Blog Herald Selling (Again) - For 25K?

We reported on the sale of the Blog Herald last month, quoting a 60-72k price range. Well it turns out that sale fell through, and the blog is on the block again (current high bid: 25K). I’m sure there are a few conclusions to draw, right?

Random thoughts:

• The site is being sold at Sitepoint, where the average metric bidders usually use (for “big” sales especially) is monthly profits. If I remember correctly the blog brings in 2K/month in revenue, and a reasonable salary for the author is probably 1K/month. So we’re basically looking at 2 years profit, which is actually high for Sitepoint. (n.b. ‘Big names’ often sell for a premium, as it is thought that the brand name, link pop, etc. are worth a premium).
• OTOH I think 25K may be a bit cheap here; it’s probable that a bit of ‘monetization makeover’ could increase the monthly revenue from 2 to 3K, and bam! now we just paid a 12x profit price. Not to mention, a network owner could leverage the link pop of the Blog Herald into their other properties (this is known as “network-blogroll-spamerrific-growth-factor”).
• Plus, this site gets its revenue from a bunch of different places (no Adsense-has-me-by-the-balls syndrome)--the risk is lower, this should increase the multiple.
• Of course, something is only worth what someone else is willing to pay, so unless I'm buying what do my thoughts matter?

Chartreuse makes a few good points:

The Blog Herald is worth a lot more than $25,000.00. An advertiser just bought a weeks worth of advertisement on the videoblog Rocketboom for $40,000. In that week they will reach about a million people.

At the going price they could have purchased the Blog Herald for that amount, filled it with ads and reach the same audience for a year.

Jeremy Wright and Duncan Riley, though smart technical folks, are failing at the media game: Creating attention and selling stuff.

So, yeah, Weblogs Inc. sold for a ridiculous premium, and so did that Rocketboom ad space… but the moral of the story is that first movers get more profit, and that the media will ignore everyone else 99% of the time. Lecture: if you want to make money, you probably can’t count on “buzz” or “premiums” to line your coffers; instead, basic nuts and bolts financials will determine your return. Reality check, probloggers!