Valleywag stories - Gawker

TechCrunch Care2's Nonprofit Online Communications Community - frogloo A couple of years ago I put together this "social network" calculator as a free resource to assess the opportunity cost of recruiting email subscribers and donors online. It was ahead of its time and may still need some tweaking, but the basic assumptions hold true - if you're paying staff to spend time on social networks and the end goal is list-growth or dollars, then this tool is for you. Enter the cost per hour of your staff, and other basic web and email metrics, and you can get a realistic snapshot of how you're doing.I'll preempt the typical response of "well, there are other intangibles and other types of ROI" by saying that if that's your world, that's fine, you're right - there are interesting and good things that happen as a result of social media, and you should do it, but I wouldn't expect a lot of direct response in terms of dollars, and you might want to hold off if you haven't done some of the basics, first. So... let 'er rip. Bring on the peer review. Cheers,

The AOL- Bebo Value transfer equation Congratulations to the Birch's - $850m in Cash. The question is why now, just as we are told that these social network assets have jumped the shark and a steep decline in value is due, has AOL bought one?. What was AOL thinking? We have tried to help answer this question via the the AOL - Bebo value transfer equation below. Anyway, Bebo has between 20 and 40m users, depending on who you believe, which means the price is roughly between $20 and $40 per user (values Facebook at c 1/10th of $15bn by the way). Now, at a (very, very generous) CPM rate of c $1.00 per 1,000 visits, and an estimated 11 billion pageviews annually, that implies an annual revenue stream of c $11m - ie the deal values Bebo at c 85 years revenues.... (And as Wadds notes, even $21/user is a heck of an ask in SocNet Adland) Time Warner/AOL pegged the high water mark last time....do these things run in the DNA Update - BoomTown has some numbers, following revenues of c $20m in 2007 Bebo will grow: What we said.

Bebo: $1 billion Acquisition “Definitely Happened” Says Source Following up to our post last week talking about a possible acquisition of social network site Bebo: A high level source has told us that Bebo has been in discussions via their investment bank, Allen & Co., with a number of potential buyers, and says that the company signed a term sheet on Monday to be acquired. The rumored price is $750 million – $1 billion. What’s clear is that Bebo, which is the second largest social network in the UK behind Facebook, either signed a deal, or is sending out false messages that they’ve been or are about to be acquired (which is unlikely given Allen & Co.’s involvement). If misinformation is the goal, we’ve bought it hook, line and sinker. The buyer is unclear, although we are still betting on Google given that Bebo fits well with Orkut (very, very small user overlap). This is far from confirmed at this point, particularly the price, but this is about as strong a rumor as they come.