Comments for ShoutCentral Sold On eBay For $13,800

ShoutCentral Sold On eBay For $13,800

2007-01-12T21:05:16Z

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.

Comment from Jon on 2007-01-12

2007-01-12T23:02:00Z

This is nitpicking, but people always say NewsCorp bought MySpace for $580M. I was a shareholder, and the fact is NewsCorp bought InterMix for $580M. InterMix had many highly profitable divisions, from gift card sites to office supplies, and had a public marketcap of $300M long before they ever started MySpace. So one can estimate NewsCorp really paid about $200M for MySpace. That translates to about $7.40 per MySpace user. You have to hand it to Rupert Murdoch, he got the deal of the century.

Comment from Richard MacManus on 2007-01-12

2007-01-12T23:23:03Z

Very good point Jon -- and I agree that Murdoch got the deal of the century (so far) there. Bargain basement price, given how much MySpace grew after the acquisition.