The Well is For Sale

"most influential online community"

[rogerd]

Wired Magazine once called The Well "the world's most influential online community", and now you can be its proud new owner: [sfgate.com...]

The site claims 4,000 members, down from a peak of 12,000. It is owned by Salon Media Group, who estimates annual revenue at $500K.

[PeteM]

How the hell can you make $500,000 a year from a forum with 4000 members? My forum has 700 members and I'm lucky if I make $250 a year!

[encyclo]

They charge $10 a month for access. $10 a month subscription x 12 months x 4000 members = $480,000 ;)They only mention revenue, not profits. It seems that the subscription revenue is more or less their only source of revenue, and with their membership down from 20,000 to 4,000 and perhaps still dropping, it may be a risky investment unless the new owner can turn things around.

I'd never even heard of the Well before, so either I've missed something big, or the Well is "the world's most influential online community" in the way that Netscape is the world's best browser company and Altavista is the biggest search engine. ;)

[jomaxx]

The WELL was seminal back in the day (pre-Web). Many published authors hanging around, sometimes kicking around ideas for new books. Among other things it was a hangout for Kevin Kelly and some of the early Wired crowd. I would say it and BIX (Byte Information Exchange) were the pre-eminent online communities back then.

I haven't been a member for years, but I imagine the community is kind of held hostage by the membership revenues. On one hand, it's a reliable source of income. On the other hand, few people are going to join because it's kind of invisible due to the fact that you have to pay to visit the forums.

[Brett_Tabke]

To many people the Well = The Web as we knew it. $500k? The domain name alone is worth $500k.