Rocketboom Founder Puts His Twitter Account On Sale
Duncan Riley
107 comments »
How much is a Twitter account with nearly 1,500 followers worth? Rocketboom founder Andrew Baron wants to find out, and launches a publicity stunt that will spark a debate about trust and privacy: He’s selling his Twitter account, including the followers. His explanation for the sale:
I really love my Twitter account but I feel like I haven’t been using it the way I want to. Quite honestly, I feel sorry for all of my followers because they wind up with my tweets in their timelines and I haven’t been able to utilize the medium the way I want to. I also participate in another Twitter account over on Rocketboom so I’m thinking I’ll post more over there and start up a new account to do what I want to do next.
It would be silly to just delete this account I have here, especially if there is someone out there that had like interests and had something to say or wanted to get involved in some relevant conversations. In terms of monetary value, I have no expectations or needs at all so I decided not to put a minimum bid on this. Whatever will be, will be.
At the time of writing the current bid for the account, complete with 1400 followers is $26. [Editor’s Update: The bid is at $1,125 as of 4/13, 9 PM ET). You can follow the auction here.
Twitter, of course, will almost certainly delete the account if a sale occurs (I’d suspend it immediately if I were them). But they may not have considered this possibility when drafting the terms of service or privacy policy - a sale or transfer of an account isn’t specifically prohibited.
don’t you just love ebay , and how people can sell anything
Two words: nu ts.
I am currently the high bidder on the auction. Not because I want to own his account and spam his followers, but because I want to freeze the account and save his followers from spam and him from a squatter.
Hopefully my modest bid wins
thats great because if air is gold it gives me hope like even i may have something to sell well maybe not because his air is gold well false hope is what i need to get through…and nice vid
this user account sale was pretty common in Digital Point and other webmaster Forums. A lot of people used to sell myspace, orkut, delicious, stumble, communities, facebook apps and a lot of other accounts. but a few weeks back only it was banned there.
what kind of valuation will you give this silly auction?
hmm, let’s see - approx. 1400 userx X …
I am interested to see the valuation of a follower from this sale.
Who knew that twitter can make money for you…
i have close to 2000 followers and i achieved that on only 1 week, it has doubled my traffic, it puts me in good mood, it has value but only to me …. i don’t understand why would anyone would want to buy another person’s twit account, it’s not longer personal that way!
i don’t get it!!!
i appriciate the fact that @AJ is buying it to protect it from over spam!!!
The good thing about Twitter is that it is so easy to unfollow someone if you don’t like their tweets.
Selling a Twitter account has limited value IMHO (especially if the buyer plans to spam it).
@martyj
An interesting case study.
AJ: I don’t know that the followers need saving. Once the account is sold, it’s easy for the followers to stop following.
I’m currently the high bidder at $150. Amusement value alone is sufficient (at current bid levels).
This is pretty ridiculous.
@lawrence I’d say $1 a follower is fair.
The TechCrunch effect: bidding is now at $400. As Rick #2 said: nuts
It’s not a good idea,he betrayed his followers!!!!
What do you think the street value is for my 7 followers?
@onstartups says to Sarah Meyers: What makes $1 per follower “fair”?
Not saying it isn’t, but other than it’s a round number, what’s the argument that $1/follower is fair market value?
1 word - cheap.
Bid is going to reach $500 !!!
This is probably not an original thought, but the use of the word “followers” in the Twitter context has always creeped me out. Enough so that I’ve had no desire to ever try it.
$455 with 9 days and 20 hrs to go, would be interesting to track how many followers stick around
current followers = 1,424
Ridiculous!
I have an email account for sale - it has hundreds of contacts and just as many unread (as in BRAND NEW!!!) emails. Any takers … bidding starts at $1.00.
why isn’t he selling sponsorship of his account, instead?
Really
If i was 1 of his followers i’d be ticked off. In ireland anyway i’m sure that’s a violation of data protection. Well it feels like a betrayal
I think I’d rather bid on a potato chip resembling elvis….
465 USD! http://tinyurl.com/3zs6kl
Isnt a twitter account a digital good ? I thought Ebay had just banned digital goods from its marketplace
Emea - I was just about to mention that, who owns the account (Twitter or Andrew). If the sale went through, could Twitter request the payment from Andrew or otherwise delete the account?
We just had the issue with digital ownership not too long ago with WOW, hence why eBay banned some digital accounts.
Not saying Twitter would be evil and do that.
