Retweet.com issued an official press release today about the sale of the website for $250,000 – a sale that received a lot of mainstream press coverage.
The press release also discusses Flippa.com, the web site used to “Flip” the Retweet.com website after less than a year of being online.
I covered Retweet.com back in the early days, even before the web site launched after it was mistakingly listed on NameJet for auction. Then when the site launched and started climbing in traffic, to its meteoric rise in visitors that gave its next biggest competitor Tweetmeme a run for their money.
A look at the official press release
Retweet.com – a service that aggregates Twitter to help people find real-time news on popular stories – has just sold on Flippa.com for $250,000.
San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) March 12, 2010 — With zero revenue but generating millions of visitors every month, the seven-month-old Retweet.com was the subject of a hotly-contested auction on the Flippa marketplace. The site received forty-five bids over three weeks before the site finally sold. The knock out bid from an unknown investor was $48,000 higher than the previous bidder.
Since Flippa launched its website marketplace in June 2009 there has been a steady increase in the volume and prices of websites being traded. However, the recent successful sale of Retweet is the highest price paid for a virtual property in the Flippa.com marketplace.
Dave Slutzkin, the General Manager at Flippa commented: “The market’s growing so fast! We’re now seeing over $400k+ of websites sold every week, and this week will be bigger again. Although it doesn’t compare to other markets such as property and stocks, the significant increases every week show that there are big opportunities.”
Flippa is one of a growing number of sites that facilitate the trading of virtual property online, otherwise known as flipping. The auction mechanism is similar to eBay – website owners list their site on Flippa and bidders then compete for the prize, with the highest bidder winning the auction.
The term “flipping” was originally coined by property investors. On the Internet, “flipping websites” involves purchasing existing sites, adding value to them, then reselling them for a profit. However, despite the name, not all participants on Flippa are actually flippers – many are investors who buy and hold websites as investments that produce ongoing revenue.
The high price paid for Retweet seems initially surprising as the business doesn’t earn any revenue. Most of the higher selling sites traded on Flippa are businesses that generate profits, so buyers are able to value these sites as they would a bricks and mortar business. It appears the new owner of Retweet.com sees significant value in the domain name, the brand and the large volumes of traffic that the website receives.
As the leading marketplace for buying and selling websites, Flippa continues to improve functionality to facilitate large transactions such as the recent Retweet sale. The marketplace is currently in the process of integrating functionality of the Escrow.com site, to allow buyers and seller to have a higher level of confidence in their trade in virtual property.
About Flippa.com Pty Ltd:
Flippa.com is the largest global marketplace for buying and selling established websites. It has traded over $30 million in virtual property and presently lists more than 600 new auctions every week.