The Evolution of Blogster

I saw Blogster on eBay and I was intrigued. If you are going to get into a category you either make your domain name known or you select one of the 2 or 3 category killers. Blogster was a category killer. A name that is known by default. In blogging you have blogger or blogster and since Google didn't seem willing to sell, I went with Blogster. Even Googles Blogspot is nothing of a name, but it became something because they made it something. But I had Blogster.

I had big plans but struggle to find the niche. The community was growing but too slowly. 16,000 members seems like a lot but really, you need hundreds of thousands to make a site like MySpace or Xanga and more importantly I was concerned that ongoing, would blogging fade like the 8 track. I don't think it will, but I think there are limited boundaries to entry and a non-loyal customer base. Most everyone has multiple blogs and have no problem jumping around.

Regardless, Blogster was a community and one that I built. Although there were times that I felt like a camp counselor, it was a pretty unique community in the blog space and I am really surprised that the market hasn't followed.

I know the guys who own one of the other blog sites and these guys have over 75,000 members and less traffic than Blogster. No community but they were Terrapins so I cut them a break. Maybe the market won't catch on, maybe Blogster is a one and only network.

So when we decided to let it go I went back to eBay. Now with eBay you don't get real buyers of properties like this but through my contacts, some ads on BizBuySell and eBay, I was confident we would meet the price that I wanted and we did.

So Tony and Ed's (yes they have last names) checks cleared and they own Blogster. They seem like pretty sharp guys and have the experience online and seem to be pretty focused so they have a good shot at taking Blogster to the next level which I am happy about. I certainly do not want to see Blogster fail.

I joked about this yesterday regarding their learning curve. I made mistakes when I started but I did it in front of hundreds of people, theirs will be in front of thousands, if not tens of thousands. They are smart guys ... I put Blogster in good hands. Good luck guys.

That is it, Blogster is done for me and it was a fun 9 months.

Back to work!

So you want to see what I have had to say for the last 9 months? ChiefBlogster