43 people says things!

1. Let me just sum up your idea:
   You want to sell this blog, because you don’t have much time for it. You also say that the success of this blog refers to YOUR writings. How could anybody continue this for you?

   I’ll unsubscribe immediatly.

   By Tobias on April 12, 2007 4:04 pm

2. To sum it up again:

   Since I am the only one who has written on this site and all there are on this site are words then yes it became a success due to my writings. Really don’t know how else to put it. I do think you should stick around though.

   By Scrivs on April 12, 2007 4:56 pm

3. That’s unfortunate. I’ve learn alot reading your stuff. Good luck on the sale though.

   By J Phill on April 12, 2007 5:31 pm

4. It sounds like you really don’t just want to let your “baby” die when you leave, even if someone else does pay you good money for it. Maybe a transition period would keep people here while they discover that the new writer really does have good things to say (and I hope he/she will!).

   By Becky on April 12, 2007 5:54 pm

5. First Business Logs and now Whitespace, er, um…Wisdump. Man, these two sites were some of the first ones that I started reading on a regular basis oh so long ago. Wish I had the dough, I’d buy it from you and keep it going. I hope the new owners will take good care of it…….

   By Frank 'viperteq' Young on April 12, 2007 6:44 pm

6. Damn! Here’s an idea: Why not just hire a couple good writers to help you keep it going instead of selling it? I’d be game to write for Wisdump…..

   By Frank 'viperteq' Young on April 12, 2007 6:46 pm

7. Becky: You are correct and depending what I can work out with the new owners (if a sale happens) you will see me around periodically.

   Frank: I was actually going to do that before considering a sale and if nothing comes out of this that is probably the direction I will go in.

   By Scrivs on April 12, 2007 7:58 pm

8. AWESOME!!!! Keep me posted…….

   By Frank 'viperteq' Young on April 12, 2007 8:26 pm

9. How much for 9rules?

   By aaron on April 12, 2007 8:35 pm

10. Soooo… not worth it.

    By Chris Gwynne on April 12, 2007 8:46 pm

11. I dunno it’s going to be kind of weird not having any independently owned websites in the ruler community. I mean there’s only Not Too Geeky after this one.

    By Michael on April 12, 2007 8:55 pm

12. For 9rules we can start the bidding at $50M.

    By Scrivs on April 12, 2007 9:05 pm

13. I’m sorry, but i fail to see the value in selling the blog. I guess i can understand that the owner would be buying the PR and the links in, but whitespace/wisdump is ONLY your collection of musings, Scrivs. Once you take you out of the equation, the site loses the personality.

    Of course, a new writer MAY want to come in and pick up where you left off, but then you have to ask yourself, if the new writer has the drive and capability of continuing where you leave off, why have they not started their own blog and built their own success?

    Selling a business that is about something, I can understand. Sell 9rules and that means something. But in essence you’re just selling the memory of you, here.

    By Dan on April 12, 2007 9:43 pm

14. What if I countered with 1M? Close enough?

    By aaron on April 12, 2007 10:10 pm

15. $10M.

    By Scrivs on April 12, 2007 11:51 pm

16. Okay, $500k, but that’s it.

    By aaron on April 13, 2007 12:00 am

17. First time I ever saw the negotiator go down in price. You must’ve forgotten the 9 in front of the 500.

    By Scrivs on April 13, 2007 12:49 am

18. Having just re-watched ‘The Mummy’ I found the bidding here embarrassingly funny.

    I’m impressed you make so much from so little traffic. It makes me wonder how much my traffic would be worth. I don’t have the pagerank though so I would assume any possible revenue from text link ads would be much reduced.

    By Jonathan street on April 13, 2007 8:19 am

19. […] First I don’t know how you could ever properly value a service company (or blog, for that matter.) A lot of effort goes into molding an environment that you want to be inside. If you get it right, you end up with a kick-ass place to spend your time, the perfect job. I’m not sure quality of life can be transferred, so, in the case of an acquisition, you’re only selling part of what you’ve built. […]

    By Selling your way of life at charisma:18 on April 13, 2007 12:09 pm

20. Dan, how is this site not a business by itself? It makes revenue each month (a number that could easily go up with more writing, better advertising methods) and has a very large audience. It’s not Paul’s personal blog talking about his dog or something, it’s been consistently discussing design, technology, and business for a long time.

