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Reverse Merger 2009 Presentation – Now Live!

Posted by AGORACOM at 10:44 AM on Friday, June 26th, 2009

rmc09_logo_500x49

AGORACOM was once again a proud sponsor of the Reverse Merger Conference held this year at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, June 11 & 12. I presented the Web / Online Investor Relations Speaker Workshop called, ““Using Web 2.0 To Conduct Investor Relations and Gather Intelligence through Blogs, Twitter, iGoogle and RSS Feeds…But What Are They?”

The workshop was the initial step in teaching bankers, fund managers and public companies about the advantages of  incorporating social media into their intelligence gathering to cut through clutter, get the information they need and connect with the smartest people on the planet.

Despite the fact it was the last presentation before lunch, the room was pretty full and – more importantly – alive with audience participation.  In order to avoid the “he’s the internet guy and I could never do what he does” syndrome,  I brought industry stalwart and early Web 2.0 adopter David Feldman of the Reverse Merger & SPAC Blog.  David discussed his overwhelmingly positive blogging experience, which opened up the floor to some great questions from the audience.

I am happy to announce the presentation (audio and power point slides) has now been webcast for everyone to listen to and benefit from.  If you couldn’t make it to Las Vegas, or were at the Conference but need a refresher, here it is.  For your convenience, I have broken it down into 2 parts:

  • My presentation
  • The Q&A with David Feldman

You can watch the presentations below and then ask any questions by posting them to the comments section.  I hope you find the presentation and Q&A as valuable as the audience members at the Reverse Mergers Conference.

As promised, I will follow this up with 5-minute presentations on how to use Twitter, iGoogle and Blogging.  Look for them to begin in a few days.

PART 1 – MY PRESENTATION

PART 2 – THE Q&A WITH DAVID FELDMAN

PREVIOUS KEYNOTE PRESENTATIONS

If you enjoyed these presentations and want to watch other keynote presentations I have made at DealFlow Media Conferences in the past 3 years, please have a look at the following:

PIPEs Conference 2008 – Best IR Practices During Market Turmoil

PIPEs Conference 2007 – How To Use The Web To Find New Investors And Turn Them Into An IR Machine

PIPEs Conference 2006 – E-Mail Is Dead. How To Conduct Great IR In A Web 2.0 World

Regards,
George

Posted in AGORACOM News And Events, AGORACOM Presentations, All Recent Posts, Online Investor Relations, Small-Cap CEO Lessons, Web 2.0, 3.0, ... | 6 Comments »

AGORACOM Content On The New GlobeInvestor Beta Site (Part 2)

Posted by AGORACOM - Mitch at 3:55 PM on Wednesday, June 24th, 2009

Last month we announced GlobeInvestor.com was undergoing a major site redesign.  Well, we’re happy to announce that more of our content found its way onto the pages of the new GlobeInvestor beta site!  This time, on a new section called  “Commodities”.

You can see our horizontal content brick as you scroll down the page.

I’ve also included an image of it below:

GlobeInvestor Commodities

GlobeInvestor Commodities

picture-31

Stay tuned!  Our content partnership with GlobeInvestor will be expanding even further and you can expect to see a few more changes in the next 30 days.  In fact, that’s where I am today!

We’ll update you as they go live.

SIGNIFICANCE TO THE SMALL-CAP INDUSTRY

As mentioned previously, this development is significant to both our clients and the small-cap industry in general.

Why?

GlobeInvestor.com and ReportOnBusiness.com are the online business and investing arm of the Globe & Mail, Canada’s national newspaper.  This is the Wall Street Journal of Canada.

It is where all investors, both retail and institutional, go to find investment ideas. How many investors? 3rd party traffic services say the number is approximately 950,000 unique visitors per month, though we’ve heard the number is bigger.

Add this all up and you have the small-cap industry coming out of the shadows and into the mainstream. The web now provides quality small-caps and mid-caps with a chance to finally be judged on meritocracy, while pushing scam stocks further into oblivion. This represents a major shift in market efficiency, which was once significantly out of balance by choosing to simply ignore all emerging companies.

Good news for investors. Good news for quality companies. Good news for content providers such as GlobeInvestor.com. Win-Win-Win.

