Bright Things Share Discussion Threads

[sirmark] 17/9/2009 17:09

In fairness the Market Cap has doubled in a month ...so I think you have had to sacrifice a share price @ 3p for the monies now in companies coffers.... at least they should be around for a while longer to get this to generate some decent returns.


Still a gamble but you all knew that !

SirM


Still watching and reading

[haff1] 17/9/2009 11:05

...it would be nice to see some justified upward movement of this share price ..

[digger27] 17/9/2009 10:56

See we are reaping the benefit of the general market trend...lol
One day I may have something good to say about this company but I won't be holding my breath.

[the analyst] 15/9/2009 15:26

"New Advanced Member Billing is Here
Published by: ryan on Monday 14th September 2009 02:09pm
Good day, SocialGO Networkers!

We're ecstatic to announce that you have more ways than ever to handle your subscriptions with the new Advanced Member Billing (Member Billing 2.0)! Combined with using your Member Levels, you now have the ability to charge people to access premium areas of your site. This is a superb way to generate serious revenue and to up sell your members from a Free plan to a paid one. Amazingly, the new system supports free trials, so you can easily offer motivation for people to 'try it before they buy it', and it also supports multiple billing providers and accepts more forms of currency than ever before

......

"

[carl79] 15/9/2009 06:49

We have clearly benefited by Nings change of heart - "how much" is the question on most people's lips...I am surprised that WL have not jumped over these recent Ning stories though! ?

[the analyst] 14/9/2009 18:40

And more here:



"Ning scammed me also
I agree with 100% of this complaint. The facts asserted are absolutely true and correct. I know first hand. I am also a victim of the ning scam.

I spent some $80,000 and thousands of hours building what I was promised would be "my" networks." ning has essentially stolen my members, my content, my access to the files, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.

I now have several worthless sites that ning has fully exploited for nings' gain.

You can find tons of similar complaints and info on how ning apparently planned this whole very clever scam all along at:



ning has charged me for removing ning branding, yet continued to keep the ning brand on my site, not to mention tell thousands of my members all about ning with the ning.com racket they started earlier this year, so they could benefit financially from all my thousands of hours of work, and a ton of my money, and all of my members.

Anyone interested in suing ning? I am positively going to recover my losses. I did not go to work (spend $80,000 + thousands of hours of time since 2007) for ning. Maybe they think I did, but my lawsuit will clarify all that for marc and gina at ning.

Contact me if you wish to become involved. I am moving forward v. ning, for sure.

Submitted: Tuesday, September 01, 2009
Modified: Tuesday, September 01, 2009
david

USA"

[rheiner] 14/9/2009 08:09

As a 'mad punt' as he puts it, Paul Scott [paulypilot] has bought a few BGT. As he points out if they fail you lose all but with success it's a serious multi-bagger. That's what gambling is about.

[purav] 14/9/2009 06:38

i've played with the product and it is preety impressive.. very impressive
i dont regard the ceo as buying shares as that good... he has enough exposure and shuld be able to convince institutions it is a good bet. but that takes time and maybe he just couldnt be bothered to. loans and overdraft agreements just put the company at risk..
i would say there is more than a 1 in 5 chance that this is a hundred bagger...

[carl79] 14/9/2009 06:38

the network seems quite professional too...hmmm....BGT, please tell us how many networks are paying. TIA...

:-)

[the analyst] 13/9/2009 23:40

Nice find - definitely good to see that sort of migration from Drupal's technology over to SocialGO's

[77monty] 13/9/2009 21:25

Posts like this (on the comments section of owners network make me smile. He must have done his research and has chosen SocialGO


y Alex G 1 day ago
I want to migrate a 200 000 members database from a Drupal web site to my new socialGo network. Can somebody help ??? It has to be done in the next 2 weeks.
It will be easy. I will just move profiles. Not history and other stuffs.
Thanks
Alex
Old :
New :

[the analyst] 10/9/2009 23:56

Major release on ning yesterday with their apps - 90 released in one go!





At the moment the reaction is that a lot of them are quite buggy, but that they are a very welcome addition. The release shows what SocialGO are up against if they want to keep up with ning on the technology side of things

As was the case before, the big selling point for SocialGO over ning is that you as the owner have rights over all of the content generated and can take it with you. With ning, you own nothing and they can prevent you exporting it. They can also cross-promote your members to other networks

So, people have the choice - the one with the most tools and better technology, or the one where you have terms and policies built in your favour as a business owner.

[the analyst] 10/9/2009 14:03

Of course, the other benefit of playing it close to their chests (if that is what they are doing) is that it meant Dom gets to buy shares on the cheap. As we discussed before

Still, it is much better to see a CEO buying during the placing, rather than the shares going mostly to unrelated high net worth individuals - that can often spell danger. Seen that too many times, where Directors take very few shares in a placing and the people they convince to invest lose their cash

[the analyst] 10/9/2009 14:02

The lack of figures in the last statement is the one area where I have rose-tinted hopes (note, it's a hope, not an expectation or view)

I'm hoping that it is exactly as you say Carl, them just playing their cards close to their chests

The way I see it, if they are doing well, they do not want other companies to know how well they are doing until they have reached critical mass, are increasing networks at a much higher rate, have a reputation for the best at what they provide ( in terms of technology/speed/ease of use/customer service) AND are making a profit. Can they get to that sort of position? Very difficult to know - not easy.

