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Speaking at Mesh ’09 – Canada’s Leading Web Conference

Posted by AGORACOM at 2:58 PM on Monday, April 6th, 2009

I’m proud to once again announce that I’ve been invited to speak at Mesh ’09, Canada’s leading Web Conference, being held at the MaRS Centre in Toronto on April 7th & 8th.

I will participate in the panel discussion called “Managing Community Online”, which will also include other very successful web entrepreneurs who have made a career out of creating, managing, and monetizing online communities.

In my experience, online financial communities are more passionate and vibrant than any other kind of community because they deal with people’s financial well-being. As such, our experiences in building a successful community should be extremely beneficial to those in attendance. I’m grateful to our entire community for helping AGORACOM get noticed and to the Mesh team for inviting me to participate.

I attended the inaugural Mesh Conference as a Web 2.0 rookie but was anxious to learn about the space, sort out the useful tools from the trendy ones and apply them to help create a sustainable business model. Given the incredible knowledge I gained at Mesh, it’s only fitting that I give back to the conference and help others build great communities of the future.

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

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

Mesh is the result of event organizers believing that Toronto deserved to have a world-class conference where people with an enthusiasm for the Web could talk about how it is affecting the media, marketing, business and society as a whole.  My hat goes off to the following gentlemen for making Mesh a reality:

The panel discussion on “Managing Community Online” is on April 8th and is scheduled to begin at 4:10 pm. To view or download the Mesh schedule click here.

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Posted in AGORACOM News And Events, AGORACOM Presentations, All Recent Posts, Web 2.0, 3.0, ... | 1 Comment »

New Dawn Mining (ND:TSX) Exports First Two Gold Bars To South Africa

Posted by AGORACOM at 9:54 AM on Monday, April 6th, 2009

AGORACOM Client, New Dawn Mining (ND:TSX), released significant news this morning from both a revenue and policy point of view.  Specifically, the company exported its first two gold bars from it’s 100% owned Turk Mine in Zimbabwe to a refiner in South Africa.

This is ground breaking considering the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe did not previously allow for direct marketing and selling of gold by local producers.  More importantly for shareholders, this should allow the company to improve on its 2008 performance in which it generated $US 7.48 million from 8,650 ounces of gold as the company aims for full production out of the Turk Mine in calendar Q2 2009.

The complete news release can be seen here but here are the highlights:

KEY POINTS

  • New Dawn Mining Corp. (TSX: ND) announced that it has delivered its first two bars of fine gold, totaling 20 kg’s (645 ounces) from its 100% wholly-owned Turk Mine in Zimbabwe to Rand Refiners in South Africa.
  • The transaction marks a turning point for New Dawn’s gold mining and production operations in Zimbabwe and follows the recent, positive changes presented in the Monetary Policy Statement issued by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe in January 2009 that permit gold producers to both market and sell their gold directly and receive and keep 100% in foreign currency (U.S. dollars) as payment.
  • New Dawn anticipates that it will be shipping an additional 20 to 25 kg’s (645 to 805 ounces) of fine gold to Rand Refiners in South Africa for payment in U.S. Dollars during April 2009.
  • New Dawn anticipates resuming full-scale mining operations at the Turk Mine in Zimbabwe during the second calendar quarter of 2009, and expects to report to shareholders in this regard in the near future.

Congratulations to President and CEO, Ian Saunders, and his team on this achievement.

Regards,
George

Posted in AGORACOM Clients (New), All Recent Posts | Comments Off on New Dawn Mining (ND:TSX) Exports First Two Gold Bars To South Africa

Small CAP CEO Lesson – Issue Press Releases By 8:30 AM EST

Posted by AGORACOM at 1:00 PM on Thursday, April 2nd, 2009

THIS POST IS FROM APRIL 2009 AND IS EVEN MORE RELEVANT TODAY

I first published this story in August of 2007 – but it is worth repeating.

Now that AGORACOM Small Cap TV is approaching 500 episodes, one of the things I have noticed is that small-cap companies continue to release news just at or before the open. This might have been an acceptable practice back in the day when only brokers could access press releases on their screens but it made no sense once the web opened them up to the entire world.

It makes even less sense now. Why?

Folks, we are in a Web 2.0 world in which citizen journalism and analysis is becoming a bigger, more important research tool than Wall Street and finance portals. As a result, small-cap and micro-cap information is being analyzed and discussed by Twitter,  bloggers, podcasters, and vloggers everyday – all of which is being fed into every corner of the web via RSS feeds, other Twitter members, iTunes, blogs, podcasts etc. on your behalf – and for free!