Regards,
George


Posted in AGORACOM News And Events, Online Investor Relations, Web 2.0, 3.0, ... | 5 Comments »

Summary Of Reverse Merger Conference

Posted by AGORACOM at 9:09 PM on Tuesday, June 16th, 2009

rmc09_logo_500x49

AGORACOM was once again a proud sponsor of the Reverse Merger Conference held this year at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, June 11 & 12.  I didn’t have time to blog from the conference but I did manage to post some useful information via Twitter that you can see here.

Perhaps the most important tweet was my very first one where I stated as follows:

reverse-merger-09-tweet

It signaled to me that Web 2.0 had finally begun its penetration into the world of Reverse Mergers and small-cap investment banking.  It was also quite timely given the fact I was presenting the Web / Online Investor Relations Speaker Workshop called, ““SEC Greenlights Blogs, Twitter and RSS Feeds For Investor Relations…But What Are They?”

The workshop was the initial step in teaching bankers, fund managers and public companies about the advantages of  incorporating social media into their intelligence gathering to cut through clutter, get the information they need and connect with the smartest people on the planet.

Despite the fact it was the last presentation before lunch, the room was pretty full and – more importantly – alive with audience participation.  In order to avoid the “he’s the internet guy and I could never do what he does” syndrome,  I brought industry stalwart and early Web 2.0 adopter David Feldman of the Reverse Merger & SPAC Blog.  David discussed his overwhelmingly positive blogging experience, which opened up the floor to some great questions from the audience.

It was so well received that I am going to publish a webcast of the keynote and re-broadcast it here as soon as the good people from DealFlow Media send over the audio files.  In addition, I am also going to produce a series of short videos on iGoogle, Twitter, Blogs and RSS Feeds.

THE CONFERENCE

Overall it was an excellent conference despite the fact attendance was down due to market conditions.  Personally I didn’t mind it because it served to eliminate the weak players in the space and gave everyone in attendance more time to network with the best of the best.  Naturally, I’d prefer a bigger, more robust audience as a result of a healthy marketplace but the occasional quality over quantity dynamic does not hurt.

Look for those videos to begin in the next 10 days or so.  In the meantime, for those of you that have not seen my previous keynotes at DealFlow Media events over the past 3 years, you can watch my previous presentations using the following links:

PIPEs Conference 2006 – E-Mail Is Dead. How To Conduct Great IR In A Web 2.0 World

PIPEs Conference 2007 – How To Use The Web To Find New Investors And Turn Them Into An IR Machine

PIPEs Conference 2008 – Best IR Practices During Market Turmoil

Regards,
George

Posted in AGORACOM News And Events, AGORACOM Presentations, All Recent Posts, Online Investor Relations, Small and Micro-Cap Space, Web 2.0, 3.0, ... | 2 Comments »

Brief Summary From 2009 Cambridge Conference In Vancouver

Posted by AGORACOM at 11:37 AM on Tuesday, June 9th, 2009

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I’ve got a full day of meetings today after 2 days of exhibiting/sponsoring the 2009 World Resource Investment Conference on at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver.  However, I’d like to give you a very brief summary of events:

1.  ATTENDANCE

The Conference was very well attended by investors that were still looking for their next great investment.  The AGORACOM booth was busy throughout the entire 2 days, as were the booths of quality exhibiting companies.

2.  EXHIBITING COMPANIES

Unlike attendees, the number of exhibiting companies was WAY down.  Something to the tune of 400 last year to 125 this year.  Personally, I don’t mind this because I’ve been preaching for a year that we had too much garbage in the space.  Now, we have quality of over quantity, which is the very reason behind The AGORACOM 100.

3.  SPEAKER WORKSHOP

My Speaker Workshop on Sunday along with Peter Grandich called, “Learn To Use Blogs, Twitter and RSS Feeds To Make You A Power Investor” was packed.  Standing room only.  What was it about?  For years, CEOs and IROs have ignored them as irrelevant and having quirky names, but with tens of millions of investors using them, public companies incorporating them and even the SEC green lighting them for investor relations, you now need to understand how social media tools can supercharge your market knowledge. The workshop was the initial step in teaching investors how how to use social media to cut through clutter, get the information you need directly to you and connect with the smartest people on the planet.

It was so well received that I am going to create a webcast out of the event and re-broadcast it here, along with a series of short videos on iGoogle, Twitter, Blogs and RSS Feeds.

That’s it for now.  Catch you later.