I hope that:
1) Andrew gets his money for this fair and square for being the innovator that thought of doing this
2) There’s a huge backlash from his followers and they all stop following
3) It discourages anyone from ever doing it again
If he succeeds in selling it and the buyer succeeds in making it a worthwhile investment, can you imagine the spammers and advertisers that are going to flock to Twitter? It’s a pretty open and friendly community right now and I can only imagine that this is going to end by making everyone skeptical and less trusting of their Twitter neighbors…
I’m not opposed to Twitter growing and changing, but as I illustrated above, unless Twitter intervenes this is probably going to encourage the wrong kinds of change and growth.
ingenius way of making money. good on em for doing it. cant’ see the followers still following though after all this. they must feel let down by the money making scheme.
http://www.mrfeedback.net
Couple thoughts:
(1) Like everyone else, I’m thinking people will stop following when the new owner comes in. However, it seems like the user count is going up, and that make sense because of all the publicity. If I were a follower, I’d want to see who gets it and then unfollow or remain following. I’m sure that the # of users who remain followers > the # of users the new owner would have gotten on her own over the same time frame.
(2) It seems pointless to me to sell a personal account, but there are a bunch of non-personal accounts that you would expect to be bought/sold. Like folks said, selling sponsorship or “paid tweets” would be a better deal for the personal accounts. But think of the other Twitter account Andrew refers to: the one for Rocket Boom. If Rocket Boom gets sold, the twitter should go with it.
It will get deleted by Ebay/Twitter, and either way this is ridiculous.
Didn’t eBay ban the sale of digital products? Surely that includes a twitter account no?
If anyone wants to buy my twitter (I have a staggering 24 followers) drop me a tweet. Serious offers only please. No timewasters.
This is absurd.
However, the funny thing about all of this is that after the auction he will probably have made more money from Twitter than Twitter has from Twitter!
It borders on malfeasance for an industry leader, or person of a certain popularity, to sell access to their contact lists or accounts. The folks who subscribed to Baron may not have a financial stake in his follower list, but they had every reason to believe that they would not be transferred en mass to another joker.
Is a collection of casual online blog/IM contacts worth money? Apparently.
What about a list of IM contacts that have been scrapped from Social networks?
http://www.irintech.com/x1/blogarchive.php?id=3172
Is Rocket boom still relevant as a video site? I no longer view. The question I am asking is, what are the public followers of an ex-video innovator worth? It’s not a LinkedIn list of insider contacts.
There was a post regarding an internal HR guy trading on his Linked in contacts with a headhunter.
This is a rip off. The followers will simply leave immediately after. He will simply rinse and repeat. I am an ebay power seller.
http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eB.....id=necro25
As a power seller, I believe that this falls under digital goods, and digital goods have been banned from being auctioned. You can only sell them in the classifieds now.
ebay.com/aw/ca/200803311534172.html
“effective March 31 all goods that can be digitally downloaded or transferred electronically must be listed using the Classified Ads format.”
As a new power seller, I feel I have no choice but to report this, which will effectively end the auction. The sheriff’s in town.
I think this is a great idea. If things like twitter can command real value for the effort people put into their accounts. It will mean that you can create a franchise model around these places. Why is this better? Because it will allow people to transfer ownership of the assets, think sports teams or fast food.
@40 Chris - “As a new power seller, I feel I have no choice but to report this, which will effectively end the auction. The sheriff’s in town.”
Someone needs to get laid. fast.
@42, do you have anybody in mind? At any rate, it’s been reported. Let’s keep ebay clean and fair for everybody.
You know these readers are just going to unsubscribe as soon as the auction winner takes over. Ebay is supposed to be a positive experience for both the seller AND the buyer.
This is totally unethical.
So he’s an accomplice in his own identity theft?
Will he continue to use the account after it’s sold, or is he selling exclusive access?
Think of all the contacts an entrepreneur could make… Too bad he’s not still involved with Amanda Congdon!
And why would Twitter cancel his account if it’s sold? How would they know unless someone formally notifies them?
As one of his followers, if he sold his account to Steve Jobs or Bill Gates I’d be inclined to stay. I do think it’s not totally right in terms of privacy. But the service is free. I, for one, will wait to see who takes it over. Maybe they might be more interesting…
“Steve Jobs or Bill Gates I’d be inclined to stay”
Those kinds of people would never buy some else’s identity. Especially not somebody of that lesser stature. The kinds of people that are going to buy this are people that are nobody and want to upsell themselves.
The problem is that most likely, everybody will unsubscribe.
Not only that, but this may spark a trend of cash strapped people like Scoble(as an example, not saying he would) or other B tech celebs selling off their facebook or twitter accounts to pay for dental work or vacations.
This isn’t like the stuff in Paris’s storage locker that was auctioned off. These are purely digital goods with no guaranty that the feed readers will stay.
The # of followers is increasing, now at `1479. In the end that may change, but right now those saying others will un-follow are incorrect.