THE LEAST THAT YOU COULD DO

However, if you want your great news covered by these incredible reporting sources, you have to give them a chance to see your news, digest it and report on it. Just like traditional news, Web 2.0 sources have deadlines as well.  AGORACOM TV, for example, has a cut-off of 9:00 AM so that we can tape at 9:20 and be up by 9:45. I’m certain others are not much different.

As such, if your press release is coming out at 9:30, you’ve robbed yourself of potential mass coverage by one or more sources that might have otherwise picked up your news and sent it right around the world.

Bottom line – put your news out by no later than 8:30 AM EST.  In fact, somewhere between 7:30 and 8:30 AM EST makes the most sense …. unless shunning free coverage is actually part of your business plan.

Best,
George

Posted in All Recent Posts, Online Investor Relations, Small-Cap CEO Lessons | Comments Off on Small CAP CEO Lesson – Issue Press Releases By 8:30 AM EST

SURVEY RESULTS: 59% Of AGORACOM Members Want ETF Forums

Posted by AGORACOM at 5:59 PM on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009

In a recent survey, we asked AGORACOM members if they would like us to launch ETF Forums.  227 members responded in about 24 hours (thank-you!) and here are the highlights:

  • 59.2% would like us to launch ETF Forums
  • 16.1% don’t know what an ETF is

The three most popular ETF’s were as follows (members could choose more than one)

  • 58.7% want a Gold Long ETF Forum
  • 45.3% want an Oil Long ETF Forum
  • 40.7% want a Gold Short ETF Forum

Interestingly, the least desired ETF Forum was anything Short US Indexes.  The responses came just before the hot month of March, so was this a sign investors did not think US Indexes could go any shorter?

In any event, some great information here.  Looks like you’ll see ETF Forums on AGORACOM Shortly!

Regards,
George

Posted in AGORACOM News And Events, All Recent Posts, ETFs, Surveys | Comments Off on SURVEY RESULTS: 59% Of AGORACOM Members Want ETF Forums

Hey, Stupid. E-Mail Spam Doesn’t Work! There Is No Investor Relation Silver Bullet

Posted by AGORACOM at 5:26 PM on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009

I can’t get enough news from the SEC when it pertains to busting stock spammers.  I hate to get emotional when I post but who is a bigger dumb ass?

  • Small-Cap CEO’s that pay for stock spam with under the table cash; OR
  • E-Mail stock spammers that think this still works.

I need to create a survey – but I’m going with CEO’s that continue to think investor relations is a silver bullet that can solve their problems by hitting “send”.

SURVEY

I’d like to hear from you – please take this 1 question survey.

Regards,
George

Posted in All Recent Posts, Stock Scams | Comments Off on Hey, Stupid. E-Mail Spam Doesn’t Work! There Is No Investor Relation Silver Bullet

Small Cap CEO Lesson: Millionaires Are Now Trading Online

Posted by AGORACOM at 5:01 PM on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009
If Thurston Had Internet, Hed Be Trading From Gilligans Island

If Thurston Had Internet, He'd Be Trading From Gilligan's Island

I know this doesn’t come as a surprise to many of you but there are still a number of CEO’s out there that continue to believe online traders are – for the lack of a better word – flakes.  They fail to realize that online investors are take charge, self-directed, open minded and very intelligent.  I know this because I’ve watched them for years on AGORACOM and blogs around the web.

For those CEO’s that don’t want to take my horribly conflicted word for it, you might want to take a look at this article in the Wall Street Journal:  Some Millionaires Trade Online.

(UPDATE:  It looks like the WSJ no longer has the story available – but here is a cached version of the article)

The article specifically talks about Canada – but I think we can all agree it applies to US online traders as well.

You can continue to ignore online investor relations – but do it at your peril.

Regards,
George

Posted in All Recent Posts, Online Investor Relations, Small-Cap CEO Lessons | 1 Comment »

The AGORACOM Client Intelligence Report – March 2009

Posted by AGORACOM at 3:07 PM on Friday, March 27th, 2009

We’re pleased to provide you with the March 2009 edition of the AGORACOM Client Intelligence Report.  For those of you who didn’t receive our last report or are new clients of AGORACOM, you can now find an archive of these reports on our blog here. 

For confidentiality reasons, all “Off The Blog” items mentioned in these reports are not mentioned in the blog posts.