    Where the bid is at currently it will only take someone around 18 months to recoup the amount they spent on the purchase, then after that it’s all their money. Buying a site or a company is an investment like any other, just because it’s a website that makes money each month and not a large company doesn’t make it a different type of purchase.

    By Mike Rundle on April 13, 2007 12:14 pm

21. Maybe I’m an idiot, but if I had the cash, I’d pick up Wisdump, BusinessLogs, Creating Passionate Users, and any other of these insightful blogs that I have grown to cherish.

    Granted, the content would end.

    But I’m the same kind of idiot who buys these things called “books.” They’re this really strange kind of writing that remain a static–and indescribably valuable–even though they never change.

    Of course, they’re ONLY a collection of someone’s musings.

    By Rick Turoczy on April 13, 2007 1:53 pm

22. Sad to see this little chunk of real estate up for sale, but everything has it’s time.

    Good Luck!

    By Kyle Johnson on April 13, 2007 4:58 pm

23. Scrivs, you can’t do this. Seriously.

    If anything bring on some new writers and sure, pay them if you are up for it. Although I am sure there are a ton of people who would voluntarily contribute blog entries to Wisdump/Whitespace.

    Rather than selling, why not turn towards a smaller-community sort of deal such as 9Rules. Rather, with Wisdump/Whitespace have you as the lead blogger and feature your posting much more than you would feature those below you. And only sophisticated writers which are chosen by the god himself get to blog and their blog-entries are much-less featured or something?

    Honestly, to lose to here is quite disturbing because we don’t want to hear next, “I am leaving 9Rules.” That would just, simply, be heartbreak.

    By Ryan Barr on April 13, 2007 5:27 pm

24. Mike, I was not talking about the size of the business, but the nature of it. Whether or not the business makes $1 a year or $100m NOW, I am talking about the transferable value.

    Yes the website has been pretty consistent for a long time, and built a reputation, that I am not knocking - but it’s a business based on the work of one man. Whitespace/Wisdump’s strength is that it approaches subjects with the personality of it’s owner. People come here for Scrivs, not for the subject matter - there’s more web 2.0, design and business blogs out there than you could ever want. Scrivs is the USP.

    My basic point is, that without Scrivs, the website loses its value.

    By Dan on April 13, 2007 5:46 pm

25. […] You can read Paul’s announcement and reasoning here. […]

    By Selling your Blog: Is your Blog too You? | KickstartPress on April 13, 2007 7:17 pm

26. Mike –

    Dan is straight on the mark on this. You had the same potential situation with BL and made a wise decision with bringing on Archer’s group because they had their own strong following in a similar scope to bring to the table.

    People come to this blog (and others) to hear what Paul has to say about a certain topic, not the topics themselves wholly. His views, like yours, incited strong reactions at times, and that has what made this site successful — everything else (the page rank, ad revenue…) came because of that chemistry between Paul and his audience.

    Once Paul leaves, (assuming he does) his primary audience will leave with him, and follow him off to whatever community he will go big in at 9rules. To say that whoever buys this will recoup the investment in 18 months is to assume that said person will come in from day one with as strong and passionate a following. What they bring to the table (in terms of existing, quality audience) is going to matter more than how hard they work in all reality.

    Case in point, Apple’s fanaticism is due in great part to Steve Job’s charisma and Jonathon Ive’s vision for design. If this dude was the one who was the mouthpiece for the company and someone else took over design, people would probably still love their Apples, but the fanaticism would wane in a serious way. You could say the same for 9rules — you’re (meaning the three of you) so ingrained in the personality of the company, it could never be the same if one or all of you walked away.

    I’m not a huge follower or believer in the principles and theories established in the book “Good to Great”, but what we have here is pretty textbook celebrity CEO / blogowner syndrome.