Regards,
George

Posted in AGORACOM News And Events, Small-Cap CEO Lessons, Web 2.0, 3.0, ... | 3 Comments »

AGORACOM Sponsors 2009 Reverse Merger Conference

Posted by AGORACOM - Mitch at 3:05 PM on Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009

rmc09_logo_500x49

AGORACOM is proud to announce we will once again be sponsoring the Reverse Merger Conference being held this year at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, June 11 & 12.

 This conference is for serious professionals in the business of alternative IPO transactions. The two-day event covers all of the technical issues relating to reverse mergers, self-underwriting, and other alternative routes to the public market.

I will once again be providing the Investor Relations keynote speech.  This year, my speech will be called, “SEC Greenlights Blogs, Twitter and RSS Feeds For Investor Relations…But What Are They?” 

This speech is a ‘must attend’ if you are:
 
1. Public Companies and IRO’s:  You’ve ignored them as irrelevant and for having quirky names – but with tens of millions of investors using them and the SEC green lighting them for investor relations, you now need to understand how social media tools such as Twitter, Blogs and RSS Feeds can supercharge your investor relations.
 
2. Fund Managers and Investors:  Learn how to use social media to cut through clutter, connect with the smartest people around the world and create an international business network never before possible.

You can also watch my previous presentations using the following links:

PIPEs Conference 2006 – E-Mail Is Dead. How To Conduct Great IR In A Web 2.0 World

PIPEs Conference 2007 – How To Use The Web To Find New Investors And Turn Them Into An IR Machine

PIPEs Conference 2008 – Best IR Practices During Market Turmoil

Once again, we are very proud to be a part of these great Deal Flow Media Events and encourage you to participate if you fall into one of the following categories:

·       Structured Finance and PIPE Investors

·       Investment Bankers

·       Investor Relations Professionals

·       Private Company Management Teams

·       Accountants

·       Attorneys

·       Equity Analysts

·       Venture Capitalists

See you in Las Vegas!

Regards,

George

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Posted in AGORACOM News And Events, All Recent Posts, Online Investor Relations, Small and Micro-Cap Space, Web 2.0, 3.0, ... | No Comments »

AGORACOM Sponsors 2009 Vancouver Cambridge Conference

Posted by AGORACOM - Mitch at 2:55 PM on Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009

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AGORACOM is very proud to announce that we are once again sponsoring a Cambridge Conference. This time, we are sponsoring the 2009 World Resource Investment Conference on at the Vancouver Convention Centre in Vancouver, BC on June 7th and 8th.

The 2009 event promises to be an incredible conference for both investors and public companies as it features an world class line-up of speakers, covering all types of direct investments in resource public companies, speculative investing, resource exploration, oil & gas, world outlook, investment strategies and more.

AGORACOM is ideally situated in the middle of all the action at booth #131 so if you plan to attend please stop by.

SPEAKER WORKSHOP

In addition, I will also be conducting a Speaker Workshop on Sunday, June 7th at 12:30 PST called, “Learn To Use Blogs, Twitter and RSS Feeds To Make You A Power Investor”. For years, CEOs and IROs have ignored them as irrelevant and having quirky names, but with tens of millions of investors using them, public companies incorporating them and even the SEC green lighting them for investor relations, you now need to understand how social media tools can supercharge your market knowledge.
This workshop will teach you how to use social media to cut through clutter, get the information you need directly to you and connect with the smartest people on the planet.

Hosted by: George Tsiolis, Founder of AGORACOM.com

Panelist: Peter Grandich, Chief Commentator of AGORACOM.com

See you in Vancouver!

Regards,
George

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Posted in AGORACOM News And Events, All Recent Posts, Oil and Gas, Online Investor Relations, Small and Micro-Cap Space, Web 2.0, 3.0, ... | No Comments »

AGORACOM Ranks 57 In Profit 100 Ranking of Canada’s Fastest-Growing Companies

Posted by AGORACOM - Mitch at 10:31 AM on Monday, June 1st, 2009

http://blog.agoracom.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/p100_09_eng-193x300.jpg

TORONTO, June 1st, 2009 – AGORACOM North America’s largest online investor relations community and social networking website for serious small and micro cap retail investors, proudly announces that it has been selected by PROFIT Magazine as one of Canada’s fastest growing organizations.

Measured against a running five-year revenue growth, AGORACOM ranks 57th overall in the 21st annual PROFIT 100 ranking of Canada’s Fastest-Growing Companies by PROFIT Magazine using results reported for the period between 2003-2008.

