The shareholder revolt at Aurelian Resources continues to gain momentum, with the Calgary Herald picking up the story today.
Hats off to Aurelian shareholders for showing the world how a stock discussion community can be used in a powerful and constructive manner.
Regards,
George
The shareholder revolt at Aurelian Resources is picking up an incredible amount of steam, with Peter Koven at the Financial Post covering the story today. Here is a snapshot of the story, which is a great read:
…….continue reading full story here.
Hats off to Peter and FP for covering the importance of this story and the important role of online shareholder communities. Until AGORACOM came along, online stock discussion forums were overrun by spam, profanity, bashing, hyping and flaming. Our Web 2.0 model of combining a reputation system with Wiki and IGC tools (Investor Generated Content) has eliminated 95% of the noise while maximizing constructive and informative discussion.
Hats off to Aurelian shareholders for showing the world how a stock discussion community can be used to enrich investors.
Regards,
George
On September 7th 2007, I posted a story on this blog titled “The Empowerment Of Online Investors – It’s Here For Good”. In that story, I stated the following:
“What does this mean for small-cap and micro-cap CEO’s?
Online investors have almost as much power as you do when it comes to the future
of your company. Unhappy investors are no longer relegated to the vacuum of “harsh”
e-mail and letters to express their discontent. Today, investors can rally in short order
via video, blogs and online forums to challenge you at your next AGM, oust you from
your position or even elect their own slate of directors.
In fact, not only is this possible, I’ll go as far as predict it will actually happen in the
next 12-24 months as investors make Web 2.0 a part of their daily investing lives.
I’m the biggest proponent of great small-cap and micro-companies but we all know
there are still many companies out there deserving of being the first target of an online
shareholder revolt – and I’ll be the first to applaud it.”
APPLAUDING SHAREHOLDERS OF AURELIAN RESOURCES
Well, here we are just 11 months later and the first real small-cap revolt is on courtesy of the shareholders of Aurelian Resources. Moreover, AGORACOM is the vehicle allowing shareholders to unite. A proud moment for us indeed.
I said I would be the first to applaud it, so bravo to all of you for your efforts. True to my word, I want to congratulate “The Informed, Educated Aurelian Resource Investors” group for its activism efforts.
By amalgamating all shareholders for the purpose of educating, communicating, sharing and analyzing all aspects of this potential acquisition, you have given yourself the opportunity to generate greater shareholder value through:
* Rejection of this offer
* Sweetening of the current offer
* Attracting a better offer
This ordeal is long from over, so don’t give up. Continue to push for a better deal if the majority of you truly believe the Kinross offer is insufficient ….and let AGORACOM know if there is anything further we can do to help the cause.
Best Regards,
George, Paul and the AGORACOM Team
Good afternoon to you all. The good folks at IR Web Report have posted a report titled SEC OK’s Websites and Blogs For Regulation FD. The report stems from new guidance unanimously approved by the US Securities and Exchange Commission today. I am in Europe and unable to review the SEC Staff Statement in detail for several hours but I trust the analysis of Dominic Jones and his team at IR Web Report implicitly.
GREAT NEWS FOR AGORACOM, OUR CLIENTS AND THE INDUSTRY
How big and important is today’s news? I can best summarize it by referring to the opening remarks of SEC Chairman Christopher Cox where he stated:
“The use of electronic media is arguably superior to providing company information the old way.
It’s a better way to provide information to most investors since today it can be presented in
interactive format that allows each individual to click through or drill down to the level of detail
that’s appropriate to him or her.”
Chairman Cox went on to add:
“Technological advances and the reduced costs associated with the implementation of technologies over time, now allow the inclusion of more interactive and current information on company websites than was the case previously. That’s moved websites beyond being just electronic filing cabinets
for electronic documents. Today, company websites are being shaped by the market’s desire for
highly current and interactive information.”
Where have we heard all of this before! 🙂
Suffice it to say this is excellent news for AGORACOM and the entire small-cap space given the fact we strictly use the web to help clients market and communicate faster, better and more cost-efficiently than “traditional” IR has ever provided.
We still need to review the full interpretive release from the SEC, which is expected within the next couple of weeks but it is clear that online investor relations has made a massive leap forward today.
