Ever
wondered what a MySpace-like social network site, which are seemingly a dime a
dozen these days, is worth on the open market? Well the developers of ShoutCentral.com,
which claims to have “over 1,000 users”, has just
sold their SNS for $13,800 on eBay. The sellers were originally after $15k,
so it was close to what they wanted. This was the eBay auction write-up:
“Now is your chance to buy a premier social network already generating
buzz around the Internet. With over 1,000 users and a completely custom coded
network you can become the next Tom from MySpace!! I have spent the last year
building this website from the ground up using PHP and AJAX on a MySQL backend
and poured my sweat and tears working many a late night to add new features.
The reason I am selling the site is due to my lack of time to update and
improve the site. Hopefully the right someone can acquire it and continue to
make the site better and grow the community. The code can be easily modified
to add whatever you choose.”
So $13,800 works out to be $13.80 per user (give or take a few users). As a
rough comparison, at the time MySpace was sold to News Corp for $580M it
had 27 million unique users – valuing the purchase at $21 per user.
But really 1000 users is a pittance in the world of social networks, so the
purchaser probably bought it more for the technology. It would cost about $15k
for a web design agency to build you a social network site – and ShoutCentral
seems to be a competent design.