“We are thrilled to have our company achieve the #57th position on the PROFIT 100, and honoured to have received this recognition in spite of a tough economy,” says AGORACOM Founder George Tsiolis. “We are especially proud of the fact we are a Web 2.0 organization that has demonstrated a successful business model beyond mere advertising, Web 2.0 is not just about Facebook, YouTube and social networking sites. We are using the web to deliver real services to real customers, while generating real revenues and profits. I hope others Web entrepreneurs can follow our lead.”

In 2008 over 1.3 million retail investors from more than 200 countries visited AGORACOM.com 7.9 million times to read 96 million pages of small-cap news and information.

“It was clear as day to me the investor relations model for small-cap public companies was inefficient and broken. Small public companies needed a faster, more cost-efficient way to communicate their message to current and prospective shareholders around the world. The Web was the solution,” added Tsiolis. “Today, that vision has translated into millions of investors communicating with hundreds of small-cap companies via a moderated online community. I want to deeply thank our clients for believing and now benefiting from this great model. We pioneered the space, are still the leaders and now expanding into Europe, China and a mobile platform, so I look forward to being part of The PROFIT 100 for many years to come. Finally, this achievement serves as a real credit to our management team, employees and families, all of whom have sacrificed so much to make this happen.”

Ranking Canada’s Fastest-Growing Companies by five-year revenue growth, the PROFIT 100 profiles the country’s most successful growth companies. Published in the June issue of PROFIT and online at PROFIT100.com, the PROFIT 100 is Canada’s largest annual celebration of entrepreneurial achievement.

“The PROFIT 100 are an inspiration to entrepreneurs at all stages of growth, from startup to major corporation,” says Ian Portsmouth, editor of PROFIT. “Their business practices and product innovations are exemplary of how businesses can succeed in uncertain times”.

About AGORACOM:

AGORACOM is North America’s largest online investor relations community for small-cap companies. We’ve partnered with the world’s biggest Internet companies, including Globe Investor, Yahoo, AOL, Google and Blackberry to market our clients to a massive audience of new small-cap investors. Over 300 small-cap public companies and their CEOs have trusted AGORACOM and our online investor relations model to reach millions of current and prospective small-cap investors from around the world. No rumours, profanity, stock bashing or hyping. Our traffic ranking is above the top 0.5% of all websites around the world. Visit AGORACOM online at http://www.agoracom.com or follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/agoracom.

About PROFIT Magazine:

PROFIT: Your Guide to Business Success, is Canada’s preeminent publication dedicated to the management issues and opportunities facing small and mid-sized businesses. For more than 25 years, Canadian entrepreneurs across a vast array of economic sectors have remained loyal to PROFIT because it’s a timely and reliable source of actionable information that helps them increase their revenues, boost their profitability and get the recognition they deserve for generating positive economic and social change. Published six times a year by Rogers Publishing Ltd., PROFIT is distributed almost exclusively to the chief executives of companies with 5 to 250 employees and annual revenue of $1 million to $25 million, reaching 306,000 readers across Canada. Visit PROFIT online at http://www.PROFITmagazine.ca.

CONTACT INFORMATION

MEDIA INQUIRIES

Mitchell Fanning

Director of Marketing / Communications

mitchf@agoracom.com

CORPORATE INQUIRIES

George Tsiolis, LL.B

President

AGORACOM

info@agoracom.com

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Posted in AGORACOM Awards, AGORACOM In The Press, AGORACOM News And Events, All Recent Posts, Canadian Economy, Online Investor Relations, Small and Micro-Cap Space | 6 Comments »

AGORACOM Content On New GlobeInvestor.com

Posted by AGORACOM at 9:41 AM on Friday, May 29th, 2009

Good morning to you all.  As many of you know, GlobeInvestor.com has undergone a major redesign and is in the midst of their transition.  We first announced our content partnership with GlobeInvestor.com back in July of 2008 and now happy to announce that:

  • Our content has been migrated to the new site
  • Our content partnership is expanding

First, to have a look at our migrated content, have a look at the Energy and Resources section of Globe.  You can see our vertical content brick in the right hand margin.  I’ve also included an image of it below:

Second, our content partnership is expanding as you can expect to see a couple of more such content bricks in the coming days.  I’ll update you as they go live.

