So, most everyone knows by now that Threadwatch was bought by Aaron Wall of SEOBook (see Aaron's posts here and here). Jim Boykin beat me to this interview, but I was so curious about the change that I had to ask Aaron and Nick about it.

My curiousity stemmed from two points of view that may have been incorrect:

1. I thought Nick hated bloggers. I always felt a lot of anger and derision in his posts that discussed the blogosphere, a-listers or blogging in general (of course, that may have simply been a long-running joke that was over my head).
2. Threadwatch seemed (to me) to be built on humor, intelligence and attitude, all of which stemmed from Nick's own personality. I thought it was not only his brain-child, but something he loved. I'm just a little shocked that this wasn't the case (or maybe things changed).

Nick, sadly, declined to answer any questions about the transaction, Threadwatch, or his new venture, Performancing. I think he'd like to make a clean start and I can't fault him for that. Luckily, however, Aaron consented to answer some questions:

What is the current status of Threadwatch? Do you own it 100%? Are there other partners, investors, etc.?

I own it 100%. The day Google launched I bought a few shares of their stock. I was saving that as my reserve rainy day fund...going long and thinking I never would sell them. Nick offered Threadwatch and I cashed out of Google 100%. The stock I had picked up that opening day and a bit since then are essentially what bought Threadwatch.

Have you had a long term goal to get into the business of running an SEO/Search community, or was this an "on-the-fly" decision?

I have helped moderate at a wide variety of forums (including SearchGuild, SeoGuy, V7N, and LilEngine). I frequently post at SEW as well.

A long time ago I bought a forum just for testing out some of the link networks. Never put much effort into running it, as it was mostly just an area to test stuff. I helped Nandini launch SEO Zip, but I think she and I both realized better biz models and whatnot were elsewhere. It is still occasionally a cozy place, but I think she and I have focused our efforts elsewhere.

A while ago I wanted to outright own a top forum. Some of my friends told me that I would be owning the ass end of the market if I did that. All work with minimal profit and ensured burnout. The same friends gave me tons of other good advice so I trusted them on that front.

I recently thought maybe a more algorithmic approach would be cool for helping me find stuff to blog on, etc. Last month a friend sold me SeoBytes.com, a SEO forum aggregator, which I often use to algorithmically find new and interesting SEO related threads. After I got it I thought that was about as far as I was getting into SEO, and was going to start hitting the blog market hard (like Nick is doing now).

I have way too many SEO related sites and need to do some serious domain consolidation BTW.

I think Nick thought about Threadwatch for a while. He decided to go all in on Performancing, which I am sure will pan out nicely for him. I more less bought Threadwatch a bit on the fly. Nick wanted it to go in good hands and he figured I would do well with it. I hope he was right :) Big boots to fill!

Do you think the community will change significantly with Nick's departure? Is it your goal to keep it much the same as it was, or do you intend to transition towards something else?

Some change is certain. Nick worked his ass off. I will try to do a good job, but I don't have quite the British humor that Nick does and I probably will not be able to work as hard as he did without reaching burnout fast.

I am not as interesting as Nick is and have been going to many conferences and the like, so ultimately there needs to be a way for the community to be more community and less one centered around main person than it was when Nick was busting hump so hard on the site.

Threadwatch has many members who were early SEO pioneers who want to keep the place as pure as possible. Nick is friends with many of them and luckily I am friends with many TW members too, so on that front I think it should still do OK.

I really didn't buy the site so much as an investment but more for an opportunity and also to hopefully be able to keep it pretty much like it was as long as possible.

What's your long term goal with the site? How do you envision it growing? Are you interested in expanding outside the current community of search folks?

I think the site is a good size. Lots of really smart people with tons of experience and still not tons and tons of noise. If there is growth outside of the current member base it might come via other channels.

I may eventually try to create my own mini publishing company that runs sites on many different channels. Sorta like a blog network, but some channels might end up being more blog like and others less blog like.

Obviously I can't be the center of all of those channels or they will suck, but I have partnered with an actor who is creating a movie site. I have partnered with Andy Hagans on ForexBlog.org. I have partnered with another friend on another network.

No matter what I do ThreadWatch will be one of the main channels where I will pour lots of effort into. I have grown to love that site.

As far as secondary channels, partnering on other ideas, and that sort of stuff, I think the key is to try many different things and just see what sticks.

Any speculation on why Nick wanted to leave?

He is going head first after Performancing. That site already has tons of great content and a decent sized community. There are only so many irons you can have in the fire.

Do you intend to change TW's business model or revenue generation system?

A friend of mine who is one of the advertisers said that they like the SEW marketplace ad model more. I am not certain, but I may make ads that are more SEW marketplace like and less interactive. I may end up pulling AdSense too.

I don't view myself as being any sort of a guru at business though. I just like reading, learning, and playing. I have friends who are members at TW who helped me make SeoBook become a profitable channel who said they wanted to go over what I should do. I don't intend to screw over the readers or editors though, so there will likely be some input from them on what should be done. The last thing I want to do is put more ads all over everywhere and then have to use ad block to read one of my own sites :)

I could speculate a bunch on this and that, but Nick didn't really create or sell the site just for the money. I didn't buy the site for money. It is more about learning, experience, and community for me.

Folks have been speculating that the transaction price was in the mid 5 figures. Would you abuse them of this notion or is that relatively accurate?

Nick and I decided that it would be best for both of us if exact terms were not disclosed.

Could you share with us the reach of Threadwatch? About how many folks see the site in a given day/week/month and what percentage of those are "dedicated" readers?

Lots of my friends go there and so do I :)

I didn't dig deep into revenue opportunities, traffic volume, reach, or any of that kind of stuff before buying the site. Nick wanted to sell and I said sure to buying.

I also find it hard to reduce sites to numbers. What matters is the quality of the core members and not losing them. Some people (like JasonD, DaveN, NFFC, Lots0, RCJordan, etc) end up making you laugh or learn something just about every time they post. Hopefully the editors and the other core members who really make Threadwatch what it is keep posting.

If you could add 2 people to the regular contributor list at Threadwatch, who would you choose?

Well I love the stuff EGOL posts over at your blog, but I don't think you will let me steal him :) Although his post on throwing out the book on seo felt a bit personal hehehe. ;)

Most the people I know well enough to say I really would love them to post have at one point or another came buy and posted. Nick was really good at drawing the right kinds of members who tended to typically be quiet elsewhere. If you look through the archives you will see there are at least a few comments from guys like Fantomaster and Littleman.

I guess outside of the SEO space I would love to have Tim Berners-Lee come by and post stuff. And since Sergey and Larry are soul mates (beta) I guess we could count them as the other person.

Do you see yourself being in the search/SEO space long term, or are there other avenues we'll see you pursuing?

I think the answer is probably yes and yes. :)