I have always argued that there was a bubble around web 2.0 companies, but that this bubble was beneficiary to other Internet services who have business models and real revenue prospects. The bubble, be it web 1 or web 2, is only a word, a word that defines when there is more offer than demand. Be it a financial, economic, or technological bubble, it’s up to analysts to define the economic basis and aims.
But mybloglog is a very demonstrative example of this phenomenon:
Mybloglog is currently available on about 45,000 blogs, according to company chairman Scott Rafer, and has registered the photos and personal information (like the address of their blogs) of about 33,000 readers. Rafer also said it looks at about 1 million readers of blogs a day.
By selling the companies shares to Yahoo at between 10 and 12 million $, the founders gave value to the 33'000 readers at over $ 300 per unit. A difference of 1000 users could have made the price vary positively or negatively of some $ 300’000! A mind-blowing price considering that the company had 5 or 6 employees and a technology easy to clone.
The revenues coming from statistics follow-up cannot be very important considering the competition of Google analytics and Feedbuner which are free.
Reasons for such an acquisition defy all rational valorisation calculations because a user is not monetisable and the smallest of advertisements on widgets would make bloggers run away. But apart from the paid price, it gives an indication for Netvibes which on that basis would today be worth over $ 2’121’000'000… to pay the users under assumed names, to whom it is very difficult to impose business and advertising solutions.
Wow ! Who will buy Netvibes? At that price? It’s 2007’s soap opera! Before this acquisition joins the list of the most incredible buyouts in Internet history, like that of mybloglog.