HIGHLIGHTS
I will have more to say later but here are some of the highlights reported by IR Web Report:
AGORACOM welcomes and applauds the SEC’s official position on the use of web technologies to communicate with investors. The entire world now lives in a Web 2.0 world of online communities, webcasts, blogs, RSS Feeds and “Investor Generated Content”.
The SEC has just proven that it is not only unafraid of Web 2.0, it is actually embracing it. For this we say, thank-you and congratulations! Investor Relations is never going to be the same.
Regards,
George
If you are a Canadian Small-Cap CEO that still doubts the power of the web as your primary IR tool, then consider the following facts released by eMarketer very carefully:
1] More than 22 million Canadians will access the Internet regularly in 2008, over 67% of the nation’s total population.
2] Over the next four years, user numbers will rise by about 1.5 million annually, passing 25 million in 2012, when penetration will reach almost 73%.
3] Broadband is more prevalent in Canada than in many other countries, including the US. Broadband penetration is also growing more quickly than the online population.
All of this data prompted Karen Von Abroms, Senior Analyst at eMarketer and author of this report to say:
“The combination of a relatively small population and the country’s large
size may encourage Canadians to make the most of online communications.”
CONCLUSION
You have an entire nation with a vivacious appetite for consuming online content. Their consumption is not selective. Canadians will search, research, communicate, purchase and invest through the web. As such, your audience currently stands at 22,000,000 + potential investors and growing by 1,500,000 new potential investors per year. Moreover, when it is all said and done, 75% of this audience will be consuming rich content (video, audio, webcasts, podcasts, etc.) via brodband.
If you don’t think 22,000,000 – 25,000,000 potential investors warrant your immediate attention, sorry for the interruption. You can now return to your previously scheduled, old-fashioned, outdated IR strategy that is going to leave you sucking the wind of Canadian listed companies that built their IR strategy around an online strategy.
We are in the midst of an unstoppable shift in communications. Companies that adopt a long-term strategy to Target, Amalgamate, Communicate and Convert potential investors via the web will win and win big. Companies that fail to do so will find themselves out of touch, out of favour and too far behind an insurmountable gap.
Regards,
George
Hat tip to Tech Blogger, Mark Evans, who first covered the article.
I am happy to announce that for the 3rd time this month, AGORACOM has been voted/named to a Top 10 list. This honor comes by way of the members of CommandShift3, who ranked AGORACOM the #7 best designed stock site.
Earlier this month, we had the privilege of being named to the following Top10 lists:
As with the other Top10 lists, the CommandShift3 list includes some great companies that we are proud to be named amongst including:
What is perhaps even more impressive are the list of other great nominees that did not make the Top10 list including:
Wow…have to admit a great deal of pride on this one. Thanks to everyone at CommandShift3 for recognizing our design efforts. Naturally, we have to give big credit to Dom and his development/design team at The Working Group.
Regards,
George
TORONTO/NAPLES, July 21, 2008 – Eric Jackson, Founder of Ironfire Capital and activist investor, is pleased to announce the launch of a Yahoo! shareholder community for the purposes of amalgamating and
communicating with all current and future pledged Yahoo! shareholders in one location at http://www.agoracom.com/ir/YHOO . This “Investor Controlled Community” will provide for high-quality discussion and exchange of ideas, while eliminating irrelevant and disruptive noise.
IMPORTANT FOR YAHOO! SHAREHOLDERS TO SHARE IDEAS
With less than 2 weeks left until the August 1st Yahoo! Annual Meeting, shareholders will be voting on the future of Yahoo! Important discussion will include choosing between the slate of investors put forth by both Yahoo! and Carl Icahn, or a hybrid. In addition, are shareholders best served by a full acquisition by Microsoft, or a sale of search only?
Commenting on the launch of this community, Eric Jackson stated “When I first created a “Plan B” for Yahoo!, I asked for fellow shareholders to offer their input and help edit our “Plan B” and, through “pledging” of shares to our group, providing us with the ability to speak directly to Yahoo! and the media with one collective voice. I never imagined we would pull together a group with 150 members and a collective 3.2mm Yahoo! shares. We’ve done that, but I believe we’re still scratching the surface of what Activism 2.0 could truly accomplish, in terms of making our voices heard.”
