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iTunes Selects AGORACOM Small-Cap TV As A New and Notable. Clients Win!

Posted by AGORACOM at 2:08 PM on Friday, September 28th, 2007

Hey, folks. It gives me great pleasure to announce that iTunes has selected AGORACOM Small-Cap TV as a New & Notable under the Business > Investing category. We were one of only 16 podcasts to make the spot.

Major Kudos have to go out to our Podcast Producer/Consultant/Miracle Worker Leesa Barnes at Caprica who walked in to our offices a year ago and turned a few Greeks into podcasting legends. In addition to our video show, Leesa also created our current podcasting empire at SmallCapPodcast.

At the end of the day, however, the biggest winner of all have been our clients. Why? AGORACOM now dominates 9-10 out of the top 10 positions on Google when searching pretty much anything related to small-cap podcasts.

Thanks to everyone for making this a smash success. Onward and Upward.

Regards,
George

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

TechCrunch40 – Winner of 42 Inch LCDTV

Posted by AGORACOM at 5:00 PM on Wednesday, September 26th, 2007

Congratulations to Cathy Morgan who walked away with our 42 inch LCD TV from TechCrunch40. Cathy thinks we did her a big favour but the fact of the matter is that we really didn’t want to deal with lugging it home, let alone trying to deal with Customs!

FYI, Cathy …. the IRS needs to speak with you 🙂

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Bob Dylan Hates Stock Bashers – A Must See Video

Posted by AGORACOM at 9:47 AM on Monday, September 24th, 2007

Good morning to you all. If you hate stock forum bashers as much as we do, you’re going to love the following basher video in which Bob Dylan says bye-bye to bashers. I guarantee you will love it.

How did we do it? We stumbled upon a customizable version of the famous Bob Dylan music video of Subterranean Homesick Blues. We added some magic and created “Basher Blues”. You can watch it here – be sure to pass it around as the response has been great so far.

Regards,
George

Posted in AGORACOM Small-Cap TV, Small and Micro-Cap Space, Web 2.0, 3.0, ... | Comments Off on Bob Dylan Hates Stock Bashers – A Must See Video

Press Release – AGORACOM Launches Canada’s First Stock Market Social Network

Posted by AGORACOM at 8:05 AM on Friday, September 21st, 2007

TORONTO, ONTARIO–(Marketwire – Sept. 21, 2007) – AGORACOM (http://www.agoracom.com), Canada’s only provider of monitored online communities to public companies is proud to announce the successful integration and launch of Canada’s first stock market social network. Currently, over 65 public companies use AGORACOM to host their official online community for the purposes of amalgamating and communicating with investors in a monitored environment free of spam, profanity, stock bashing and pumping.

WEB 2.0 SOCIAL NETWORKING TOOLS FOR INVESTORS

The AGORACOM Social Network provides investors with unprecedented networking, collaborating and ranking tools for the purpose of helping members make the best investment decisions possible. Some examples of these social networking tools include the following:

RANKING TOOLS

1. MEMBER RANKING

AGORACOM has built a robust member rating and ranking system that allows members to anonymously rate each other on a scale of 1-5 and displays a real-time average ranking of each member. The member rating system is dynamic and allows ratings to be changed at anytime based on the performance of members at any given moment.

The AGORACOM member rating and ranking system provides investors with an ability to immediately measure the reputation of any given member at any given time, thus providing investors with an ability to appropriately value the quality of information posted by any member.

2. POST RANKING

AGORACOM provides members with the ability to rate the value of each post to our monitored discussion forums and displays a real-time ranking of the value of each post.

NETWORKING TOOLS

1. MEMBER PROFILES

AGORACOM provides members with an ability to create extensive profiles that include information related to their city, country, biography, profession and favourite sports, movies, websites, blogs and books for the purposes of significantly increasing interaction between investors with similar interests and backgrounds.

Most importantly, members can provide a list of their favourite stocks which, combined with the AGORACOM rating and ranking system, provides investors with a simple but effective way of tracking the investments of the community’s’ highest ranking members.

2. VIDEO MESSAGING

In response to the online shift towards video, AGORACOM provides members with an ability to broadcast a video message to members of the community directly from their respective profiles.

3. PODCASTING and WEBCASTING

AGORACOM provides participating public companies with the ability to webcast their interviews and audio messages that are immediately converted into podcasts on SmallCapPodcast.com and placed on the world’s largest podcast sites including iTunes and Yahoo Podcast.

