Today I saw a very interesting item for sale (shown below) on Ebay...
As you can see, the two owners of the HR social network HRMToday are selling their 'baby'. But what do get when buying such a social network? and more importantly who would be interested?
The proposition from the owners is: 500 blog subscribers; 1000 social network members; 3500 blog post content; 1774 Twitter followers. The website visitor stats from Quantcast are:
So as you can see, it is a solid 'community' of people that engage in one way or another with HRMToday. But it isn't huge is it, not in the scale of other sites in this sector. So I guess the magic question is, how much is that all worth?
The HR community is notoriously niche and also a very busy one. From my experiences, they are avid readers, but not necessarily avid participants in network activity. Would they take too kindly to a job board or a recruitment vendor acquiring their details for example? Maybe another niche network will acquire them and combine forces?
This brings me on to the question of 'outing' Peter Gold - and no, I am certainly not questioning his sexuality (although, he desire to wear tight fitting running shorts all the time, must be taken into consideration!)
Last year Peter set up a social network for the HR sector in the UK (primarily, anyway) called Talentcloud. I have been a member since it started, and it is an excellent community of HR and related people. It is based on the Ning platform - the same as HRMToday - and I believe it stands at well over 500 members.
Now the magic question from me is.........at what level does the Ebay auction for HRMToday have to reach before Peter gets 'outed', comes out of the closet and decides to do something about it?
(Sorry Peter, I am totally playing devil's advocate here!! )
What level will he enter the bidding? It would certainly be a good acquisition for him. Or maybe when he sees how much it eventually goes for, it may entice him to do the same and place Talentcloud on Ebay himself?
Obviously I am having some mischievous fun at Peter's expense (and I am sure he will reciprocate at some stage soon!), but there really is a serious point here.
At what point, and how big do these niche social networks have to get to before they are worth some selling? We have all seen the huge values placed on the big social networks out there, but niche networks are totally different. Or are they?
I guess we will know on Aug 14, 200922:04:02 PDT when this auction ends!
