SitePoint

Sold!

Winning Bid: $60,000.00

This auction was ended early by a Buy It Now bid

Congratulations to the winning bidder, gisingh!

Bid History

World's #1 Ranked Zune Site and Forum for Sale

$1K-$2K p/m | 5,053 U.S. Alexa | Leading Zune News, FAQ, Help, Hacks, Games

• URL: http://tinyurl.com/6kvzad/
• Established: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 14:00:00 GMT
• Uniques/Month: 150,000
• Page views/month: 3,500,000
• Monthly Revenue (USD): 1,500
• Google Pagerank: 5
• Listed: Thu, 03 Jul 2008 01:54:38 GMT

Description:

Hi there, and thanks for looking! Today I am proud to announce that my most favorite website, ZuneBoards, is for sale. ZuneBoards has definitely been the most enjoyable project of mine, and it has reached success that I would have only dreamed  of 2 years ago. So why am I selling my baby? For a few reasons. I feel that I don't have enough time to really take this website to its full potential. I would also like to give my parents and myself some financial support.

ZuneBoards was a experimental project of mine in the Summer of 2006, where rumors were flying around about a supposed "iPod Killer" from Microsoft. Immediately I picked up the domain, and I gotta tell you I don't regret that decision at all.

Traffic
We are averaging about 9,000-10,000 visits a day, with anywhere from 90,000-130,000 pageviews per day. So far this year we have served more than 17 million pageviews from over 700,000 unique visitors--and it's only July!

~90% of all traffic comes from the United States, with Canada in second place.
~96.5% of all traffic are from a Windows operated system.
~55% of all traffic are from Internet Explorer, with Firefox at 41%.
~61% of all traffic are from Search Engines (mostly Google), 22% are direct, word of mouth traffic, and 17% are from referring sites.
We are currently the world's most trafficked Zune website, according to both Alexa and Compete.com

Proof of traffic and screenshots available upon request via PM.

Search Rankings for Google
Zune - 6th Result as I am writing this
Zune Help - 2nd Result
Zune Hacks - 2nd Result
Zune Forums - 2nd Result
Zune Forum - 2nd Result
Zune Boards - 1st Result
Zune Pass - 2nd Result
Zune Games - 1st Result
Games on Zune - 1st Result

We have a list of 55685 different keyphrases that bring us traffic from Google. Extensive list of them can be requested by PM.

Staff
We have great, dedicated dedicated staff-- all voluntary workers. We have a full lineup of staff, from editors, to multiple global moderators, multiple section moderators, Support Team, Hacks&Mods Crew, Graphics Crew, Programmers, and even a welcoming team. Without the staff, it'd be virtually impossible to manage all the content on ZuneBoards.

News and Articles
There are more than 400 articles written by me, and our writers. All articles are organized into smaller sections, for example, "Zune Accessory Reviews" or "Interviews." Check it out for yourself on ZuneBoards.com.

Forums
The ZuneBoards forum should be given credit for the site's success. The forums generate the most pageviews, and is loved by Google (indexed and ranked very well). As of today there are ~55,000 members with 250,000 posts.
Underneath ZuneBoards' forums are 20, yes twenty, forums for staff and our team members. (Screenshot 1 2 3)

Zune Games
Very recently, Microsoft announced XNA support for the Zune. A few months later, they released the Community Technical Preview for XNA 3.0 and games for the Zune were (and are) being made left and right. ZuneBoards released the first "How to Install Zune Games" article and was featured in mega-blogs like Engadget and Gizmodo. Shortly after, ZuneBoards now have almost monopolized Zune Games. ZuneBoards is THE place to find games. We have the largest database of Zune games, submitted by developers themself. Take a look here.  The Zune games section was the fastest growing forum we have ever seen! To put things short, ZuneBoards is leading the world in Zune Games.

We also have a ZuneBoards Programming team, who released multiple games and application, including the worlds first Zune clock.

Our Reputation
Since July '06, we've built up quite a reputation around the Zune community. We've been on huge websites like Engadget, Lifehacker, HackaDay, and even the frontpage of Digg. We are known for the first Zune hack, and many other multiple hacks, which brought us literally thousands of members and hits.

A list of hacks we've released in the past:

Zune Hacked for USB Use
Zune Guest Hack
Zune Guest Hack on Digg
Zune Multi-Extension Hack
Zune Hacked for Korean, Chinese, and Japanese Character Support
Maximizing Your Zune Software
Superior Zune Installation Program
A Valentines Gift to Zuners
Zune Marketplace Alternator
Z(une) M(edia) P(layer)
Zune Hacked for Korean, Chinese, and Japanese Character Support on HackaDay
Zune 2.2 to 1.4 Downgrade

Our talented programmers also released a few nifty programs and games:

zNav
zMeta
zStats
Official ZuneBoards Clock for the Zune
ZIM (Zune Instant Messenger)
Zune Textbook Reader
Metronome for the Zune
Zune Calculator
Sleep Timer for the Zune
Solitaire for the Zune
GoldChase
SIRTET (Tetris) for the Zune
Running Man Game for the Zune
Squadron Z

There are much much much more! Check it out for yourself here.