AGORACOM President, George Tsiolis stated, “We are the pioneers of Canada’s first and only monitored discussion forums for TSX Venture and TSX listed companies. With more than 65 companies now using us to provide their official online investor communities, we reached a critical mass that warranted the pioneering of Canada’s first stock market social network.”

George went on to say “This is a very proud day for AGORACOM and every public company, shareholder and market official that embraced our Web 2.0 vision and helped make it a reality. Members of the Canadian investing community should look for even greater functionality to be announced in the very immediate future. Stock discussion forums are never going to be the same.”

About AGORACOM – No Profanity, No Spam, No Stock Bashing, No Stock Pumping

AGORACOM (http://www.Agoracom.com) is North America’s largest official online community for public companies. Unlike stock communities that provide investors with unmonitored stock discussion forums plagued by profanity, spam, stock bashing and pumping, AGORACOM was built to serve the interests of public companies and investors by creating monitored communities focusing on quality over quantity.

AGORACOM is the official provider of “Small-Cap Centres – Powered By AGORACOM” to Yahoo Finance Canada, AOL Finance Canada and every Blackberry device on the planet.

For more information, please contact

AGORACOM
George Tsiolis, LL.B
President
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.Agoracom.com

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

AGORACOM Sponsors TechCrunch40!

Posted by AGORACOM at 2:51 PM on Friday, September 14th, 2007

Good morning to you all. It gives me great pleasure to announce that AGORACOM has become an official sponsor of the TechCrunch40 conference.

Why are we sponsoring a Web 2.0 tech conference?

We have found that high-profile sponsorships have helped our business take-off over the past year, so we’re now applying that same principal to our branding and awareness camapaign. This is especially true in the Web 2.0 world where it is very difficult to get the attention of Silicon Valley from Toronto. Doubly so when you factor in the fact we are in the finance community biz (not quite as sexy as Twitter).

I am hoping our strong and proven business model, along with our Tier-1 partnerships at Yahoo Finance Canada, AOL Finance Canada and Blackberry will resonate with the right people. Wish us luck!

Are there any other Canadians going to TC40? Let me know and we’ll meet on the floor. If not, I’ll be sure to blog about it on the fly and let you know how the conference is going.

What is TechCrunch40?

It is a conference in search of the best web 2.0 start-ups in the world. Several hundred companies applied and only 40 have been selected to present their case in front of an expert panel. One will go home the official winner, though all of them will benefit from great exposure to media, venture capitalists, bloggers and other key players.

Regards,
George

P.S. – AGORACOM would have applied to become a potential finalist but one of the criteria is that you had to unveil your new site/application at the conference and we weren’t sure if our Wiki-powered small-cap financial community would be ready on time. (Actually looks like we’re going to beta testing this afternoon and possibly launch on Monday – but still too close to call)

Posted in AGORACOM News And Events, All Recent Posts, Web 2.0, 3.0, ... | 3 Comments »

IBM Survey Supports Importance Of Building A Small-Cap Community

Posted by AGORACOM at 9:40 AM on Tuesday, August 28th, 2007

A new IBM online survey of consumer habits as they relate to the web and TV contains findings that small-cap companies will find important in determining their future IR campaigns. The actual survey results are available here, while a press release summarizing the survey can be found here.

From my perspective, here are some of the more interesting points:

The global findings overwhelmingly suggest personal Internet time rivals TV time.
Consumers are seeking consolidated, trustworthy content, recognition and community
An average of 81 percent of consumers surveyed globally indicated they’ve watched or want to watch PC video.
Consumers are increasingly contributing to online video or social networking sites: 26 % of U.S. respondents reported contributing to a social networking site.
Of those who contributed content, an average of 58 percent worldwide did so for recognition and community, not monetary gain.

Community, community, community. Investors want it and you need to provide it. It is that simple.

Why?

Humans have always congregated around fields of interest. We work with people who share our passion (medicine, engineering, teaching, construction, mining, technology, etc.), we socialize with people that share our sense of fun (bars, nightclubs, restaurants, sports venues, lakes, etc.) and we take up causes with people that share our pain (cancer, MS, diabetes, etc.). Bottom line, we do almost everything in our lives with other people who share the same field of interest.

As such, it only makes sense that we want to surf the web along with those that share our interests. Young children love to play at Club Penguin (acquired by Disney for $350 million), teenagers congregate at MySpace (acquired for $560 million, College students and grads are on Facebook (valued between $5 – 10 billion).

Investors are no different. They want to share information with other investors like them. This is especially true for the small-cap space where information and analysis from major media and finance firms isn’t readily available. In fact, I would contend that small-cap investors are an even more rabid group than any of the communities listed above because investing is not a social exercise. It involves their personal finances and livelihood.