    By Mark on April 13, 2007 8:51 pm

27. Mate, good luck with the sale.

    I don’t see what everyone is worried about. It’s not like Scrivs will disappear from the Internet or 9rules is going to be switched off. It’s just one biz/tech blog he used to write frequently at which now has irregular posting is up for sale. He’s sold hepas of stuff over the years including CSS Vault and Work Boxers that the new owners got value out of the exposure to a new audience and the big guy from Tampa went onto better things.

    By Anthony on April 14, 2007 4:08 am

28. Mate, you should have spoken out to the community to get help getting your posts back! It didn’t have to be like that!

    As for the sale - sorry you feel that way. You’ll be missed. Hopefully you’ll come back soon with a similar-but-different project. :)
    You haven’t thought about just taking a hiatus? Maybe hiring someone in the community to blog for you for a while?
    Sometimes that old feeling comes back :)

    By Lea de Groot on April 14, 2007 10:02 am

29. […] One of my favorite sources for Web 2.0 information, Wisdump.com, is for sale. Its owner and sole writer, Scrivs, better known as one of the founders of the wonderful and slightly elitist blog network 9rules, seems to be interested in other things more than writing his witty, ironic, honest and often intriguing commentary on web startups, web business and Web 2.0 in general. […]

    By Wisdump.com for sale - franticindustries. on April 14, 2007 10:17 am

30. I can immediately remember a couple of ways to turn Wisdump around and make it a success even without Scrivs. But a change of approach is necessary: just having someone else write blog posts here won’t do.

    This said, I’m sorry that you’re leaving, Scrivs. You were quite high up in my RSS reader (:.

    By Stan Schroeder on April 14, 2007 10:21 am

31. Mark, I wasn’t the one who brought in the guys from Forty Media to run Business Logs, it was the purchaser Mark Saunders who runs dozens of high profile blogs. The Business Logs sale went off without a hitch (and I was the sole author for the last year or more) and now the site will be taken over by people who also value the same things I value on the web and presumably will write about them as well.

    Will people follow Paul to another blog if he chooses to start one? Perhaps. But the Web is not a mutually exclusive place. If a devoted reader of Wisdump wants to read new things written by Paul, why does that automatically mean that they will stop reading Wisdump as well? His Feedburner subscriber numbers have only been increasing, even as he stopped writing on this site for extended periods of time. After the sale (if he does choose to sell it) I have no doubt that the site will continue on just as strongly without him.

    Dan, I think your theory would be a valid one if all of Paul’s visitors actually knew who he was. The vast majority of my Business Logs traffic was from sites linking to articles I wrote (without mention of who wrote them) or from search engine traffic. Very few visitors actually came without a referral, so that tells me that visitors came to Business Logs for the content, which for all intents and purposes, was written by some random guy Mike who they had no clue about. As long as a site’s quality of content is maintained then I don’t think there is a negative side to switching authors midstream, in fact a new author and some other changes could shake things up and make this site even more popular than it is now. Paul never spent as much time on Wisdump as he wanted, and if a new owner came in and put that effort in I think it’d be tremendously positive.

    By Mike Rundle on April 14, 2007 7:04 pm

32. Mike, I think you are underestimating the value of the ‘9rules insider’ aspect of this blog, and considering this in too ‘black and white’ a fashion. I have nothing against the sale of blogs - I think Business Logs was right for sale, for example. But, I think that Wisdump lacks any clearly defined concept that makes it a valuable purchase.

    I’ll give you an example. If Mike Arrington decided to sell TechCrunch, it would be a sale I would be intently interested in. TechCrunch is a known blog, good PR and reputation, high income etc. AND it has a clearly defined concept. TechCrunch has one purpose and that is to break web 2.0 business news and profile startups. Anyone with some journalistic skill could write TechCrunch.

