We’ve been getting quite a few tips about this, and German media outlets are picking up the story like crazy, so here goes: if you were ever in the market for a German blog, now would be a good time to put your money where your mouse is. Robert Basic, famous in German-speaking countries for his blog Basic Thinking, has put the site up for sale on eBay reportedly because he wants to start from scratch again.
Basic Thinking is a technology blog which has actually been dubbed the ‘German TechCrunch’ by some; we’d be honored but we’re not sure since we haven’t been following it and our German is a little rusty. Basic is really straightforward about the incoming revenue of the blog on the auction listing: it made him about €37,000 gross from display and text link advertisements in 2008. He hasn’t been actively selling advertising on the site so he’s confident that it could bring in way more revenue, especially considering his status as the German ICT blog and that his Google PageRank could be brought back from 4 to the former 6 by simply removing the text link ads.
The visitor numbers for Basic Thinking aren’t enormous, but considering the niche and the limited (German-speaking only) scope, they’re decent enough: last month the site reportedly received 185,000 unique visitors and served 254,000 page views. The total number for 2008 was just under 2.5 million unique visitors and 3.6 million page impressions. The embedded graph shows the site’s growth since it took off in 2005 (it was actually started back in 2003 but had been on hiatus for a while).
So, what are you waiting for?
Bidding closes in about six days, the current offer on the table is just over €20,000 (Basic was hoping for something between 10k and 100k so we’re curious to see where this will end).
(Image on top courtesy of Bild)
Why is he selling?
Cause he wants to start over from scratch
That sounds like a load of junk. How does that make any sense?
You don’t start over! Why would one want to torture one’s self like that?
Either he is lying or an idiot.
Ever heard of brand development, crazy eyed dude?
The quest for the holy grail…of money.
http://boltonsd...g.blogspot.com/
So his PR is down, the USP of the site (him) is leaving, and he’s going to immediately compete with his old site. At least he’s honest, but that is not the hottest pitch I’ve ever heard. The bottom line is he is probably selling because he learned from the mistakes he’s made and want you to buy them off him.
So if anyone’s in the market for mistakes, they can take my zip+radius craigslist search engine off my hands. Wasn’t really a mistake, I was just trying to segue to saying use http://craigsy.com now!
Unless he signs a 3-year contract to continue at same level, the site isn’t worth shit.
He will definitely have some interesting capital to start from scratch. It seems that he has the following to bring in $$$ he is asking for. Also, maybe the first site was a testing/learning project. TechCrunch should keep an eye on this guy. It seems he has big plans ahead.
“TechCrunch should keep an eye on this guy. It seems he has big plans ahead.”
+1.
-1.
Arrington should buy it – TechCrunch Deutsch Edition.
That’s exactly my opinion !
With 80 million inhabitants, Germany is the biggest European country.
Why not launching a Techcrunch edition in German, as you’ve done with Ouriel and Alain in France ??
But who can bash everything like Mike Arrington in German language?
You won’t find one… google-hater-europe-basher-everything-sucks-expect-what-i-like-loic-offending guy like him.
I think any German in IT is perfectly capable understanding TC – there is no need for a German version – especially given that most entrepreneurs that have a great idea come to the valley – Germany just isn’t a country that’s supportive for businesses.
It’s not like TechCrunch, it makes no sense to buy it.
I know – that’s why I was being facetious when I wrote that comment.
Huge risk associated with a buy like this. One, people probably like HIS writing. Two, he will be your new competition.
A non-compete clause would have to be part of any deal, no matter his plans, otherwise, I don’t see him selling his blog to much of anybody.
Jon
http://WoodMarvels.com – Create Unique Memories
why is he selling?
it has to be a good reason
Robin, basicthinking has 185.000 visitors last month, not only 85k. i think you made a mistake there
Basic Thinking is the German TechCrunch…???
Hopes I my English is bad or this shall be a joke?
The quality of you (TechCrunch) doesn’t have Robert Basic
Definitely! You’re comparing apples to oranges: BT is mainly a private blog. The writing skill of BT lags far behind TC’s. There’s no news-breaking, no intimate-ITC-knowledge, no influence (beyond some parts of the German blogsphere). The sale is getting media attention because of the sale, not because of the blog.
Dimido: Your english is so bad, unbelievable… please stop commenting in english until you finished a elementary school or something like this.
Ok, come on man, at least he makes the effort to learn another language. Making mistakes is ok.
Tom: *an* elementary school.
Ha ha! Irony anyone?
Yeah, let’s see Tom learning German
…at least just a bit…
The value is in him, not in his site. I wouldn’t be interested since he will be starting from scratch and competing with his old site. Do we know why he wants to start from scratch? Is he trying to dodge a partner or investor??
are you guys f-ing joking with the ads on the front page? holy christ.
