Buying and Selling Facebook Apps
Facebook is the future. At least, for the next couple of years until the next future comes along. That’s why I’ve been investigating Facebook applications, and have put a few out for bid. But instead of building an app, it might make more sense to buy an existing one. AppMrkt let’s you do just that. It’s a place for buying and selling Facebooks apps. There isn’t much there at the moment, which means some of the apps can probably picked up as great deals (I’m highest bidder on a bunch of them, so don’t outbid me!). This is a space to watch, because in the early days of any market there will be great opportunities to buy sites at great valuations and to do some market arbitrage.
Buying Sites Without Much History? Be Careful
Sites like this one for sale are the trickiest to value, in my opinion. JohnCow.com has been a huge hit, very quickly, but will it last? For something with such a short term history, the future traffic and revenue numbers aren’t very predictable, so I would only buy this at a huge discount to the valuation according to monthly earnings.
Directory Revenue Scams: Buyer Beware
Don’t buy a directory without proof of earnings. Directory owners have the ability to play an interesting game using self-generated revenue. Here is how it works. They build a directory and add a few sites, then let it get indexed by Google. They link to it from a few of their existing sites, or buy some links on high PR sites so that the PR of the directory gets up to a 4 or so. (It’s tough to sell a directory without at least a PR4) Then they buy $300 worth of links in the directory for themselves and their existing sites. The money simply flows from one of their paypal accounts to another, so all it really costs them is a few dollars in transaction fees. They then post the directory for sale and say it had $300 in revenue last month, which isn’t exactly a lie. You bite. You buy. You pay a couple of grand. You make $40 a month. It’s a pump and dump website scheme at it’s best. Buyer beware.