    Unlike TechCrunch, Wisdump is not a blog that has a clearly defined concept or purpose. It has no regular schedule or business aim either. Rather, it provides a very good insight into the thought processes behind one of the big web 2.0 successes - 9rules. I onyl need to direct you to the categories column to your left where you’ll find that 45 of the entries are filed under ‘Personal’. The success of this blog has been as the unnofficial backstage area to 9rules. I highly doubt that people come here simply for reports on the web, business and design issues. People come here to read what Scrivs has to say on the matter, and to get a bit of an insight into your business.

    I can see the benefits of the sale for Scrivs: if he just shut up shop then Wisdump would dissapear from memory, but is it sells, then Scrivs stands to make a good lump sum of money, and will always be the guy who created Wisdump. Some websites have sold well, I’ll agree, but a website like CSS Vault had a clearly defined concept.

    I am not disagreeing with the sale, as such, either. I am concerned about the way it is being sold though - as a going concern. Yes another author could come in and rejunivate Wisdump, but in doing so they will have to completely change the personality of the website, thus stripping it of everything it has come to be. To sell it as a going concern is misleading, because without Scrivs the nature of the website changes and thus its revenue changes.

    In essence what you are buying is the name, the prestige, the links in and the blogosphere coverage. Wanting to own that, I can understand, however, even Scrivs himself has stated that without him on board this is worthless by saying that the website will be REMOVED from the 9rules network. If Scrivs does not have the confidence in the website as a concept to trust that it can survive in the 9rules network without him, why should anyone consider this sale as reasonable?

    I am not knocking Scrivs in my argument at all, infact, I am saying that he has underestimated his role in this website. I am, however, concerned that some unsuspecting wannabe, who looks on in awe at 9rules and the reputation Scrivs has built, will see this purchase as their instant route to the same levels of prestige. This is a risky move, and at the end of the day, if it all goes belly up then it will be Scrivs who has egg on his face and not the new owners. No one will remember the guy who ballsed it up, they’ll just remember the face they associate with the website.

    And if you have any further doubts, take a look at the About page where you’ll find little more than Paul’s face staring back at you.

    I think a much better route would have been for Scrivs to take on a team of two or three authors to revitalise the website and change it’s personality completely before sale, as others have already stated. I just worry that everyone is getting caught up in another bubble that is based on how much your blog is WORTH as opposed to considering what service it provides.

    By Dan on April 14, 2007 9:04 pm

33. Hope you get the price and type of buyer you’re looking for Scrivs. If I had the money I’d buy it in an instant.

    Stammy

    By Paul Stamatiou on April 15, 2007 2:32 am

34. “If Scrivs does not have the confidence in the website as a concept to trust that it can survive in the 9rules network without him, why should anyone consider this sale as reasonable?”

    It is common practice for any site switching authors to be removed from 9rules, just like Business Logs is no longer in 9rules either. If and when the new author has a few months of entries built-up, then if they wish to resubmit we can reevaluate Wisdump for 9rules membership again.

    Dan I’m not sure what else I can say. Blogs are bought and sold every day (at Sitepoint, eBay, private auction, etc.) and new authors come and old authors leave, and the world still goes on. With or without Paul on board, this site is still a PR7, still has over 7000 RSS subscribers, and still has a large cache of content that can be monetized. There is still a lot of value in blogs written by one person, even after they leave, and this is evident in Paul’s auction where he already has bids to choose from.

    By Mike Rundle on April 15, 2007 2:50 pm

35. I think what Dan says makes some sense. I know that I subscribed to this blog strictly because of the Scrivs-9rules connection, not for any special web 2.0 or design content.

    And, because I rarely ever remove feeds from my Bloglines, I will continue to be subscribed here despite this sale. Who knows? Maybe - even if it’s another Splashpress Media site - it might be just as good or better … and more posts? Time will tell.

    Good luck with the auction Scrivs.

    By HART (1-800-HART) on April 15, 2007 4:39 pm

36. Dan you are making a huge assumption that everyone subscribed or reading the site subscribed for the same reason you did: interest in what Scrivs has to say. For the average blog that is definitely the case but when your content is being aggregated the reasons for why someone subscribes becomes a gray area. Wisdump has been aggregated via 9rules, was on the front page of Digg multiple times, has been linked to numerous times and is the default blog in my9rules. The average blog doesn’t have that type of exposure.

