The year has been an inspiration for hundreds of thousands bloggers and Internet entrepreneurs world whide especially after the sale of the 3 most talked about blogs for some fairy tale money. These widely rumoured super expensive blogs were:

ArsTechnica.com acquired by Conde Nast

Blog topic: Tech news

Price: estimated $25 million
Staff: 2 founders and about 8 employees to remain with Conde Nast as part of Wired Digital
Announcement Time: May 2008

PaidContent.org acquired by Guardian

Blog topic: Money-related news with a special focus on technology sector

Price: $30 million +
Staff: Rafat Ali (founder & editor) and Nathan Richardson (CEO) both remain to run the business
Announcement Time: July 2008

Bankaholic.com acquired by BankRate

Blog topic: Financial services and banking

Price: $15 million
Staff: Johns Wu is the founder and the only perron to continue editing the blog
Announcement Time: September 2008

The trend seemed clear with the first two: both are reputable publishers, distinguished brands with an extensive readership base, and grand performers of the top social voting systems. Both blogs are tech related and provide breaking ground info on the newest trends in the industry.

However the third blog clearly does not fit into the drawn formula of Internet success. The blog is only 2+ years old, is edited by one person only, the post are occasional, and not so many people knew of the site prior to the news of its acquisition by BankRate. So it may seem that such a large investment is not logical.

However it may seem so until you check the SEO of the blog. The site ranks well in Google for highly competitive finance related keywords such as ‘credit cards’ or ‘money market rates’. Each blog post is well optimized and can be found for a wide variety of keywords. This lets us make an assumption that most every visitor to the site is a targeted visitor and after reading the post he/she will most likely click the affiliate link to see the bank deals and special offers. Thus the high conversion rates create the favourable price estimation for blog acquisition.

So, I believe the conclusion here is pretty simple: you can sell your blog in two ways – either by making it incredibly popular with the online community, thus bringing value to the potential buyer, or by making it consistently popular with the search engines, which will bring in targeted customers only, which in it’s turn will still add value to the buyer. An example of Bankaholic.com proves that the having both of these factors is a favourable condition but far not mandatory.

So I’d like to wish anyone who wants to make a fortune by selling a blog in 2009 GOOD LUCK! Because often, no matter what promo strategy you choose to implement, Luck plays a huge role in the success of an Internet venture.

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Just several days ago Google launched SearchWiki, a service that allows users logged into a Google account to customize search results for their needs. Now Googlers can vote up/down websites, delete and add websites, write notes and reviews of any website they like or dislike.

Google claims that these changes only affect the search results of every individual user, however it also states that the results can be shared with other Wiki users. Here’s what Google Blog says about the feature and its goals:

This new feature is an example of how search is becoming increasingly dynamic, giving people tools that make search even more useful to them in their daily lives. We have been testing bits and pieces of SearchWiki for some time through live experiments, and we incorporated much of our learnings into this release. We are constantly striving to improve our users’ search experience, and this is yet another step along the way.

So we can see that Google is moving steadily towards the search based on social voting system. Whatever they say now, I can bet that this system will soon correlate with the non Wiki search results. So what is required of SEO specialists and webmasters today? – Right, start registering thousands of Google Accounts to dominate the future search results (or preferably create a script for that).

Click here to view the embedded video.

Related posts:

1. Search Engines - How they work
2. Web 3.0: Are We There Yet?
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Xtranormal.com, a Web 2.0 startup from Montreal, Canada, has recently launched their new product. What it does is it brings moviemaking to the masses. With its simple interface, drag and drop animations, pre made scene templates, gestures, and camera moves, anyone familiar with computer can create their own animated movies and upload them to YouTube, Facebook or MySpace.

You should really hurry up before it goes mainstream!

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Google has always been known for its constant brand, cleanness, and minimalism, so this step towards the mainstream (read MySpace) user expectations may seem slightly out of the ordinary. However it is clear that with these cute little innovations Google will be able to target new markets outside the usual techies.

Designers get ready! Soon Gmailers will get bored of using the 30 themes available today and will want more. So perhaps it is time to start developing Gmail custom templates!

Image via GmailBlog

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I’d never bother posting about this Web 1.7 social networking service if the buzz around it wasn’t getting so ridiculous. I strongly believe that this.. tool does not deserve the attention it is getting.

The concept of Twitter “I can publish, you can’t comment” is in no way progressive. This sort of perverse voyeur masturbation goes back few years into Web 1.0. However back then, the content was of higher quality. Now what you get is silly message like “Katy’s kitty loves sushi. Katy loves her cat. Katy’s going to bed”. Who cares about what you’re doing, Katy?

It is obvious that the majority of Twitter users are either geeky mediocre teenagers with no life or Internet marketing enthusiasts trying to find a way to promote themselves via micro-blogging. Normal people wouldn’t care to read all the web nonsense that is poured onto this site by thousands of people.

Twitter as a marketing tool? – Doubt it! It is clear that Twitter was initially created for real life friends. Otherwise who’d want to read all the bull you write out of boredom? So why are all the Internet Marketers so hooked on Twitter? Are they really desperate to attract any kind of audience without proper targeting? The only products you can promote on Twitter are Amway and Avon stuff that is sold to friends and relatives via multilevel marketing.

Marketing is about building long term relationships with potential clients. How can these trustworthy relationships be developed via a medium that is full of useless information?

Twitter causes brain damage? – Definitely! Participating in one way Twittering can cause severe retardation over time. Please check out the embedded video for proof.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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