Jackson went on to say “I would like there to be more of a collective dialog between those within our group and those outside it. I believe the community is smarter than any one person. However, it is difficult to build a community through blog comments, while the amount of spam and noise on Yahoo! Finance message boards make them impractical to exchange ideas. Through AGORACOM, I believe we now have the platform to build a great community of concerned shareholders. This new Yahoo! HUB community will help us all be smarter and exchange ideas that can help shape the future of Yahoo! I encourage you to use it.”
The community is being hosted on AGORACOM, a second generation financial discussion community that has eliminated epidemic levels of spam, profanity and misinformation via a unique reputation system that provides highly-ranked members with the ability to enforce the community’s 6 Rules of Use by deleting offending posts and terminating offending members.
GlobeInvestor.com and ReportOnBusiness.com are the online business and investing arm of the Globe & Mail, Canada’s national newspaper. That is significant because GlobeInvestor brings in about 950,000 unique visitors per month, though we’ve heard the number is bigger.
As some of you know, AGORACOM has been the exclusive provider of small-cap resources and energy content to Globe for several months now, including a gateway from the front page of both GlobeInvestor and ReportOnBusiness.
However, as AGORACOM continues to grow and gain a wider global audience of investors, bloggers and media, it’s important to repeat it on our blog every once in a while. To keep it fresh, I’ve included images with links.
Have to admit a certain amount of pride to know that little ol’ AGORACOM is making its mark with the biggest and most respected name in Canadian business media.
Regards,
George
FRONT PAGE – GLOBE INVESTOR
FRONT PAGE – REPORT ON BUSINESS (ENERGY)
[PLEASE CLICK ON IMAGE TO SEE CLEAN, FULL SCREEN VERSION]
Dear AGORACOMers, with sky-rocketing traffic numbers and member satisfaction with our “Investor Controlled Forums” model, we are very happy to announce the official launch of member portfolios. We’re extremely happy with it. Very intuitive, clean and, most important, provides the ability to view your performance from many different angles.
It even allows you to track your overall net worth by adding in the value of non-stock assets such as bonds, your home, insurance policies, etc.
Response has been great so far, with members already calling for contests! Yep, you can count on one sometime soon. We just want to make sure any little bugs are ironed out, if any.
Thanks to all of our amazing members and clients for making AGORACOM the best small-cap and micro-cap community on the web. In return, we promise to keep providing amazing new tools and updates.
Have a great weekend.
Regards,
George, Paul and the AGORACOM Team
[NOTE – Though Some Data Is Specific To The Resources Industry, online research and usage data is applicable to all small-cap companies]
Throughout the first half of 2008, AGORACOM surveyed over 850 small-cap retail investors at each of the following 4 major resources conferences:
The purpose of the survey was to gain further insight into the online investing, research and community habits of small-cap and micro-cap investors. The surveys were conducted offline by design to avoid skewing of the results.
This survey represents a continuing series of surveys from each of these events since January of 2007. The results from each individual conference are posted on the AGORACOM blog within 30 days. In addition, the consolidated survey results are posted to our blog in early July. Both the individual and consolidated survey results can be found on the AGORACOM blog for you to review.
Given the speed at which the internet is moving and impacting investor relations, the results of these surveys are invaluable to CEO’s and investor relations departments of small-cap and micro-cap metals and mining companies across North America.
This is especially true for companies headed by older, less agile management teams that continue to overemphasize the value of traditional investor relations and under estimate the importance of online investor relations. Investors of such companies should also take note of these results and relay them to management.
AGORACOM has always understood the power and cost-efficiencies of search engine marketing, community building and multi-media communications. However, in order to go beyond theory and bias, we had to objectively prove it via empirical evidence.
SURVEY RESULTS
Upon reviewing the results and comparing them to 2007, we can unequivocally conclude that online research, collaboration and discussion are heavily utilized by small-cap investors and dramatically increasing. Frankly, the results were more dramatic than even we imagined and clearly point to the overwhelming need for an online IR strategy that goes beyond your website.
With approximately 850 investors surveyed, we were able to extract some extremely valuable information that will be of great importance to small-cap and micro-cap companies. The information will have different implications for each one of you, depending on your primary metal/mineral, market capitalization and online strategy. As such, though I’ve provided some tertiary comments following some of the results below, the final analysis will be your own. To this end, we’re happy to provide you with the following results:
HIGHLIGHTS