WHY AN “INTELLIGENCE REPORT”

For the benefit of our new clients, we call this an “Intelligence Report” because it provides you with important information, data and trends that impact your business – information that you normally don’t have time to find.  We often write about these in The AGORACOM Blog, so we call these “On The Blog” Stories.

In addition, this newsletter gives you a chance to look into our crystal ball and know what AGORACOM is working on months before the general public.  You can’t find these tidbits on our blog, so we call them “Off The Blog” and ask that you keep them confidential.

As you know, we move faster than any IR firm on the planet, so knowing what we’re doing in advance helps both of us coordinate our activities.  This is especially true for what we expect to be an extremely fast moving and exciting year.

In short, greater market intelligence that puts you ahead of all of your peers.

I can’t stress enough my recommendation that you review our monthly newsletter carefully for the purposes of incorporating some of our market intelligence into both your IR and business initiatives. 

AGORACOM is now the largest small-cap IR firm and site on the continent thanks to our effective use of web technology.  As such, following us will help you achieve your goals.

OFF THE BLOG … Shhhhh

**For confidentiality reasons, the “Off The Blog” items are not mentioned in the blog posts as they are only available to AGORACOM clients**

ON THE BLOG

AGORACOM Hits 1.31 Million Unique Visitors in 2008

If a picture is worth a thousand words, this snapshot from our Google Analytics is worth several million…

 

AGORACOM Surveys Online Research Habits of Investors at 2009 Toronto PDAC Conference

AGORACOM is pleased to announce the results of the Small Cap Resource Investor Survey from the Toronto PDAC Conference held on March 1-4, 2009.  The results of this survey could be invaluable to small-cap metals and mining companies across North America. 

 

Small-Cap CEO Lesson: Bill Joy Uses Search Engines To Find His Next Investment

Venture Capitalist Bill Joy uses search engines to find new investment opportunities.  If Bill uses the web what do you think retail investors are doing?

 

Peter Grandich Sheds Permabear Skin And Begins Building Long Portfolio

AGORACOM Chief Commentator, Peter Grandich, has officially shed his permabear skin according to his latest blog post.  This is a pretty important declaration because Grandich has an uncanny ability to call market tops and bottoms in commodities and equity indexes.

 

Small-Cap CEO Lesson: Take Advantage Of Broken Trust In Wall Street

Wall Street is out of favor…waaayyy out of favor.  Take advantage of the environment, get out there and show investors why you and your hard working small-cap company can be trusted.

 

John Stewart Rips CNBC To Shreds

CNBC has taken a relentless beating for its irresponsible business journalism consisting of cheerleading the markets vs. reporting on them.  John Stewart of the Daily Show ripped CNBC to shreds with their bullish clips over the last 2 years.  See videos…

 

CONCLUSION

We hope you found this edition of the AGORACOM Client Intelligence Report to be helpful.  If you have any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact us or your AGORACOM representative for further assistance.

Thank-you and have a great day.

Yours truly,

George

Posted in AGORACOM Client Intelligence Report, All Recent Posts | Comments Off on The AGORACOM Client Intelligence Report – March 2009

Kitco Launches Contest For Resource Investors Called “So You Think You Can Rant”

Posted by AGORACOM at 12:13 PM on Friday, March 27th, 2009

 

As we all know, AGORACOM is a community of well-informed and knowledgable investors especially when it comes to the topic of Resources & Precious Metals.

Therefore, we thought the following contest might be of interest to some of you would-be market gurus and economic sages-to-be.

Kitco a popular Precious Metals web site, has launched a new contest for commentators called “So You Think You Can Rant.”

Amateur writers are invited to write a commentary about any topic they are passionate about as long as there is a mention of the subject of Precious Metals.  Writers can submit their commentaries at the contest site. 

Kitco judges will study the entered commentaries and select the 10 Best Commentators to take part in the official competition. Every week, the Rant finalists will be given a new topic to write about and their commentaries will be posted on the contest Web Site.

Users will read the entered Rants and vote for their favourite. The contestant with the fewest votes will be eliminated, the remaining competitors will be given a new topic to Rant about. Their commentaries will be posted and the public will vote again.

The elimination rounds will continue for 9 weeks until the Champion ranter is chosen. The “So You Think You Can Rant” prizes will then be awarded. All finalists will receive silver bars from Kitco and silver coins produced by Endeavour Silver. The Winner will receive a gold bar from Kitco, a gold nugget from NovaGold, a silver bar from First Majestic and they will be flown in from anywhere in North America and given a tour of the San Gold Mine in Manitoba.

