Bright Things Share Discussion Threads

[carl79] 23/7/2009 12:51

yep - tick up soon imo...

offer limit moved from 100k @1.6 to 50k @ 1.75

can sell up to 400k with barc @ 1.4!!

That has to be the most i've ever seen them accept as an automatic trade so there must be a heavy hitter after A LOT of stock...

Ian, you never said you were looking to buy in ;-)

[the analyst] 23/7/2009 12:28

No idea what's happening, Carl

I tried to buy at 1.75p quite a few times today and got rejected each time.

I obviously don't have the right connections!

The market makers are more than willing to take shares off you, though, so it looks promising...

[carl79] 23/7/2009 12:20

what is going on and why aren't these trades moving the SP?

[carl79] 22/7/2009 19:31

I personally do not see why you would invest in Ning right now...

Fag pack math -

Ning Cash burn - $2M (conservative - ive read it to be as much as $4M
Ning Revenue - $1M (660k from premium sites - down from $825k) - $340k ad revenue??

The fact their premium sign ups has dropped from 15k networks makes me think they are doing something wrong and not worthy of investment...but hey, what do I know?! I can only think that they are looking to get bought out and make money that way??

SirM - not seen it but I agree with TA, if on line (cheap) signups are at an acceptable level they should be leaving the full blown hardware advertising till another time

Ian - take your point but BGT hardly have the infrastructure, staff or support costs that Ning do. They are also going after the value market as opposed to the volume market so will not need to carry as many free networks...whether or not they nail this is another matter but one that will surely influence the share price ..That said, till the tills start ringing I fully expect dilution - hopefully at a level that ads 50% to the share price just like Ning managed to pull off! lol

[the analyst] 22/7/2009 18:58

Yes, indeed, Ian, that's why I mentioned the number of shares in issue as a big factor

Fear of dilution is probably the major reason as to why BGT is valued at less than £3m. Most onlookers are not expecting the company to get near to break-even on their budget - many of them may be looking at ning and thinking that socialgo will also need to raise tens of millions to compete.

Personally, I fully expect another placing soon. But, I don't think they need massive amounts.

I'm invested as I think they have a chance of reaching break-even next year on a limited budget. If that happens, then it suddenly gets really interesting!

[iantc] 22/7/2009 18:49

ta you could look at it another way ,if ning need more money what chance have bgt got with peanuts in the bank and another fund raising at this level would dilute yet again

[the analyst] 22/7/2009 16:51

Got to say, I'm really amazed by the ning funding news

Firstly, that I thought the last fund-raising was supposed to more than enough to see them through until the end of 2010. So, it's a real surprise and it must mean they are burning cash at an incredible rate. What are they spending it on, when socialgo prosper on very little? (that is, unless you really believe the line about them not needing the cash, lol!)

Secondly, I had expected any further fund-raising to see a lower valuation for ning - maybe $400m or so, rather than this huge $750m figure

I wonder what we should value socialGO at, if they ever reached break-even?

Maybe BGT will have a market cap of 1/10th the value of ning in a year or so?

Of course, the number of shares in issue by then is also going to be a big factor....

[the analyst] 22/7/2009 16:48

More write-ups of this latest ning fundraising and $750m valuation - worth reading a few as they are offering different slants on the story:



http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2009/07/ning-rings-vc-bell-again.html

"One of the biggest 'sideline' players in this space is Ning. They are doing very well despite some recent decline in numbers. They are doing so well that they picked up some more VC investment. The amount of the investment is not the focus, however, as pointed out over at AllThingsD. It's the valuation that the investment is based on, which is a hefty $750 million. Not bad for getting just a small percentage of the attention that social media gets in the online press. For the uninitiated here is an overview of the company"





"More recently, Ning has been working hard to make its social networks compatible with OpenSocial apps. That effort is going much slower than expected. A public launch was delayed last month because of performance issues with the Ning Apps platform, says one developer who is part of the program."





