ThreeWords created something of a perfect storm of anonymity, simplicity and self-reference; its premise (get social media users to broadcast "enter three words about me!" and a custom URL to all their friends) appealed perfectly to the average, somewhat narcissistic social media user. Yet, like most shiny social media toys (cough, cough, Chatroulette), it seemed to be more of a fun flash in the pan than a sustainable app with monetization potential.
However, ThreeWords creator and current college freshman Mark Bao is attempting to cash out of the side project anyhow.
On the auction site, Bao says, "I'm working on a lot of startup work at the moment and don't have the time to continue working on the site, so I'm trying to find someone that's interested in continuing it."
But on Twitter, Bao admits that attrition is an issue, saying, "[The] biggest thing is getting users to come back," a shortcoming that is immediately apparent in an Alexa graph of the site's approximate traffic in the past month:
Still, with a user base of a quarter million and a decent amount of coverage in the tech press, ThreeWords might be worth the purchase price for a hacker with a good idea for a social or vanity app.
In its lifetime, Bao claims ThreeWords has had around 5 million visitors, 17 million pageviews and 4.3 million words entered.
Bao is accepting offers via e-mail. The auction will end on Friday, January 21.