Blogonomics: Exit Through Acquisition
Breakingviews, one of the least web-savvy websites in the world, ran a column by Jeff Segal on Monday about blog valuations. And given that breakingviews tries to disable copying and for all intents and purposes bans hyperlinks …
Context & Ripple Effects
Blog valuations have been building as a story since 2006, when Don Dodge asked whether your blog was one in a million and VCs started circling the blogosphere (VCs hunting million-reader blogs, VCs seeing opportunity in the blogosphere). By late 2007 the conversation had split: some blogs proved very profitable (very profitable blogs), while others took paid gigs that critics called selling out (techbloggers selling their souls).
Into that debate steps Breakingviews — per this piece, a site that disables copying and effectively bans hyperlinks — with columnist Jeff Segal writing about what blogs are worth. The irony is the point: a financial-commentary outfit with little feel for how the web works is now setting terms in the blog-valuation argument, which is exactly why Portfolio's Blogonomics column is pushing back.
First-order effects
- Jeff Segal's Breakingviews column enters the blog-valuation debate carrying a credibility handicap: its own publisher bans hyperlinks, the medium's core unit of trust, undercutting its authority on what web properties are worth.
Second-order effects
- Bloggers and small publishers banking on an acquisition exit now have their numbers scrutinized by mainstream finance commentary, not just VCs and peers — raising the bar for the traffic-and-revenue evidence any sale pitch must show.
Third-order effects
- If mainstream finance outlets keep pricing blogs as acquirable assets, blogging consolidates from a publishing hobby into an asset class where exits run through acquisition, and valuation methodology — not traffic bragging rights — becomes the contested ground.
The trend: Blog valuations are migrating from VC curiosity to mainstream financial analysis, forcing old-media commentary to either learn web-native economics or lose standing in the argument.