Zunecentive
For quite a while we ran a program called "Zunecentive". It gave incentives to those who remained active and posted, with prizes as Zune accessories from our sponsors. In some occassions, some managed to even win Zune's. I have a few accessories remaining, but I have temporarily stopped the program as I had no time to ship them out. More information on that here.

ZuneTV, now known as VidsforZune
Just recently we have launched a major project called "ZuneTV." ZuneTV was featured on Mashable, The #1 Social Networking and Social Media News Blog, and a lot of other blogs and news sites. However, we ran into some legal concerns and decided to switch the domain name from ZuneTV.net to VidsforZune.com. Microsoft, however, is now perfectly fine with VidsforZune.com.

Podcast

Currently we have a "brother" site, whom we sponsor in their weekly Zune podcast. For more info on the podcast, check it out here.

Potential Growth
Potential, in my opinion, is one of the most important factor in selling a website. Well my friend, this website is chock full of potential. Here is a quote that pretty much explains the future of Zune:

Robbie Bach also stated that although the millions invested are many, the profit will come out only after five years (which means we’ll be seeing Zune even in 2011…). For the immediate period, the Redmond giant only expects losses.
According to the high ranked official, such initiative is to cost "hundreds of millions of dollars in investment over time," making it a long term bet. He compared Zune’s case to the Xbox platform, which has also produced losses estimated at $1-1.2 billion to Microsoft, since its initial launch in 2001.
"It is something that is going to take time. This is not a six month initiative," he added. "This is something that is going to be a three-, four-, five-year investment."

That's right. The Zune is here to stay, and is going nowhere but up. With a huge corporation like Microsoft, they will keep throwing more and more money into the Zune, until it finally dethrones the iPod. Take the Xbox 360 as an example. When the Xbox entered the console gaming market, it was criticized heavily with comments like, "They'll never beat Sony." Look at the Xbox now!

The same team that's made Xbox the best selling console is now working on making the best selling music player--the Zune... and guess what? You have the opportunity to own one of the world's largest Zune site. That really opens up a huge potential for ZuneBoards.com. Imagine how HUGE Zune will be in 5 years. Imagine how it'll feel to own one of the largest Zune forum at that time.

YOU could be the owner of the "iLounge" of Zune. Take the traffic and revenue I have posted, and double, triple, or even quadriple that, and you'll be looking at the stats in 3, 4, 5 years. Think of this as a long term investment. Trust me, if I could've, I would've held on to this baby for a long time.

This website is so content rich, it would take me hours upon hours to write about every single detail. The best way to find out, is to go to ZuneBoards.com for yourself and check it out.

Hosting

We are currently hosted on a dedicated server at SoftLayer. More information will be given to winner.

Whats included in this sale:

Domains - ZuneBoards.com, VidsForZune.com
A box of Zune accessories given by our sponsors. (You can do whatever you want with them, contests, giveaways, etc.)
A rare Zune neon sign (do whatever you'd like with it, contest, giveaway, etc.)

 

When requesting more info, whether it be screenshots, proof of traffic, proof of revenue, you MUST PM me with the following details, or it WILL BE IGNORED.

1. Name and Age
2. Experience with web development
3. Your previous/present sites

I will provide screenshots and proof only to those who seem like a person who could successfully lead the site. I will only sell to ones with previous experiences with websites. Do not post questions asking for screenshots, you MUST PM me!

Starting bid: $30,000
Reserve: $35,000
BIN: $60,000

Price estimations (just for the hell of it :P )

YourWebsiteValue.com
Estibot
Sitestimator (I can only dream...)
DNScoop
Glurk

Thanks all!

Feel free to ask any questions (except asking for screenshots).

Revenue Details:

Revenue changes monthly, but usually you can expect anywhere from $900-$1.3K a month. Our major revenue sources are: Google Adsense, TribalFusion, ADSDAQ. For the past 45+ days, revenue as been pretty steady at $35-$45 a day with Adsense (CPC) and TribalFusion (CPM).  In November and December (Holiday Shopping Season), revenue goes up significantly as large companies buy more impressions. Revenue has DOUBLED from last year, and wouldn't be too surprising if doubled next year as well.
To be completely honest, I have no implemented/monetized as well as I could have. There are still plenty of empty ad spaces left, and I haven't even touched CPA's. I'm sure if I spent a few days playing around with ad monetization and placement, I could have greatly improved the revenue. I have quite a few ideas, which I will be glad to share to the new owner.
We also recieve small donations for Premium Membership in the forums. We did not attempt to sell any private ads, but imagine the possible revenue opportunities if you did!
Proof of revenue and screenshots available upon request via PM.

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