This is a follow-up to our announcement of October 11th
After less than two weeks since our launch of “Investor Controlled Discussion Forums” for small-cap and micro-cap investors, AGORACOM is prepared to declare The Death of Stock Bashers.
What does this mean exactly? On October 5, 2007 AGORACOM smashed the discussion forum status quo by launching 2nd generation stock forums whose sole purpose was to make obsolete those 1st generation stock forums we’ve all come to hate over the past 10 years thanks to unrelenting spam, profanity and stock bashing.
Now, launching a solution is one thing – but did we execute with any success and gain any traction amongst the legion of serious investors out there? Yep – we’re now serving over 300,000 pages of information every day, which will translate pretty close to 10,000,000 pages of reading every month. To put this into further perspective, you also have to remember that we are talking about 100% clean pages. Not 10-20% found on other sites to remain nameless. As such, if you had to compare AGORACOM to those sites, we’re serving the equivalent to 50 – 100 million pages of information.
How are we doing this? Sit down for this one because it is a game changer. We are handing control over to the people who know and love this space better than anyone – the investors. Huh? Are we now allowing the inmates to run the asylum?
Nope. We’ve been live since October 5th and here are the raving testimonials we’ve been able to pull from the site so far.
How does it work?
We’re first handing control over to those investors that have proven themselves to be de facto forum leaders on other stock discussion forums around the web. Investors that others look up to for well-balanced analysis and information about a particular stock – and there are hundreds of them.
Unfortunately, they are forced to try and operate within stock forums that are nothing more than war zones – without any cover of any kind. As a result, demented spammers and stock bashers are able to easily drown them out by posting hundreds of messages under multiple aliases…how does a civilized investor combat this? Moreover, advertising dependent websites do little to stop them because they are more interested in flipping page views than providing an environment for civilized, earnest and intelligent discourse.
We’ll we all had enough of that, so AGORACOM decided to become a provider of 2nd Generation Stock Forums in which quality reigns over quantity. If “build it and they will come” ever applied, this is it. Sorry Kevin Costner.
STEP 1: We recruit Forum Leaders to AGORACOM and designate them as HUB Leaders because our community is so much more than a simple stock discussion forum.
STEP 2: Forum Leaders announce they are leaving their decrepit discussion forum for AGORACOM and invite serious investors to follow them, which they do.
STEP 3: HUB Leaders are given complete administrative control over their HUB to do three critical things:
- Delete offending posts (According to our 6 Rules of Use)
- Terminate offending members
- Edit Company Information (Profile, Management, Shares Outstanding, Transfer Agent, etc.). No more outdated info.
STEP 4: Participate in the kind of discussion and information exchange investors have always dreamed of. Here are just a couple examples of rocking Investor Controlled HUBS on AGORACOM:
The great part is that other members of the community can elevate themselves to HUB Leader status through a combination of activity points and ratings from other members. We have 4 different levels of authority that provide members with differing privileges: President; Vice-President; Treasurer and Mailroom
This is Wiki meets UGC (user generated content) at its finest. Is it working? Here is a list of 200+ HUBS (Yes, 200+ HUBS) that have been requested and now up and running in the first 12 days. Scroll down to the bottom as companies with full logos and descriptions represent AGORACOM clients. Not everyone has become active yet but there are at least 70 that are either cranking or starting to gain momentum.
I believe we are about to witness a paradigm shift in the world of stock discussion forums. Stay tuned for more.
Regards,
George
Cooky, welcome aboard! I too have seen several forums on “other sites” containing unbelievable amounts of spam. Glad to hear the word is spreading and that you and your friends will now be posting to AGORACOM.
I actually started out as a discussion forum poster just like you but decided to take action when I realized the bashers/spammers had taken over and would never allow civil discussion between serious and intelligent investors.
I look forward to seeing your participation around the site, as well as, any feedback you may have. As others here will tell you, our customer service and response rates are incredibly high. Why? We built AGORACOM based on the feedback and input of our members, so it will continue to grow this way.
Thanks and have a great day.
