“Digg for Deals” Up for Sale on eBay
Nick Gonzalez
39 comments »
Deal site Trezr is yet another eBay exit for a website (here). The site is like Digg for frugal shoppers looking for deals, coupons, and tips on how to save money. Users submit tips to the site, which other users can vote up in importance.
Trezr has a rather clever way of making money, by monetizing outbound links through affiliate programs with Commission Junction, Linkshare, Amazon, and Performics. However, the site hasn’t generated significant traffic since launch at the end of last year. The owners are claiming 4,000 visits per month and there doesn’t appear to be a solid community to grow out from as Digg did with Slashdot. The site also doesn’t offer any rewards for users like Fatwallet’s cash back rewards.
Other companies taking eBay exits were SynapseLife (now Down2Night), Kiko (now Justin.tv), and RSS Calendar.
Kiko exited through Tucows, not eBay.
wow … what will they think up next!
Darin
So, what’s the difference between the Deadpool and ebay “loser company” auctions?
its gone up about $600 since it was posted here
Not that it’s a bad idea, but that’s just too few visitors to be worth learning someone’s programming. 100 people a day, plus Pligg and some affiliate accounts and you’re on your way.
4,000 visits a month? That’s it?
Kind of interesting that Electric Pulp (of Truemors development) did this one too. It’s actually a pretty nice job.
In the stats it says only 1/3 of visits from search engines, that’s pretty amazingly low for that much time and effort on optimizing for them.
Since the user base is small, this would work well for someone looking to pull the technology into an existing community.
The eBay exit seems to be getting more and more popular by the day. But the figure 4,000 is not high enough I think.
Continuation of dedicated server will cost $950 next year, so they spend $80 a month on hosting?
That would mean they probably have something like this:
Intel Celeron 2.0GHz+ 80GB Hard Drive 512 MB RAM $69.00
no wonder the site is so slow
Kiko sold to tucows through an ebay auction.
affiliate ads and links count as “a rather clever way of making money” now???
@automatt: if the affilate codes are sliced into user submitted links - ya
I think the site failed because it is not focused enough.
I know an absolutely terrific social site like this that is solely based on discounted clothes (in fact its a kind of person to person wholesale site), and its a real gem with a hugely active audience.
Coupons?? Tips?? Waste of page space. Focus on one thing, do it well, and then you can build a community.
..still..Trezr is very pretty.
Agree with Neil, although the buyer could easily focus it however they’d want
Neil - Agree, but at the same time there’s almost no excuse for the only 4,000 visitors a month, and even with one or two people you could submit content yourself until there was some traction.
I really don’t get what they were doing, it’s like the site got done and everyone expected it to just launch itself.
Ben of Bensbargains.net should buy it, keep doing what he does anyway posting deals daily, and it’ll take off in no time without any real extra work on his part until he can stop working every day.
4,000 visits/month? That’s abot 130 per day and they are not even uniques. That site is not worth much.
Will people never learn? This is a site for cheapskates, and you can’t make money off cheapskates, neither directly nor indirectly. The whole concept, of a startup which will profit from cheapskate traffic, is flawed to begin with.
This project would have been great as an open-source, wiki, community type project for the cheapskate community. But as a money-making startup? Forget about it.
I always thought this site was better anyway.
http://dealspl.us/
I’m sure they realized that their traffic figures weren’t very high, but you guys seem to be overlooking their platform. The website automatically ‘monetizes’ outgoing links, meaning they parse affiliate IDs automatically into any outgoing link so as to get credit. This is the first I’ve seen/heard of this happening.
They’ve got a very cool engine and are looking to sell their platform more so than their database of users. They did say the possibilities were endless, and I’m sure they were headed down the affiliate revenue sharing route (like fatwallet.com’s cash back program), it really wouldn’t have been that difficult ot implement.
Go Web 2.0!
Nice site - I think http://www.agentb.com has gotten more traction in this space…
This site has huge potential.
Ebay exits are for losers…IMHO
Any marketing ability or networking ability and they could get a much better price. Although I suppose that is why they are selling instead of enjoying a nice payday for their efforts. It’s a shame because the site is very innovative and has a great look.
Nice site + Crappy marketing = eBay exit
Clipfire.com is probably the closest competitor to this site. In addition to being able to submit deals and vote them up, it also has a comprehensive search engine, searching deals from hundreds of other sites - including the big ones like FatWallet and Ben’s Bargains.
Clipfire is simply a search engine. Trezr is a social network hence the title of this post, ‘Digg for Deals’. http://www.agentb.com and http://www.dealigg.com and http://www.dealpl.us are the closest competitors since they are Digg clones.
Ugh, sites that covertly tie in links to CJ, Linkshare, etc. only end up pissing users off. When they see 10 links to free “whatever” and yet 5 of them actually send you to a site where you can’t get something for free (which most CJ and other such affiliate sites send you to), the user decides it’s not worth crawling through the crap to find the good stuff.
That said, it’s pretty nifty that they can automatically monetize user submitted links. As long as the new links don’t promise something falsely, I think this would be a decent buy for anybody with the time and resources to promote it. Anybody who thinks there isn’t money to be made off people who wants deals and free stuff is sorely mistaken, as my site proves otherwise.
Nice Kevin by using that other domain name in your name I almost missed the fact that you work for clipfire. Still cool site I like clipfire.
It took me about 10 minutes to figure out that Trezr meant treasure, despite the logo. To me it reads more like “traser” as in laser.
If it’s months of work, it seems like a “bargain” at this point. Wonder if someone has posted it in Trezr itself.
Damn, props to electricpulp for making a gorgeous site.
Interesting site. Similar but broader focus than Deal Locker, a new social coupon sharing startup I have been tracking.
Another one is http://www.shlogging.com/
I have been working on my site, saveupwards.com for about a year and half while finishing up my ad degree. If anyone is interested in sharing deals on the net please come! We only do deals, you can associate coupons and track rebated. Right now its just labor of love, no money coming in yet! I just added a facebook app, search for “share deals”.
JBP
Interesting for people to list all of the “competitors”. A quick visit to compete to see what their stats say…
Most sites mentioned in comments above are not even on the radar. Those that are:
trezr- 1,225 people
agentb- 695 people
clipfire- 16,461 people
No wonder #24 didn’t feel the need to refute #25’s erroneous claims above.
There is one more: http://www.dealego.com
It’s sold for $30K! amazing! Now I wonder how much the top two sites in this area: http://www.dealspl.us and http://www.dealigg.com worth
GreedyBargains.com is for sale on ebay : http://cgi.ebay.com/GreedyBarg.....dZViewItem
Their stats looks better than trezr.com and looks like they have been making money.