"Ning, the social networking platform, just raised a $15 million Series E round of financing at a mind-boggling $750 million valuation. Despite a cratering market, that's a 50% higher valuation than the $500 million it was worth (on paper) a year ago, when Ning raised $60 million.

Ning was not actively searching for funding, the company told AllThingsD's Kara Swisher. But when someone like Lightspeed Venture Partners comes along and wants to throw $15 million at you at a 3/4-billion-dollar valuation, it's hard to say no."

[the analyst] 22/7/2009 16:44

New $750m valuation for ning - WOW!



"Marc Andreessen-backed social networking startup Ning has raised $15 million more at an impressive $750 million valuation, the website AllThingsDigital is reporting.

The funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners brings to $119 million the amount raised by Palo Alto-based Ning, which was founded in 2004 by Andreessen, of Netscape fame, and its current CEO Gina Bianchini

Other investors in Ning include LinkedIn Chairman Reid Hoffman, Legg Mason and Allen & Co.

Ning is a platform aimed at offering customizable tools that lets users create their own social networks.

The company makes money by selling Google-brokered ads on social sites and by selling premium services, including the ability to eliminate Google ads, which can be replaced with ads sold by users. Bianchini would not disclose the company's revenue or say if it's profitable, but did say that 12,000 customers are paying $55 a month for premium services."

[the analyst] 22/7/2009 16:43

I haven't seen it, sirmark - maybe saving that or perhaps they are finding there has been no need for it?

[sirmark] 22/7/2009 16:23

Do they have these in a boxed-of-the-shelf yet ??

[the analyst] 21/7/2009 17:00

Not me buying the shares, either. Been away for a bit, but good to come back and see we had another good week on SocialGO sign-ups

Now standing at 68,901, having added another 2,119 networks over the past week

[carl79] 20/7/2009 21:22

It is interesting isn't it?!

[77monty] 20/7/2009 19:15

Interestingly the Widget Labs visitors have nearly doubled in the last month or so. Hopefully a good indicator of overall activity on SocialGO>

[77monty] 17/7/2009 20:03

Not I. With a spread like this I'm surprised anyone buys. The minute you press the button you are staring at a massive loss. Fair enough for geeks like us who can see the potential but for the average investor....hmm.

Incidentally I was browsing the US TechCrunch site (which is a good read by the way) and noticed SocialGo is advertising relatively heavily. Didn't realise they did this.

[carl79] 17/7/2009 12:55

Anyone owning up to the buy?

TA - you snaffling stock?? ;-)

[the analyst] 14/7/2009 21:18

"long macintosh", lol!

[the analyst] 14/7/2009 18:13

lol, even dodgy miners can't keep a good man down for long!

I agree on the scaleability and power front for developers - socialGO wins hands-down. Maybe they are just one key developer away (in the socialGO team) from getting it looking and feeling like a world-class product? Just like an i-phone feels, looks good and is a joy to use, I want to see that sort of quality from socialgo... and soon!

One thing that struck me when I created a network, was that the blog urls all seem to automatically have a number in them. I couldn't figure out how to get rid of the number in the url. I hope there is a workaround for this, because it's really important for seo and transferring urls from already established websites

[77monty] 14/7/2009 17:11

Don't forget adult networks that Ning shunned. There is a lot of money in the long macintosh brigade.

[carl79] 14/7/2009 17:01

TA - ref optimism :-)

If i were running a premium site I would hope to be doing so because i was seeing a return on my investment (or was very passionate about my subject matter). Either way - So, logic would suggest that most of the networks that did pay for a ning site still have a site and pay "someone" for it...i hope it is BGT...

Ref BGT cash position - snap. I agree - it is still a risky play and will be until they get over £1M per year in revenue imo...

Ref quality of the product...hmm - they all use Macs in the SG office so would have thought that the other way around but i take the point about the product being immature. As a platform i think SG better because it is more scalable and flexible. Ning can never manipulate the platform they have in ways that BGT can and this is a major selling point for developers. Ning is like on big network with mini sites within it where as SocialGO is not built like that. They are making progress on the aesthetics and functionality front but they do need to do more ...