Speaking of fierce competition: Robert Basic even wants to write about the same topics on his new site http://www.buzzriders.com – this time in German and English (sells better next time;)
It’s a smart move since he’s the first guy to sell such a blog in Germany. He will get a pretty good price, I guess …
In German and English? &”%§/”!%/§), so you all gonna see what nonsense he actually writes… If he’s going to write as bad in English as he does in German… Pheew,… Jesus will turn over in his grave.
Ich hoffe der Verkauf verlaeuft erfolgreich. Liebe Gruesse und ein frohes Neues in die Heimat.
@peterurban
Schliesse mich dem an.
Another german blog sais, he don’t really want’s to sell it – it’s just linkbaiting:
http://www.neun...rter-baitologe/
(Google Translator will do the job)
I spent a few days with Basic on BlogOpen conference last year. Great guy. I hope he sells good and start again!
Preditions are round abt 27k http://bit.ly/gFQe
He is no Techcrunch, more like Robert Scoble: having verbal diarrhea. Too much text, too few information.
couldn’t agree more!
It was fun in the beginning, interesting when the whole Facebook StudiVZ ripp off happened. Mainly because he had some kind of first-hand insider info about it.
After that it went downhill for me. I almost stopped reading his blog through 2008. Some posts caught my attention but they after the catchy headline there were all pretty useless.
Was about to write that, too. Noisy guy with news he probably gets from TC anyway.
he is really no german techcrunch
it’s simply a privat blog!
Guys, not really knowing about the German market, not understanding German, definitely means you are talking about the cat in the box – and it seems to be Schrödinger’s!
Ah, the last two, Mike and Bored by Basic, which crossed my comment, are getting the real thing.
But a good price for Robert’s blog would help the whole German ‘blogosphere’!
Agreeing with Bored by Basic – he is Germany’s Robert Scoble, although he seems to be less addicted to lifestreaming & co and also focusses on other topics than tech.
…u mm – Techcrunch Germany? Robert Basic? Don’t think so – what a compliment from Techcrunch!
As others said, his blog is not the german version of techcrunch – AT ALL!
He is a fucking noob!
If he is a noob, how could he be the No. 1 Blogger in Germany?
Und ja, Roberts Blog ist nicht wirklich wie TechCrunch, denn er hat viel weniger Werbung bei sich.
Greetings from Germany (Cologne)
Komsumzombie: Since you are passive aggressive in posting in German, I would like to translate your subversive jab for all the english only readers:
“And yes, Robert’s blog is not really like TechCrunch, because he has far less advertisement on his site. *back stabbing grin*
He is a noob, as most things in the German internet is noob. Germany, as a whole, does not as actively use, apply, generate, develop, or evolve the internet at US rates. We use the internet more frequently, more ubiquitously, and more thoroughly. The merrits of whether one condition is better than another is open for discussion, but apparently you feel that Germany is behind the ball or falling behind if you feel you have to be ignorant of reality.
He is number one in Germany because the bar is extremely low and the society still firmly has a foot rooted in the pre-information age mindset.
It’s actually a quite intereting issue that is manifested in German sites simply and plainly stealing ideas, stylesheets, and designs rather than coming up with their own ideas. It is the realization that Germany is far behind the US in all things internet utility. It is quite sad that a resourceful people like the Germans would be reduced to stealing and even allowing the theft of ideas and innovation. Is it really a venerable thing to be proud of a robber society.
Look to the source of this disparity and I think you will find that even though Germany’s PC saturation is quite high, up to fairly recently, buying a computer, the electricity to run it, and the internet connection were major costs in people’s budget that is strained by a quite stiffling tax system.
If the internet is going to ever develop in Germany, as it has in the US, under Germany’s current political and economic circumstances, the Internet’s societal penetration will take a while like it did in the US in the early stages of the net’s development.
@Mark B
“Germany, as a whole, does not as actively use, apply, generate, develop, or evolve the internet at US rates. We use the internet more frequently, more ubiquitously, and more thoroughly.”
Would that explain why America rules with the obesity, as no other country in this planet “earth”?
And as far as the content above from TC:
Guy made wise choice to sell his blog, I just don’t understand why TC has anything to do with it? Over 5.000 blogs get sold a day, why is this one any different?
He tells us his decision to sell his blog has been a spontaneous idea. Does he likes to fool his readers? I don’t know but i suppose its a good idea to do it NOW and to do it as the FIRST big german blog.
Therefore, now he attracts a lot of media attention.
In one year, in the middle of a very severe economic crisis, his blog “basic thinking” couldn’t be sold for a good price.
In one year the price for “basic thinking” wouldn’t be more than 2.000 $ – an average monthly salary for a german computer technology expert.
Like I already said: His Blog is not nearly worth what people are going to pay for it since he’s just another blogger, who posts 10 posts a day, from which only 1-2 are useful.
