WebMediaBrands (NSDQ: WEBM), which is now betting its future on Mediabistro.com and new acquisitions after the $18 million sale of Internet.com, has some work to do on subscriptions following a down year. The jobs/education site has has 11,000-plus paid members for its “AvantGuild” premium service (separate from its jobs posting service), according to founder Laurel Touby’s year-end note posted on Christmas day. Currently, one year runs $55 ($4 less than last year); two years, $89. What does that mean in real money? Hard to accurately guess, but we can tell you this—it’s likely considerably less then MediaBistro was making from the service last year when Touby claimed nearly 14,000 paid members. In ‘07, the number was 13,000. The situation on the jobs side for Mediabistro is down even more, as is expected in decimated media job market like this: the latest available figures are until end of Q3, and for the first nine months of this year, job revenues were $1.57 million, down drastically from $3.47 million in the first nine months of 2008.

Meanwhile, at least they have a sense of humor about it: