Website Income
 

I've just noticed in today's newspaper that the founders of the Friends Reunited website could make up to £28m. out of the sale of the site. I understand that websites make money out of savertising- but- how much? It must take a heck of a lot of advertising to generate a value of £28m!

Anyone know the ins and out of website values and income?

You have to remember that friendsreunited is also a revenue stream, i.e. you have to pay to use the advanced features. So, if the reports are correct they have 8 million members, if half of those have paid 5GBP membership fees that is 20,000,000 membership fee per annum (the fee is a recurring charge).

I would guess that the membership figure is nearer to one million, but that's still 5 million revenue stream per annum.

The advertising revenue is dependant on traffic volumes but assume its a million a year.

6 million revenue per annum
30 million revenue over 5 years

28 million asking price appears 2 million too cheap.

They also have a FriendsReunited CD out with tuines from 80's
Another marketing ploy..but bound to work

The value is in the database: name, age, location, occupation and whatever else they get off you.
Why do the supermarkets run "loyalty" schemes? Not to reduce your shopping bill, that's for sure. They want a database of who spends money on what - and they'll no doubt use it to persuade you to spend more, not less.
Personally, I pay cash for stuff that's in the "reduced" bin... :)

25F: there is no value in the database - your terms of service with them state that they will not use the information in any other way. The database is worthless. If you want to see a company who tried this and lost go to http://www.stepstone.co.uk and see the text.