Comments on: Is there any real monetary value in a social networking account?

By: BroadDev - Unified Communications, Virtualization, Security, and Web 2.0 » Social Media at Work

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 14:27:19 +0000

[...] thing’s for sure, there’s at least some money in social media. Check out this analysis on a user who tried to sell his twitter [...]

By: Sheamus

Sheamus — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 23:57:09 +0000

I think even a year ago the idea of selling a blog would have seemed insane, largely for the same reasons outlined in this article. Many have, however, and I think the Twitter sale, while a bit of a novelty at the moment, was in some respects an inevitability. Obviously if a spammer buys the account he’s not going to get any value as everybody will leave in droves. However, much like on certain blogs (like, BloggingExperiment, for example), if the ‘new guy’ adds his own take or value then people can (and will) stick around.

You’ll lose some fans, sure, but much like what Andrew Baron has experienced, you’ll gain some, too, certainly when during the auction itself.

He appears to having second-thoughts about all of this and I wonder if he’ll go through with it, especially as many of his high bidders seem to be of the somewhat dubious zero feedback variety, but I for one hope he does as the ramifications are interesting, not only for this one example but the industry itself.

There’s obviously value in an audience, certainly a tailor-made one, but if the buyer can’t keep that audience, or get something out of them fairly quickly, then I’d agree it’s quite daft.

By: Nathania

Nathania — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 16:31:42 +0000

There may not be value for all accounts, but for certain user names there might be. I would have loved to be able to secure my name, @nathania, especially since no one has updated it in a year. I may have been willing to shell out, say, $25 for it.

And depending on how Google indexes any of this, it might be worth securing keywords.

But I wouldn’t pay for the followers. Just like buying a blog, you can’t expect people to stick around. If you’re going to buy, buy for other reasons.

By: Steve Teal

Steve Teal — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 15:12:18 +0000

I think this is ridiculous and should not be allowed by Ebay. It’s one thing to sell a website or company but to sell an identity is just wrong. I would flag his auction if it hasn’t been done already.

By: Laloj

Laloj — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 12:09:55 +0000

Social Networking accounts do have a monietary value. The more post the more credible. People feel they get a sense of who you are each time you post. Writing is still a great form of expression. For someone to take over the post count of another person is huge because you also take on the responsiblities and credibility of that persons account

By: Randy

Randy — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 11:58:28 +0000

This looks to me like an individual trying to cash in on what a lot of companies have done (and gotten rightly chastised for doing) - he/she has collected a lot of people in their Twitter network and is trying to sell them to a marketer.

I predict Epic Fail.

By: Fen

Fen — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 17:52:45 +0000

There’s no value in social networking accounts. If people know that you are not the person who previously owned the account, then the account’s identity changes in a way and all of the things you wanted to benefit from that were a part of it no longer are. It’s essentially like buying someone’s identity and I don’t really see people being so stupid as to not recognize a shift in ownership. However, on the chance that they did, it ends up being pretty pathetic of the person for trying to live as something he isn’t. I can understand game accounts and stuff, but buying contact information, reddit karma, etc.? It’s a little stupid and, in the case of the transfer of sensitive information (PMs, etc.), possibly illegal. Alas, the Internet is serious business.