SIGNIFICANCE TO THE SMALL-CAP INDUSTRY

This development is significant to both our clients and the small-cap industry in general.  Why? GlobeInvestor.com and ReportOnBusiness.com are the online business and investing arm of the Globe & Mail, Canada’s national newspaper.  This is the Wall Street Journal of Canada.  It is where all investors, both retail and institutional, go to find investment ideas. How many investors?  3rd party traffic services say the number is approximately 950,000 unique visitors per month, though we’ve heard the number is bigger.

Add this all up and you have the small-cap industry coming out of the shadows and into the mainstream.  The web now provides quality small-caps and mid-caps with a chance to finally be judged on meritocracy, while pushing scam stocks further into oblivion.  This represents a major shift in market efficiency, which was once significantly out of balance by choosing to simply ignore all emerging companies.

Good news for investors.  Good news for quality companies.  Good news for content providers such as GlobeInvestor.com.  Win-Win-Win.

Regards,
George

Posted in AGORACOM News And Events, All Recent Posts, Web 2.0, 3.0, ... | 2 Comments »

AGORACOM 100 Commercial Takes Online Investor Relations Results To Biz TV Audience

Posted by AGORACOM at 7:07 PM on Thursday, May 28th, 2009

Readers of my blog know that I often subscribe to the concept of PYMWYMI - Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is. Back in January we launched the AGORACOM 100, a limited marketplace of exceptional small and mid-cap companies that investors could use as their research starting point.  We felt so strongly about it that we reached out beyond online marketing and announced the launch on TV.

The concept behind the AGORACOM 100 is simple – Quality Over Quantity.  There are just too many small and mid-cap companies that do not deserve to be public, many of whom engage in nothing more but paper selling pump .and dump schemes.  Somebody had to create the filter.  Somebody had to start the process of separating the wheat from the chaff.  We stepped up.  There is a lot of work to do – but the process has begun.

5 months later, I’m proud to announce that we’ve recorded our second commercial.  It will begin airing in both the US (CNBC, Bloomberg) and Canada (BNN) on June 1.

The bottom line is that investors have embraced online investor relations.  They prefer companies that are transparent and open enough to make themselves accessible 24/7 via electronic shareholder forums in which they respond to questions posted for everyone to see.  Why wouldn’t they?  In this day and age where investors have lost confidence in blue chip stocks, openness and transparency is pretty much a requirement.

Kindly have a look and let me know what you think:

UPDATE: Sorry Folks. The online version is not available right now.  Check back shortly.

Regards,
George

Posted in AGORACOM News And Events, AGORACOM TV, Online Investor Relations | 1 Comment »

AGORACOM To Speak at Communitech 2009 Tech Leadership Conference

Posted by AGORACOM - Mitch at 4:05 PM on Tuesday, May 12th, 2009

 

For those of you who are in the Waterloo Region I’m proud to announce that I’ll be speaking at Communitech, the region’s premier business and technology leadership conference, being held at the Bingemans Conference Centre on Thursday, May 14th.

The hands-on workshop session is called “Get Customers First, Funders Later” and will also include Mike McDerment from Freshbooks.  The workshop session is scheduled to between 9:55 am-10:55 am. 

To view the Communitech schedule click here.

I’m very proud to be sharing my views on building an online business with real customers, not funding.  Canadian web entrepreneurs have a great opportunity to step in and fill the void where the Silicon Valley free and cool model failed.  But first, we have to understand that funding a business with neither paying customers, nor a real business model is not a business in the first place.  To succeed, you need to get customers first.  It is the mantra we followed and the reason AGORACOM is now generating seven-digit revenues and profits. As such, our experiences will hopefully be extremely beneficial to those in attendance.

On March 3rd, 2009, AGORACOM reported 2008 traffic results that included:

  • 1.31 million unique visitors
  • 7.9 million visits
  • 96 million page views

About Communitech

The Tech Leadership Conference is Waterloo Region’s premier business and technology leadership conference.  The event is a full day of insights and real tactics for the tech professional, including inspiring keynotes, breakout sessions, exhibitors and of course, your industry peers.  More than 500+ attended Tech Leadership in 2008, from CEOs to middle management, government and business professionals.

See you there!

George Tsiolis

Posted in AGORACOM News And Events, All Recent Posts, Canadian Economy, Web 2.0, 3.0, ... | 2 Comments »

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