Marketing_Guy - 1:23 pm on Oct 7, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld despite being popular is a niche industry and regularly flaunts it's non-advertising policy. A broad network of blogs is much more valuable than a community that would most likely leave if a commercial entity such as AOL (or a lot of other companies) took it over.

WebmasterWorld members may be big spenders, but they ain't likely to sign up to AOL services anytime soon. Weblogs Inc on the other hand have a much more diverse userbase, so in addition to the direct advertising revenue from the network, AOL could stand to dramatically increase the popularity of their product offerings and subsequent market share.

Offhand I can't think of many companies that would pay $25m for WebmasterWorld - there's just a very limited plus selling potential as the USP of the site is it's non-commerical nature and thus it's large membership.

Don't get me wrong - it's not a reflection on the quality of WebmasterWorld - I just don't think that companies will pay for eyeballs only.

MG