What has brought him this “superstar status” is his constant number 1 ranking in the german blogcharts, which is solely based on technorati rank. Considering he’s got a bunch of fanboys who are linking all the time to his blog, an obvious ranking.
You buy basicthinking, you’ll buy his faults and the guy that was bringin all those links in is gone. Fail.
That we even do care about this stuff over here is just another proof of how fucked up our blogosphere is. Blogs just do not have the power in germany that they have in France or in the states. Period.
And therefore Basics Blog may be worth 10-20k due to his Google Trust (lets buy it & put up some payday loan postings on there…)
Robert Basic himself never claimed to be the German Techcrunch. In fact – privately – he always felt flattered by that hugely exaggerated comparison.
All he says in his eBay sales description is that Basic Thinking could be turned into a German TechCrunch, provided the new owners employ a whole team of writers and concentrate on techie issues.
He never did that – his blog is mixed bag of technology, weird gagdets, private thoughts and a lot self-PR. That made it attractive to his loyal readers.
Greetings from Cologne, Germany
I don’t give a tinker’s damn about it.
6000 – 7000 daily visitors? In a large country like Germany? On a standard Wordpress CMS? He should take his EUR22500 and run.
I am just wondering how he makes 30K Euros “brutto” per year even tho I have more daily visitors then he does lol.
Lulz -.- Ever thought of it, that there are more than 1.2 billion people reading and writing english, while there are only 120 million german reading people? I really think too, that his blog isn’t the “german techchrunch” and in fact his blog is really annoying… but your american arrogance is far more amazing…
This article completely exaggerates the impact of Robert Basic of Basic Thinking in Germany.
He may have a well visited blog – no doubt about that. But the content is rather private and – sorry to say that – quality is lacking very often.
I don’t think we should spend more time on this conversation.
It is a big discussion in Germany too, what is such a semi-private blog worth. And this action of robert will show it. Because of this action is very interesting for the german blogosphere. But to buy it, its just business. And for business this project is quite interesting. More then 500k in-links and a domainpop over 50k ist worth to have an eye on. And now a lot of online magazines write aubaout this blog, tons of blog wirte about it, so that the power of this domain grows and grows. Robert never has been interested in SEO, because of that his blog maybe has just 20% of visitors possible with doing basically seo on this page. So if you increase the visitors by SEO and don`t stop writing you get near to the big german magazines. And this based on a one-man-show is really nothing to look strange at. Germany is not the USA and basicthinking is not Techcrunch, but you have to see the context and in this german context you will not find a lot of better pages to start a succesfull onlinebusiness.
Just m two cents (Eurocents of course;)
I don´t think his blog is very popular among German people. He might have some influence among some guys but it is not at all competing with the big international tech blogs.
You drive a lot of attention to this blog right now so I wish him all the best to make money and start with a bilingual version all over again…
Well, it’s the biggest German blog on all blog charts. So…
Again… If there is no real competition, and the bar is practically on the ground, and there is no real consumer base; rankings are invalid.
“Well, it’s the biggest German blog on all blog charts.”
It’s not. It only is No.1 ranked by Technorati authority, but e.g. No. 17 ranked by traffic (page impressions, last 30 days):
http://www.blog...s/0/0/0/8/1/100
- and that is including the boost he’s got during the last few days because of the sale.
I bet some SEO will buy it and monetize the link karma. It will be interesting to see what those who set the links will think and do about it.
No, Basic Thinking is not the German Techcrunch. If you want to compare it, it’s more BoingBoing – but with less influence.
Blogs in Germany don’t have the standing their counterparts in the US or France are enjoying. Especially the strange and extremely hard criticism by classical media let many Germans still think, they don’t need to care about blogs (and the web as a whole, actually). Let me just quote one of the biggest German newspapers “Sueddeutsche Zeitung”: They sent a writer the the blog conference Re-Publica who never read a blog before. And he actually wrote that you he expected “asexual beings” at such a conference. Yes, thats the intellectual level in Germany when classical media is taking care about blogs.
And thats why the selling auf Basic Thinking (not the most read but the most linked blog here) is sort of a danger for the German blogosphere: No matter, what happens, you can turn it against blogs as a whole.
But of cause it will be interesting to see what the buyer will do with it. We will learn how fast a Google page rank can sink.
As Thomas Knüwer mentioned, the importance and the influence of blogs in Germany can’t be underastimated, at least at this moment. The main reason for this is imo rooted in the mentality of a lotta Germans, caused by a “mandatory” public education in state-run schools and universities, which to don’t educate enterpreneurship and understanding of the market economy. In fact curriculae are filled up with anticapitalist and authoritarian thinking.
Robert Basic is not like TechCruch. He has a unique style of blogging and thats why he has so many readers. It’s more a private Blog about stuff he is interested in. There are lots of tech-posts because he is interested in stuff like that, but its not a blog dedicated to tech-posts only. I always liked reading his blog and I hope his new projects will be successful as well.