Good, fun, lighthearted silliness for Sunday morning.
I was following Andrew and he was following me however I’ve unfollowed and blocked him. He wasn’t just selling his twitter account. He also sold any trust that his followers had.
It just crossed $500…
Twitter accounts are lamer than FB apps. There is little to no valuation in one. The only reason anyone would bid on this is for a few seconds of publicity, which may be worth a whole lot more. Kudos to Andrew for being the first to do this, as this is going to be the first and the last twitter account worth anything.
twitter should bid and win the auction, close the account and change the TOS to not allow this in the future.
I think this is Bullshit! I can make 10 twitter accounts, and work for like 6 months to make thousands of fans and then sell my accounts on eBay.
This is like Business 2.0 … lol
Hahahahahahaha. Haha…
Latest bid is at $510.
I too have a Twitter acct with 1500 followers!!! Any potential buyers? Lol..
another fine moment brought to you by Free Enterprise
This is a sure sign of a bubble!
Andrew is a tool. I wonder how he even got 1400 followers.
Bidders are obviously hoping to get publicity from a winning bid. I doubt anyone is calculating “let’s see, x number of followers are worth etc”.
Bidders are more likely calculating “let’s see, the Techcrunch effect means a winning bid of ($?) will gain me (x) eyeballs from this blog’s coverage, and ensuing hysteria on Techmeme”.
Interesting side entertainment while watching six hours of golf today.
Andrew should really learn from Hugh McLeod. One can leave Twitter without making too much fuss, even if followed by thousands.
This gets into bigger issues with Baron’s brand. It completely erodes the trust of his consumers if he’s just going to sell them out to the highest bidder. If Coke or McDonald’s or Citibank did this, consumer groups would raise hell, and with any luck, Baron’s 1,400 or so consumers will do the same - if he’s really serious, once the curiosity factor dies down.
@David #58
Great point. I’m confident Seth Godin would never do this, as it flies in the face of ‘permission marketing’ and trust building.
Interesting, his followers have actually increased from 1424 to 1505 withing the last 10 hours, and the price increased from $455 to $510.
Current Stats
Price = $510
Followers = 1505
Ebay Counter = 5103
It’s Web 3.0!!!
Now you can be anybody if you have enough money!
It is what it is, just a PR play, and probably a brilliant one at that. It’s the attention economy stupid. Carville’s quote updated for the Web 2.0 universe.
@43 Chris, that would be you. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, sheriff.
How much would you pay for having your start up profiled at the potential follow up article in TechCrunch?
Because that is what the bidders are bidding for, not the account itself.
You’ve hit the nail on the head my friend.
I guess since Rocketboom is not on the radar anymore Andrew needs his 15 min in the spotlight again. What a shill.
$1,125.00 …. impossible but true!
Well, it’s the top story on Techmeme right now. So even if he doesn’t get paid the current bid of over $1,000, he still wins. As for the electronic goods. I thought the idea behind that was to prevent the distribution of easily replicated goods - to stop market flood type conditions. With the spirit of the law in mind, they may let it slide. If it were easy to replicate 1500 followers, nobody would be bidding.
@63 (fake IAMPostingtoSpamMyBlog) - thanks for stealing my username.
While it is immoral to sell such account definitely, I think Twitter may simply shut down this account because of violation of the terms of the service.
A couple of points from the above comments…
1) Don’t forget whoever buys it can change their twitter username… they won’t ‘become Andrew baron’
2) Definitely agree that it has now become a bid for the publicity of winning, rather than a $/follower thing.
3) It worries me that hackers will now see the value of twitter accounts… how many twitter tools are popping up everyday - do you ‘trust’ the ones that ask for your Twitter password to use certain parts of the API? Tweet Jacking?
Good marketing.
Which is worth more ? A pownce account or a twitter account … both with same no of connections.. and also.. does having a nice nick like codeshepherd matter ?
I think this guy is a genius! He has already gotten Techcrunch to notice him launching the Crunch effect. His web site will probably get a few thousand links from this ploy not to mention the money from the auction.
Good pr stunt and thought piece (reminds me of Chris Anderson’s press person email expose). Welcome to the credibility market.
More thoughts here: http://alwayson.goingon.com/permalink/post/26367
Could be a whole new revenue line if they take a commission….
For those watching from the sidelines, here’s a follow-up blog article:
http://tinyurl.com/6xg65v
Does this mean I can put my future kids that I probably won’t have through college with my account?
Andrew, you rock!
He just ended the auction, or at least that is what he said. Good luck getting anybody to follow him again.
do you know any information about this subject in other languages?
POWERSELLER Top Twitter Account für Ebay-Powersellers was put on ebay sale!