    In the beginning, yes, people subscribed because they were interested in Scrivs but if you are a long-time reader of Scrivs’ or following the things he’s said, yes he’s popular in the web/design communities but he’s not mainstream. The reason why his picture is on the about page was to define his identity because it wasn’t clear and his audience was becoming more mainstream (hence they didn’t know who he was).

    Now, most people are subscribed because they want an honest opinion on web stuff by someone in the industry, not specifically because Scrivs said it. How do I know this? Because we encounter people all the time on 9rules that do not realize Paul and Scrivs are the same person. o_O

    A smart business person will realize that the sale of this blog is going to be watched. Heavily, not only because it is so close to the sale of Business Logs but it will help set a standard. The articles are already starting to pop up on whether the blog will sell, if it does what it means for blogging, etc. Will some people unsubscribe? Of course but most will stay. Why? We are curious by nature and again, that brings me back to people watching that will want to know who buys it? What are they going to do with it?

    A smart business person will want those eyeballs. A smart business person will seize the opportunity and not only retain a large portion of the readers but will realize the fact that because Scrivs was kind of laid back in terms of purpose (using Dan’s word) they have more flexibility than stepping into the shoes of someone who was more rigid about their “purpose”. The realization will be there that there is a cushion most blog sales do not have: the curious nature of the people watching. When this blog sells, people ARE going to talk about it.

    There are many opportunities for the new owner of this blog. It takes someone thinking out-of-the-box to seize those opportunities.

    By Tyme White on April 15, 2007 7:25 pm

37. “When this blog sells, people ARE going to talk about it.”

    Tyme: people are already blogging about it like mad ;). Couldn’t imagine after the sale.

    By Ryan Barr on April 16, 2007 10:26 am

38. It’s quite obvious that the “scrivs” factor is why there is such interest in this sale. It may set a benchmark of sorts for the selling of a popular (via the personality) blog - hence why we’re all watching.

    Based on the numbers given here, I think this blog is very much under-monetized. Any savvy blogger spending a week or so heavily tweaking this blog should reap a great ROI.

    Heck, regardless of future content direction, the long-tail effect (ie: all those posts already written) will keep the money rolling in for quite some time.

    By Martin Neumann on April 17, 2007 5:27 am

39. Does this mean there won’t be a redesign every other week anymore?

    No offense but even if you gave this place for free I would strip and start over. While some of your writing is amusing and occasionally insightful it really has no value on it’s own. Where is the value? In the domain name? Possibly. Your content is you, the design is… well somebody depending on the month… but the blog itself is a free download that anyone can get with. There is nothing to buy here except your beloved memories.

    Maybe you should buy the darn thing.

    By pawl on April 19, 2007 10:52 pm

40. […] When I first heard about WhiteSpace/Wisdump up for sale, I have to be honest with you, I actually laughed. Not because it’s a shitty blog, far from it, a lot of the posts, not all, are well written insightful nuggets of information on design. But I laughed because of the $30,000 price tag Paul “Scrivs” Scrivens slapped on there. […]

    By hmmhuh » Wisdump for Sale? I LOL’D on April 20, 2007 8:06 pm

41. Hey! I’ve just discovered this site two months ago, and i love it.
    Dont sell this, just take a break. A year or what u need. Dont burn all the time u inverted here.
    See ya!

    By Sergio Alvaré (es) on April 26, 2007 8:21 am

42. […] When I wrote the entry on selling Wisdump there was a great discussion about how much my personality draws readers to this site and how it will effect whoever buys it. There were also some comments suggesting that I keep the site and change the format a bit allowing for more authors to jump on board. So then an even better solution would probably be that I stick around and write on here for a while and be joined by some other writers meaning you will be overwhelmed with Wisdump content and that’s the solution that is coming. […]

    By A New Wisdump is Coming on April 27, 2007 3:54 am

43. I wish you luck. There are always those standing in line to put down. I think that you have some signifigant value here. Good work on building it to such a point.

    By Randy Light on June 14, 2007 8:38 am

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