I’d guess that he’ll make about 55.000 Euro selling it. But we shall see…
hi, i am the owner of the Basic Thinking Blog, so feel free to ask me your questions about, maybe i can help you.
And hey, Techcrunchies, thx a lot for this report, i feel somehow honored. Kudos!
Robert
Don’t mind what people here comment, you can just get 50 negative comments and 3-5 comments positive, it’s been like this since 2005. If you were american and maybe brother from Steve Jobs everyone would salute you even tho your personality did not change and your blog is still German.
(If you know what I mean)
hi Robert, I like your blog. If you do sell, what will you do after? any big plans?
Shut up! It’s our discussion!
Rober and @All,
I just post on my blog short interview with Rober :
http://antyweb....ie-dla-antyweb/
Rober thanks for that, and good luck with new blog or project.
He’s selling the blog to go be an Alton Brown impersonator.
Yeah if you could monetize it that would be great but in this economy good luck.
Too many U.S. commentators here are taking too many things for granted about the German blogosphere.
30 K Euros net via advertising per year and 5,000 plus visitors per day mean a lot more in Germany than they would in the U.S. Not so much because the German population is less than third than the U.S. population, but more because German language blogs naturally attract a limited international readership.
And – as Thomas Knüwer pointed out – it’s a lot harder over here to make a breakthrough as a blogger into the public mainstream. There is really only one blog in Germany – a watchblog called ”Bildblog” making daily fun of our biggest tabloid ”Bild” – who could be called on par with classic mainstream media. But that’s not up for sale (yet?)
You’re very right, Ulrike. And that applies for other countries in Europe.
the adds all about the adds
Non-compete clause for at least 6 months to a year, otherwise you’d have to be an idiot to buy this site. It’s his own writing style that attracts readers, and you’d have to ape his style (in German!) to have the same success.
I don’t really see why this is big news? Sites with greater traffic, revenue and significance get bought and sold on Sitepoint.com every day.
yes of course, peter. but in germany you have to see this aspect in other dimensions than in the US for example.
okay, in german markets it could also be more traffic, but that is not the only fact for basicthinking’s popularity.
for SEOs might be the backlink structure interesting if they want to use it.
finally i think, it is a big hype – after the auction it will be more quiet than before. i dont think the buyer will be so successful with this domain and blog like robert himself.
Peter, it’s not all about the traffic — I think it’s more about the background of Robert Basic, about the meaning for the German blogosphere and the meaning for the professionallization of the blogosphere in Germany.
Hey,
Let’s start German TechCrunch
. I’m ready to help. I live in the US but German is my second language (English is my third) and I went to school in Germany for many years .
If you need help let me know. And btw. I’m into IT/WEB field as well.
Hey, you forgot to disclose your 10% commission
Oh my god, there are so many mistakes in those comments. Let’s start correcting:
1. Robert has decided to sell quite some time ago. That is what he explained in one of his last posts and he told me today on the phone.
2. Robert the Techcrunch of Germany?
yes and no.
No, he isn’t Techcrunch:
* Techcrunch is international, Robert is for German language readers only
* Techcrunch mainly covers Tech, Internet, Web2.0 …, Robert does not exclusively cover these topics
* Techcruch hardly has any private stuff in it, Roberts blog does
yes, he is the Techcrunch of Germany
* Roberts blog is the biggest Blog in Germany that covers a lot of Internet related topics
* Robert can make or kill startups, but he rarely decides to do either
* for German traffic amounts he can push a lot of traffic, which is quite high quality, because the people do click and stick around (tested it quite a few times as I tried to push my now inactive blog up)
* Services that are accepted by Robert gain a special importance to not so experienced internet marketeers and pr people
So there you have it, he comes closest to Techcrunch compared to any other blog in Germany.
His sale is making big waves by the way, even reaching out to other European Tech-blogs, that rarely refer to German topics.
The critics mainly complain about too much private stuff, he blogs videos he likes, writes his thoughts on politics or any other current topic. People who know him usually like that, others just stick to his other posts.
In general his blog is the blog most German bloggers aspire to, since it is one of the very few that has gained a substantial reach. I wish him good luck with the ebay exit.
I can tell you some stuff about this guy.
He can post about 39 stories a day, but it is more quantity than anything else. He just keeps a high frequency and creates a lot of content, good or bad, i stopped reading cos there is much better in Germany. But i guess he is a pretty clever guy and I like clever guys.
There is one guy in Germany who is much more Arrington and has a really great writing style. His name: Martin Weigert
Cheers from Man
@oll – i don’t charge a commission*
*for the first 6 months
Robert: you make a good point..
I WILL PURCHASE his blog!!
how much is it agian?.. i’ve got 12 bucks…