Blackbird Share Discussion Threads

[nickb] 07/11/2019 20:54

Media industry runs on NDA’s and such like from my experience.

[bonio10000] 07/11/2019 20:53

Decent revenue announcements and actual results are all that matters.

I used to be invested, years ago, in Tadpole Technology.

Every little deal was news - and no deal every filtered into meaningful revenues.

Same with FBT - every production house was announced and the annual figures never changed.

IM isn't beholden to our impatience.

If there are no announcements, safe to say they are only making small deals.

[chriscallen] 07/11/2019 17:17

I don't think anybody on this BB wants to go back 2 years. IM is a step change. But he clearly hasn't worked for small listed companies. If he had he would know that management of news is a vital skill even if your company is in the FTSE250. Releasing an RNS is a clear requirement if the event meets the criteria. But even an RNS Reach is a different kettle of fish; there is nothing to stop BIRD putting out trade releases about wins or anything else i.e. on their own website if they feel its important to customers. Its about (Trumpism) COMMUNICATION. If you don't push the message don't expect to be supported by the shareholders. It might not matter now but at some point in the future it will. When it does that 15% of votes could be critical... the difference between a forced takeover and one that the management feels they can accept.

[bonio10000] 07/11/2019 12:32

And heaven forbid we return to the days of trumpeting Eva's expanding pipeline of sales, which now must be assumed to be untrue.

[bonio10000] 07/11/2019 12:31

Aziz was a PR guy.

Pure and simple. Hence the launch parties, having people like Jens etc.

IM is a business guy.

No need to look beyond that when it comes to the approach.

[gnnmartin] 07/11/2019 12:06

Richard, you say this company which does not help itself when to comes to PR ... they were trumpeting Eva and Captevate but now silence

I think the second explains the first. It is hard to predict the spark that will ignite the rocket, and even hard to be certain that the rocket will indeed fire. Trumpeting possibilities might distract attention from whatever eventually proves to be important, and certainly leads to disillusion when the trumpeted possibility turns out to be a damp squib.

I think we all thought 'This must be it!' when the share price shot up. We could be facing a painful slide down, and it is not surprising if some people feel the need to cash in a few while they can. I suspect the people who need to be convinced are not people who will be moved by RNS and PR. It's shareholders who are hungry for news. Whatever is going to catch the attention of our future customers will (I expect) catch their attention before anyone realise it is the spark.

[mcsean2164] 07/11/2019 11:12

Exactly, honesty paid off for early investors.

[bonio10000] 07/11/2019 10:51

Musk is to the car industry what Wework was to property.

Adam Neumann is worth about the same.

Wasn't Wework to IPO for $47bn a few months back and is now worthless?

Fair play to Musk - he has got rich off investors and enough fund managers put other people's money into the share.

But Telsa is worthless.

No - the world won't be saving itself in $150k Tesla's and no, nobody will buy the cheaper models compared to those offered by established makers.

We'll also ignore his multiple SEC violations and false statements.

Still - plenty bought the myth.

[invest360] 07/11/2019 10:02

Richard107. I agree. I think they do themselves no favours by playing their cards so close to their chest. When pressed on such matters in the past IM has often replied that he wished he could say more but is bound by NDA and/or can’t say anything that would be disallowed by the stock exchange. However, I can’t help feeling that they could be more forthcoming than they have been. For example, if they issued a written update so that the words could be carefully chosen in advance. Lifting the veil of secrecy is likely to lead to a better informed and more willing investor base. We all hope that silence on IM’s side is for all the right commercial reasons (ie NDAs). We can at least say that in the early days he was very cautious and made little positive commentary. Latterly, he has seen fit to be much more bullish (and invest a lot of personal cash) and this optimism has been borne out by deals - albeit rather slowly. He continues to be bullish and so we might hope/expect this to be a portent of more to come. I imagine the delay in getting deals over the line is as frustrating to them as it is to investors. In my own (SaaS) business we have plenty of deals that have effectively landed but can take many months to formalise. My assumption is that it is similar with BB. That assumption is based on seeing them starting to succeed (massively) with significant clients in their heartland market and IMs continuing bullishness. At least that’s what my shareholding is betting on. In the meantime the more they can say about the reality the better.