The case for building and maintaining a high-quality small-cap / micro-cap community is getting stronger by the day. It is never looking back. Don’t make the mistake of thinking this latest phase of the web (Web 2.0) is going to end like the dot-com implosion of 2001. Web 2.0 is not built on greed, stupid business models and insane valuations. This phase of the web is being built on applications that are actually being used by millions and millions of people. It is powerful and unstoppable.

Any “C” level small-cap executive that ignores these facts is going to find themselves far behind those small-cap companies that embrace them and capitalize on them.

Regards,
George

Posted in Online Investor Relations, Small and Micro-Cap Space, Web 2.0, 3.0, ... | 1 Comment »

Why Small-Caps Should Issue Press Releases By 8:30 AM EST

Posted by AGORACOM at 11:09 AM on Monday, August 20th, 2007

Good afternoon to you all. Now that we’ve started broadcasting AGORACOM TV on a daily basis, 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 pumped out by bloggers, podcasters, and vloggers everyday – all of which is being fed into every corner of the web via RSS feeds, including iTunes, Yahoo Podcasts, Google Blog Search, etc. on your behalf – and for free!

However, if you want your great news covered by these incredible reporting sources, you have to give them a chance to get to 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 around 8:50 so that we can tape at 9:00 and be live by 9:30. I’m certain others are not much different. 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….unless you don’t want the world to know about you.

Best,
George

Posted in All Recent Posts, Online Investor Relations, Small and Micro-Cap Space, Web 2.0, 3.0, ... | 4 Comments »

eBay’s “Kijiji” Ranks As My Worst Web 2.0 Name

Posted by AGORACOM at 10:49 PM on Monday, August 13th, 2007

As if ~~competing~~ trying to compete with Craigslist (free classified ads) wasn’t already a near impossible task, eBay decided to saddle itself with a near impossible name to remember/spell/pronounce/relate to. It is akin to deciding to climb Mt Everest with a cube of lard on your back.

Is it any surprise the launch has been anything but a hit? All the money, consultants and research in the world doesn’t guarantee success … but it should guarantee protection from self-inflicted brandicide. Had to get this off my chest.

Best,
George

p.s. eBay owns 25% of Craigslist. Go figure.

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Will The New Google Finance Canada Follow Yahoo and AOL By Adding A “Small-Cap Centre”?

Posted by AGORACOM at 1:05 PM on Thursday, August 2nd, 2007

Great news for Canadian investors as Google has announced the launch of Google Finance Canada, a localized version of the original Google Finance. The Canadian version provides some good information at a glance, including top movers and shakers (and losers) by marketcap, price, dollar volume, etc.

According to Google Finance Engineer, Dion Loy, the move seems to have been predicated by the fact that Canadians – despite their small population – are the second largest users of Google Finance. He goes on to add:

“…a Canadian myself, I’m excited to see Canadian financial information presented in the familiar easy to use Google Finance format.”

THE MISSING ELEMENT

The missing element here is that both the news feeds and video feeds focus overwhelmingly on large/mega-cap news. In order to capture the true nature of Canadian investors, I believe Google Finance Canada needs to follow suit with Yahoo Finance Canada and AOL Finance Canada by providing a small-cap centre (CDN spelling). This is especially true in an environment in which TSX Venture stocks are posting spectacular gains thanks to a bullish metals and minerals resources market.

Dion, as the exclusive provider to small-cap content to both the Yahoo and AOL Small-Cap Centres, as well as, every Blackberry device on the planet, we’d love to speak with you about incorporating a small-cap feed(s) of information.

In the meantime, hats off to Google for recognizing the independence of Canadian investors and equities.

Regards,
George

Posted in All Recent Posts, Small and Micro-Cap Space, Web 2.0, 3.0, ... | 2 Comments »

Online Newspaper Audience Skyrocketing

Posted by AGORACOM at 8:18 PM on Tuesday, July 24th, 2007

Good evening to you all. If you are a small-cap executive, than you know I use this blog to provide support for my contention that old-school methods of reaching investors are dying a fast and painful death. Those companies that understand this and embrace Web 2.0 are going to win, while those that refuse to change will know what it felt like to be the last buggy whip maker in the dawn of the automobile era.

To this end, I provide you with the following powerful report regarding the skyrocketing growth of online newspaper readership. We live in exciting times.

Regards,
George

Posted in All Recent Posts, Online Investor Relations, Small and Micro-Cap Space, Web 2.0, 3.0, ... | Comments Off on Online Newspaper Audience Skyrocketing

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