The Winner will also receive a subscriber list for their own newsletter, an instant audience for their words of wisdom. They will also be interviewed on the Korelin Economics Report radio program.

Entries are accepted until April 10th.  The official contest with the ten finalists begins on April 17th.

Good luck and make us proud!

Posted in All Recent Posts | Comments Off on Kitco Launches Contest For Resource Investors Called “So You Think You Can Rant”

AGORACOM Financial News TV – Breaking Small-Cap And Micro-Cap Financial News At The Open (Mar 27/09)

Posted by AGORACOM at 9:00 AM on Friday, March 27th, 2009

Good morning to you all. Please find enclosed a summary of the breaking small-cap and micro-cap financial news we highlighted on our TV show this morning. It’s March 27 and we’ve found 5 great press release and stock halts from both sides of the border to report on at the open. Another great day for small-cap and micro-cap financial news.

If you are new to the show, it is a daily, fast-paced, edgy report that we put out at or before the open everyday that strictly reports on the best small cap and micro cap news of the day in 3-5 minutes. You can watch AGORACOM TV right from our home page .

If you miss an episode or want to search for your company in our archive, you can visit our industry leading Small-Cap Podcast site at any time:

If you want to subscribe to our Small-Cap RSS Feed or download our podcast everyday via iTunes, or your favourite podcatcher, just use the following:

As always, don’t forget to visit the AGORACOM Marketplace where we list compelling summaries for over 85 great small-cap and micro-cap companies that you can sort by exchange and industry to suit your personal investing tastes.

TODAY’S SMALL-CAP AND MICRO-CAP BREAKING FINANCIAL NEWS BEFORE THE OPEN

Our daily show focuses on content over form so that you can get profitable information into your hands as fast as possible. The same holds true for these entries in our small-cap, micro-cap news blog, where I simply cut and paste my TV notes for your benefit, without any editing, so don’t give me a hard time!

Now, onto our show notes for the day.

** Denotes an AGORACOM Client. AGORACOM TV Only Reports News From AGORACOM Clients That Meets The Same Newsworthy Threshold Of All Other Press Releases.

  • China Automotive Systems Inc – NASDAQ:CAAS $3.81
  • China Armco Metals Inc – OTC.BB:CNAM $2.25
  • **New Dawn Mining Corp – TSX:ND $0.55
  • Gamma Pharmaceuticals Inc – OTC.BB:GMPM $0.14
  • Petaquilla Mineral Company – TSX:PTQ $0.37

Posted in AGORACOM Small-Cap TV, All Recent Posts | Comments Off on AGORACOM Financial News TV – Breaking Small-Cap And Micro-Cap Financial News At The Open (Mar 27/09)

Banro Joins AGORACOM 100 With 6.72 Million Ounces of Resources

Posted by AGORACOM at 2:23 PM on Thursday, March 26th, 2009

I am proud to announce that on Tuesday March 17th 2009, Banro Corporation (BAA: NYSE Alternext; BAA: TSX) was added to the AGORACOM 100. The AGORACOM 100 is an exclusive group of great small-cap companies that provides investors with their first point of research when looking for their next great small-cap investment.

Investors will find Banro to be a worthy of inclusion in the AGORACOM 100  as the company is active in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) exploring and developing its gold properties. To date, the Company has  identified 6.72 million ounces of Measured and Indicated Resources, plus Inferred Resources of 4.46 million ounces.

Highlights include:

  • The Company recently completed a full feasibility study of its flag-ship Twangiza project.
  • 6.72 million ounces of Measured and Indicated Resources
  • Completed a $14 Million Dollar financing in February 2009.
  • Inferred Resources of 4.46 million ounces.

Recent News:

Banro Announces Updated Independent Mineral Resource for the Namoya Gold Project of 1.124 Million Ounces of Measured and Indicated Resources and 407,700 Ounces of Inferred Resources –

9:00 AM ET, March 11, 2009

Banro files NI 43-101 Technical Report on Twangiza Feasibility Study and announces executive appointment –

9:00 AM ET, March 2, 2009

Banro Corporation: Full Profile

Banro Corporation HUB

Banro Corporation Shareholder Forum

Regards,
George

Posted in 43-101's, AGORACOM Clients (New), All Recent Posts | Comments Off on Banro Joins AGORACOM 100 With 6.72 Million Ounces of Resources

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