[moneygecko] 07/11/2019 09:56

BB maybe pushing cloud media editing on the fly but present contracts in media do cover that area, so it’s no shock it takes time more a case of present contracts to end.

[mcsean2164] 07/11/2019 09:41

Agree honesty and vision seems to have worked well for Elon musk.

[richard107] 07/11/2019 08:31

Chis , I agree with and this is why people are so cynical about this company which does not help itself when to comes to PR .
It would be good to know why none of these contracts have been signed. There could be several reasons such as negotiations taking longer than expected , customers changing their minds or another company winning the contract with a better or cheaper offer . Whatever the reason , this habitual silence does not look good . As I have often said , they were trumpeting Eva and Captevate but now silence . Likewise all the talk about a contract with the BBC went quiet . Does anyone know what is going on ? Honestly would be a good policy

[chriscallen] 07/11/2019 07:14

It's now a year since IM defined what he meant by small, medium and large contracts. At the same time he said there were several large contracts being discussed and many medium sized ones.

Does he ever wake up in the morning and think "today's the day we can announce a really large contract" or have they all fallen by the wayside? Is BIRD reverting to its former character of being great on promise but woefully short on delivery?

The Dept of State contract was good work by our US partners as was the A+E contract and what news there has been is dominated by US wins and extensions to existing contracts. So what exactly have the UK team won? Perhaps the US market is ready for BIRD and that's where all of the sales and marketing effort should be concentrated and based?

[sideshowbull] 06/11/2019 16:14

Yay.

#notgettingmybird

[nickb] 06/11/2019 16:11

👏👏👏

[matt123d] 06/11/2019 15:32

11.5/12p on its way

[invest360] 06/11/2019 12:56

NickB. That is as I understand it, too. I didn’t write it down at the time but I have a pretty clear memory of IM stating that Azzure were a key part of the sales effort.

[invest360] 06/11/2019 12:53

McS. Google is a massive, massive company. It’s perfectly possible to have a burgeoning relationship with the cloud division (which is huge and on a mission) and not to have a relationship with a completely different part of the organisation. And for that primary relationship to deliver substantial results. It’s not an indictment of the strategy that not every part of Google is currently interested in engaging with BB (though in time, who knows). I think you are getting sidetracked by Firework which is a red herring. More to the point it’s obscuring the facts about BBs dominance in its heartland sector and the relationship it has with the right part of Google to exploit it.

[nickb] 06/11/2019 12:33

cabi
My understanding was that Bridge Digital handled all the technical work with the AE tech team.

AE is a Media Client of Microsoft Azure anyway and they will look for solutions hence a referral from Microsoft to us for our solution.

[mcsean2164] 06/11/2019 11:36

Thanks Cab1,

“I'm positive they did not.”

The reason I say that is that AWS/ Azure have marketplaces where vendors can sell their applications. To say that AWS/ Azure brought customers would be similar to saying that namecheap (webhosting) brought customers because BIRD had their website on it.

Next up, I have had talks with a major multinational about our product. Every eyar they are looking for companies to feature on their stand, companies with a buazz about them. It is the job of certain individuals to bring interesting companies to their stands. Yes, a relationship could develop out of that. For azure/ AWS with their own video editing suits, we made them look good. We completely failed to develop a relationship with them.

Next, Google is the new kid on the block. I had hope but firework is a bit of a disaster imho. Anyway... fingers crossed, eyes closed, take a step forward.

[cabi1] 06/11/2019 11:21

Bridge Digital Inc got the A+E contract.

[invest360] 06/11/2019 10:58

McS. It’s quite possible that there is no amazing tech in Firework, and all the value is in the social network that they have built up. What’s more, advanced tech may not be the thing that is required to make a success of such an app. There are literally thousands of social network apps, almost all of which fail, and so getting market traction is the most important thing in this space. Not necessarily more advanced tech. Where BB scores a (unique) home run is in enabling all content owners to rapidly deploy video over the cloud to websites and social media and to control the downstream (which also involves use of the BB player, btw, which is already incorporated in these B-to-B use-cases) That’s a huge market space.

[nickb] 06/11/2019 10:28

“I'm positive they did not.”

Mcsean 🤔 how can you be so matter of fact?

My memory maybe failing me but I thought Ian said
Azure brought the business to them