Passing the torch. FeaturedUsers.com is for sale. | Hacker News Reader

Passing the torch. FeaturedUsers.com is for sale.

flippa.com

18 pointsdustyreagan12 comments

I don't think this model has been banned. Isn't it services like ad.ly who are paying users to tweet out ads. FeaturedUsers is a service that is like an adwords model which allows people to advertise their Twitter account.

That's not why he's selling:

Why Sell It?

I have a grand vision of where I believe Featured Users can go, but I'm ready to move on and focus on other projects. I would like to see someone continue where I left off.

Who Will You Sell It To?

Not just anybody! Like I mentioned, there are over 35+ sites in this ad network and just as many developers (myself included). I intend to continue using this ad network on FriendOrFollow.com after I've sold it. So, the new owner must be just as passionate about taking over this project as I was starting it. If you bid, please be prepared to explain to me why you would make a good successor.

Something's not adding up. He's stating a net profit of about $1,000.00 a month. Gross revenues are stated as $6,000/mo. So about $12k/yr in the owner's pocket. Fine.

Sales price is Minimum Offer:$2,147,483,647. Unless I've gone blind, that's Two Billion Dollars. With a "B".

I know silicon valley valuations can be optimistic but this seems like farce.

edit: Later comment to the auction states that the minimum bid is "all messed up". You might say that :)

It's an error with Flippa. The minimum bid is $10k. I've reported the problem. :/ Great timing right?

The minimum offer is $INT_MAX :)

Looks like a bug. The maximum value of a 32-bit signed integer in 2's complement is 2,147,483,647. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=2^31%20-%201

I'm assuming something must be wrong here: the minimum offer shows up for me as $2,147,483,647

A website with ~$1000 monthly revenue selling for 2 billion dollars?

I don’t understand why would someone buy something that has been recently banned by Twitter. What am I missing?

This site doesn't do in-stream twitter advertising from what I can tell so it wouldn't be banned by Twitter.

Oh, you’re right. I thought you couldn’t display ads in any application that used the Twitter API. I guess there’s still room for advertising in any Twitter app then.

Check the comments. Their service isn't banned by Twitter (yet). That's not to say the risk factor didn't just shoot from a 0.1 to 0.99, but it's viable for the moment.

Between Apple's alteration to their AppStore T&Cs and Twitter's change in API usage T&Cs, I think we're facing a little bit of a correction in the "internet is free (as in freedom)" movement. This is a natural consequence of a model where corporations roll out features before they've figured out how they'll monetize them. In other words, if I'm not sure how I'll make money from my service, I must reserve the right to change the rules to support a viable business model at some point.

Personally, I hope the backlash doesn't push things too far in a conservative direction, but I do think companies should put a little more thought in to the future of their product's interaction with the target network of developers and affiliates before they open the doors to integrate.

It's hard to shell out 10k for something that Twitter might find violates their TOS---even if it doesn't now. I am defintely passionate about the idea/model but that's a big stumbling block.

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