Regards,
George
Hi, Jim and thanks for the great words of support. I can’t tell you how much these comments mean to our entire team that has worked pretty tirelessly to get us to this point. Thank-you.
I also appreciate that you and all investors “get it”. You get the fact there are tens of thousands of intelligent small-cap investors out there who have been silenced by unmonitored discussion forums that allow spam, profanity and stock bashing to dominate discussion.
By amalgamating all of you onto AGORACOM and giving you an opportunity to exchange high-quality information in a clean and constructive environment, it is unequivocal that we are all in the process of creating the greatest small-cap market intelligence community ever seen.
Thanks for your contribution and participation. We do not take it for granted and will continue to add tools to enrich your experience.
Regards,
George
p.s. Re: John Buck. Yes, looks like John Buck was banned from the site. I assure you that banning is taken very seriously here, so it was warranted.
Hi, Michael and thanks for your comments. I can assure you that our primary goal on AGORACOM is to make sure members have the best possible information in hand for the purposes of making their best investment decision possible.
To achieve this goal, we completely agree that constructive opinions from both sides must be welcomed and available for all to view. Otherwise, we would simply be participating in an act of willful blindness.
I am 100% confident that we have delivered on this goal, even though I am also 100% certain that some perceived “negative” posts have been flushed out of the system. I’m OK with that because no system is perfect – but our model is far superior to anything that exists on the planet.
By eliminating virtually 100% of the noise, we’ve increased collaboration and information exchange to Utopian levels that small-cap investors always dreamed about but never expected to see.
Thanks again and keep the posts coming!
Regards,
George
I have been a member on other boards. On one such board, a single basher on a single day post +700 messages (that board is gone now).
On the other board, there is nothing but fighting. If you try and have a debate on the merits of the company, the name calling starts from both the pumpers and bashers.
A friend from my first board recommended your site and we are all looking forward to using your site.
George,Paul and all staffers what a great concept-This truly will revolutionize the availability of information for small cap investors.
I feel if posters can post facts weather positive or otherwise it gives the investor an oppourtunity to exchange information on stocks with people who have the same interests and will lead to a bond or friendship with each other.
Most investors have been the victims of BASHERS,PUMP AND DUMPERS and MARKET MANIPULATORS which leaves you with a feeling of defeat and therefore making it difficult to become a Career Investor.
Great jobs guys and gals
Jim Stewart
On another note there was a mention of John Buck being banned from the UC forum-Is this true?
I thought he was a very colorfull person causing no harm and his little contest was a bright spot that caused feedback and interaction among us posters.
Dear George, I have reviewed and participated in many interesting discussions amongst shareholders, former shareholders or other interested parties at a few websites. I commend Agoracom in its efforts to exclude unwarranted bashing and other unsavory comments against persons or companies.
However, in so doing, I am fearful that you are treading into a public domain where persons are expressing their personal comments, founded or unfounded, that could in fact be both negative in nature and correct in content. Just because a comment is negative doesnt mean its incorrect and to exclude it is in fact being a dis-service to your clients and their shareholders. By excluding negative comments you are obscuring possible concerns that management may need to address and correct.
I do appreciate your removal of offensive comments or bickering amongst persons as it becomes a fueding forum. BUT, please dont be removing negative comments just because they are not complimentary to one of your client companies…that’s a disservice to all!
In a related matter, I have also witnessed many instances of companies’ management and/or insiders using anonymous names in order to bolster the image and value of their own share prices. This is equally misleading and a disservice to all shareholders or prospective investors using your website. It is not diificult to sift out these persons as well.
If you want to make a sincere effort to contain the negative, frivolous or insider commentary on your website, then use your HUB Leaders instead to scrutinize the identities of the prospective participants in your forums before they start making comments, versus the even larger number of potentially insulting or misleading postings each and every day. In addition, make these persons’ real names or profiles available for viewing so the accused can view their accusers, or determine if bouquets are from non-insiders.
Thanks for your efforts but please go after the offenders and not the offensive comments…this should keep the heat below Fahrenheit 451!
Sincerely,
Michael Bryden