jeffhester.net

I saw this on a friend’s blog, and had to give it a try. This little calculator estimates the value of your blog using some assumptions based on what AOL paid for Jason Calcanis’ Weblogs, Inc. Unfortunately, this assumes linear valuation. In reality, the value of a network of websites such as Weblogs, Inc. would more likely follow a logarithmic curve, increasing in value at a higher rate as you get into the rarified air of the “big head.”

But it’s still fun to play make believe, so I ran the number for this humble blog, and found it’s supposedly worth $18,629.82!

Not content to stop with my blog, I dug deeper (I almost spelled that “dug” with two g’s… I wonder why?). Here’s what I found:

• BigBlueBall.com - $108,956.22 (not bad)
• MessengerMods.com - $0.00 (disappointing)
• GetGamer.com - $0.00 (more disappointment)
• HisBuddyIcons.com - $0.00 (etc., etc.)
• and so on…

Just for a fun comparison, I ran the numbers for Flickr, and it returned a valuation of $115,328,747.52. John Battelle estimated that Yahoo! paid in the range of $15-17 million for Flickr last year, making it look like quite a deal!

Now this clever little calculator bases the valuation on the number of incoming links, as reported by Technorati, so if you have sites that don’t really hit the Technorati radar (like many of mine), they’ll end up with a value of zilch. Which points out another flaw in this calculator. It will work better for blogs, especially if they have a tech focus that people save for future reference.

Oh, and if anyone is interested in snapping up jeffhester.net before we do our first round funding, I’ll give you a 10% discount for cash.