[the analyst] 14/7/2009 16:06

My guess right now is that they will need 250,000 registered networks to get into profit. That is, unless they can improve the product a lot in the near future.

I've been testing soicialgo against ning again recently and I'm still disappointed by the way lack of intuitive design behind the socialgo product. It is very easy (imo) to set up a decent looking networks on ning in the space of a few minutes. On socialgo, I couldn't even find out how to upload videos onto the main page of my network from my desktop - the only option I could find was to embed youtube etc. and even that was difficult to get onto the main page. After one hour on socialgo I had very little for my efforts, whereas on ning I had a video slideshow, photos, all with keywords and comments, plus two blog posts up and running - all looking pretty good, too...

It's worth noting though, that I use Macs to design my sites, so I am used to things 'just working' - PC users might be a bit more tolerant of things being difficult to get done, or maybe socialgo is intuitive to a pc user, but not to a mac user?

[the analyst] 14/7/2009 16:05

Nice theory, Carl, I see your optimism was only affected for a couple of days by the GGG story!

During that period, between Nov 08 and April 09, ning increased their rates for some of their premium services quite dramatically, so that could explain why the numbers of premium networks dropped. It could also explain why their average price per premium network is so high, at $55 per month

Whether they have moved to socialgo is a different matter, but it would be nice. I still take everything written on WL with a big pinch of salt, though...

One thing about the valuation of ning to remember when comparing to socialgo, is that they have a significant amount of cash, so are unlikely to go bust anytime soon. BGT, on the other hand, look like they are running out of cash again, which makes the investment very risky. So, you could argue that they deserve to be lowly-rated just on that aspect

[carl79] 14/7/2009 12:21

I will not be happy with less than a 5% conversion to paid for services. I thought the industry average was 3%? I would only accept less than 5% as acceptable if they are getting money hand over fist through add revenue on free sites which is a long shot imo...

I am confident that they are attracting quality networks and I am confident that within 3 months, we'll have over 80k networks with a few thousand on a subscription package...I think your average RPU is too high though TA. As opposed to $60 a month, I am more inclined to think it more like $20 (inclusive of Zocku)...That said, these are moving numbers and in 6 months we could be looking at 120k networks with 5% conversion (6k) with $25 RPU...$1.8M p/a

12 months time 250k, 7% conversion (17.5k) with $28 RPU...$5.9M p/a

I do not think those numbers unachievable seeing as BGT are marketing the paid for services to users as is WL and we know from experience that sign ups become exponential once critical mass is reached which for BGT is probably only a few months away if Ning is an example of growth patterns

...

Now for the science...make of this what you will...

In November of 2008 Ning said 3% of its 500,000 social network creators pay for the premium version. (one of a number of sources stating this... )

Now, in April 2009 the % has dropped drastically to 1.2% on the assumption that they have 1,000,000 networks...

Does not take a genius to realise that 3% of 500k is MORE than 1.2% of 1M so WHERE have these paying networks gone? 3,000 have disappeared in 7 months...apparently...Not to mention the fact that you would assume some new networks to come on board in that 7 month period....

Add this to the fact that WL said they were rushed off their feet and my friends, we have a pretty interesting theory! ;-)

Using my numbers above for RPU, IF and it is of course a big IF, but if BGT did snag a healthy portion of Nings paying networks which we can infer from a lot of what Spence @ WL says in his posts then we could have a business already close to self sustaining...one more round of funding to keep the wolves from the door and then no more cap in hand placings??? would be nice huh!

PS, BGT is around 6% the size of Ning in terms of network numbers but valued at less than 1% of them...if you agree with Nings valuation and agree that the two business models of the two have synergy - and maybe even agree that BGT have a better ability to execute then we should see a valuation re-rate over here once word gets out that there is a pretender to Nings crown - especially if it is confirmed that BGT snaffled 20% of their premium customers right from under their noses!!