!
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I've been travelling since January 2008 living off earnings from the web. Follow me as I bum around Asia and beyond, getting up to mischief and working online as I go. 
I guess if the blog…
1. is earning some decent advertising revenue already
2. has created a good buzz in it’s niche
3. has a strategy to ensure quality content is continued (buyer would probably have this in place)
… then I see why it COULD be a nice investment. It’s hard work getting a blog established after all. I can see the value to someone wanting to get a revenue stream-in-a-box.
They don’t seem to pull in masses of $ though.
I understand your sentiments when it comes selling your own work.
I used to consult small businesses a lot, but after awhile they couldn’t pay me enough. Knowing that I could get their results off of my own work really put things into perspective.
I know with my sites, I put 10 times more into them because they are mine and will continue to be so. I am essentially paying myself and it is very rewarding. Everyone has a price though… my price is something in the millions
of course once I have put the work in the make http://www.theviewfromhome.com worth that much, it will be worth all the more to me…
Of course, once you have a concept down, the structure, and the processes involved to make it successful, making the second and third blogs or websites with the goal of selling becomes easier.
My wife trains horses and can train them to sell only as long as she has her personal horse. They are essentially best friends!
I don’t understand it either, particularly an unthought out comment left on one post during the whole mini frenzy.
Blogging should be more than making money, it should be about meeting people and creating a network of people whos floors you can crash on after a night out
i don’t get the whole blog flipping thing - at least not from a buyers perspective. What do they think they are buying? lke you say, you can get shiny designs for free and lots of links by just working building them - its the content that really matters i think. Maybe they are selling their readers, too? ie “a readership fo xxxx”. who knows?
the thing is though, even if they take over a blof with a massive readership, unless they are a sh*t hot blogger then those numbers are soon going to fall.
YOU CAN’T SELL ME! I’M A FREE MAN! THEY’LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE!!!
You bloggers are sensitive huh!
I guess it depends on the type of blog then. Why is was started and what the readers gain from it. If the readers are regulars because of the writer then yes I can see how selling it would be weird. But if the subject matter is what’s of interes, regardless of writer, I don’t see the harm. Do those kind of blogs exist?…
I’m with you Nath… I don’t get it from a buyer’s point of view. But then again there are a lot of people with a lot more money than me and dropping $8,500 or whatever on a blog that’s already set up might not be a big deal.
Anyone who happens to be in Beijing next year can crash on my couch for sure! Just get in touch through the blog… unless I’ve sold it.
[…] submit_url = ‘http://www.continuingadventures.com/2007/11/14/are-blogs-like-houses’;I have seen a couple of times the idea of “flipping a blog”, now I know about flipping a house but a blog? In real estate terms flipping is when you buy a property with a long settlement date with the intention of on-selling it before you have to make the original settlement. It can be profitable at certain time in the market but of course if you haven’t actually got the money to settle its a pretty risky strategy. So as Kirsty asked: why would you flip a blog? […]
Fliffing real estate has already ended…as it cycles predictably (10 years?). I guess you can look at buying blogs akin to franchising, which illustrates IM’s point. The ‘buyer’ just needs to follow the model, esp. the one’s you mentioned as the interesting pseudo-website format. Again, I agree with IM that they’re great from the design point-of-view, and I’d be doing my site concept just like theirs if I could.
Interestingly enough, Lea’s comment “visual overload”…”psychology of choice” in your earliear post made me realize why I keep coming back to your blog. It’s like finally finding a name to an unknown illness, visual or whatever but definitely an overload. When I’m tired, I just want to do what is necessary…piece-meal info I need to survive the moment. Then there is that more personal connection in knowing you’re not the only one suffering in the so-called quest for knowledge (or gold along the way). Probably same reason you feel the way you do–still more of the ‘person’ thing rather than the aesthetic concept that would put you on the market. If it’s any consolation, your journey in the geek world (read your recent post) is my guiding light!