---
title: "Calacanis to Malik: How do you like them apples?"
date: 2005-11-29
author: "Richard MacManus"
categories:
  - name: "ReadWriteWeb"
    url: "/category/readwriteweb.md"
tags:
  - name: "2005"
    url: "/tag/2005.md"
---

# Calacanis to Malik: How do you like them apples?

In an article entitled [The Return of Monetized Eyeballs](https://web.archive.org/web/20051218064315/http://www.business2.com/b2/web/articles/0,17863,1135200-1,00.html), [Om Malik](https://web.archive.org/web/20051218064315/http://gigaom.com/2005/11/28/the-return-of-monetized-eyeballs/) values BoingBoing at $34 million – calculated at $38 per unique monthly website visitor (the average purchase price per unique user of acquisitions during the past year). [John Battelle](https://web.archive.org/web/20051218064315/http://battellemedia.com/archives/002065.php), who manages BoingBoing, thinks that figure is off because it’d be hard to make that investment back on a site which has “fierce attitudes about content and the author/audience relationship”.

Now Jason Calacanis, who recently pocketed a large sum of money by selling weblogsinc to AOL, has [come out and said](https://web.archive.org/web/20051218064315/http://www.calacanis.com/2005/11/29/ok-lets-stop-the-bubble-machine-right-now/) BoingBoing’s value is closer to “between 500k and $3M”. Jason wrote:

> “Boingboing, like any other web property, is worth 1-10x revenue and 5-30x earnings. So, if BB does 30-50k a month/360-600k a year (which seems possible to me based on the ~5m page views a month) it would be worth between 500k and $3M (based on revenue since with five mouths and server hosting to pay for it doesn’t really have earnings–yet!). Those numbers fall into line with my calculation of a really loyal user being worth $1-3.”

Personally I like Om’s numbers better, because it makes me a multimillionaire on paper. But I suspect Jason’s figures tell a few home truths about what it takes to actually do a deal. On the other hand, eyeballs still seems to be the currency of choice in the Web world – bubble or not. How many current Web 2.0 companies are earning decent revenue? Perhaps that only goes to prove Jason’s point, that it’s all bubble talk.

I’ll stop now before I get totally out of my depth – financial analysis not being my forte. But I’m interested in what people have to say about it. Who do you think is closer to the mark – Om (eyeballs, $34M for BB) or Jason (revenue, earnings, 500k-$3M for BB)?

*Originally published on ReadWriteWeb ([archived copy](https://web.archive.org/web/20020204040018/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/calacanis_to_ma.php))*