So, I wonder if when we get the next statement, we get the same limited information, perhaps with a 'we are encouraged with progress' type of statement, but not much else to go on? Revenue figures are unlikely to be great at that stage as the wL post suggested it has only been recently that they really started to gear up on premium conversions.

Perhaps it will be next September when we start to see them blowing their own horns on any success in revenue/profit/network number that they may have?

[carl79] 10/9/2009 13:17

Yes TA - it reinforces my opinion that they are actually doing really well ... some could argue it means they are doing really badly and the share price and the recent placing would bolster their position as opposed to mine...however, I think they are just playing things close to their chests and that WL is busy helping networks that are paying for services and as such have less time to spend writing entertaining posts and poking fun at Ning!

[the analyst] 10/9/2009 12:51

Interesting that WL has not posted on their blog yet this month - it's a record length of time without communication.

Spence is obviously still around, as he has made the occasional post...

[the analyst] 10/9/2009 12:50

Hi Carl,

Yes, there could well be an element to your "had" to invest. I definitely think that is the case for the first one. The third placing came over a bit like that too, after the sad death of Charles Delamain, when Dom took his shares.

On the other hand, he always has the option of giving up on the project and finding something else to do. So he never really "has" to invest when you look at it that way.

So, would Dom waste his most important asset (time), as well as his effort and money on those placings if he didn't see it as worthwhile? We can only guess that the answer is that he wouldn't, but he has failed before - having confidence doesn't mean success is due

[orange1] 09/9/2009 14:08

socialgo described as a leading networking solution by the Social Networking Industry Network:

[carl79] 09/9/2009 05:52

In anyones book, an increase in stake to 25% by the CEO is a positive and wealthy or not, £400k is a large chunk of change - certainly not an amount to waste just to make the dilution pill seem "sweeter" for other investors...

(for previous placings TA, I could argue that Dom "had" to invest in order to show confidence and entice fresh money)

[carl79] 09/9/2009 05:42

Nice to see you back your opinions up with some facts and logical reasoning TA...I do not entirely disagree...my only real gripe is that i think they are doing better than they have perhaps let on and i would have "liked" to see a placing done at a bit of a premium to the current range...Had I been more careful, I could have had a lot more shares for my money - hence I watch carefully becasue I do not want to make the same errors again...As far asa good investment?? I think it is a cracking one at sub 2p. We of course need numbers before a post 2p figure can be justified

[the analyst] 08/9/2009 23:51

So as promised, I've now been through the rns statements again and this is what I have - this is really just reinforcing my research for my own benefit, but am posting it for the interest of others. I may have missed things and got things wrong, so do your own research before accepting this as fact:



Historical business, April 2004 - Nov 2007
Prior to Nov 2007 BGT had a business based on asic/bubble/iDVD - the business survived from April 2004 until Nov 2007. During that time, Dom spent £80k on shares at 9p. That business basically went bust. Dom did badly on that share purchase and if he sold them today he would be down over 85%



So, on to the important bit, the CURRENT business - SocialGO.com:

Nov 2007 - £955,000 raised at 4p per share in order to develop the product
The new business began in November 2007 with the acquisition of Commonworld with the aim of developing a 'social network' venture. Dom bought 2.5m shares at 4p per shares. What many people won't realise is that this was dilutive for Dom, as his shareholding went from 18.7% down to 13.6%, despite investing £100k. This indicates that he saw this new venture as very speculative and did not have a great deal of confidence at that time. The 4p price was at a huge discount to the previous price range of around 6-8p - not unexpected for a company going to the sword.
[nb at the time, I thought this new venture was doomed, given ning's domination, funding and that BGT said they were going to develop it as a boxed product, so did not consider investing)



Sept 2008 - £734,500 raised at 1.25p to take it to a fully working product
During this placing Dom took 16m shares at 1.25p for a total sum of £200k. Although this meant his previous purchases at 9p and 4p were diluted, his overall holding went up to 19.6%. At this stage, the purchase showed confidence in the product as it was a much bigger sum being invested and his percentage was raised
[note - investors had the opportunity to buy at well below 1p per share on the open market following this placing, so there was no need to be diluted, if they chose to buy in - I bought shares at below 1p]



April 2009 - £750,000 raised at 1.25p to continue product development, expand infrastructure
During this placing, Dom took 12.8m shares at 1.25p for £160k, which kept his shareholding at a similar level to before (18.9%). Again, the fact he bought so many shares shows confidence, but shareholders were diluted and did not get the opportunity to buy shares at the same price, but could have bought at 1.4p on occasions
[it may be worth detractors noting that this was historically one of the toughest times we have ever seen for a listed microcap technology company to attract funding. Many start-ups with insufficient funding were going bust, but BGT did not]



Sept 2009 - £940,000 raised at 1.25p to market the SocialGO product
During this placing Dom took 32m shares at 1.25p for a total sum of £400k. This raised his stake to 25.5%, which, given his warrants, is realistically the most he could possibly take without being in a position where he would have to offer to buy the company (should he take his options up). Again, there has not been an opportunity for investors to buy at the placing price (yet), so this is dilutive. You can currently buy at 1.39p



Summary
In total £3.4m have been raised by the company for developing the SocialGO product. The company probably has around £900k cash in the bank. In terms of spending on a new social network creator this is peanuts, so if they manage to get into profitability with say, one more round of funding that would be quite an achievement imo (having had a lot of luck along the way with ning messing up and with attracting WL to the mix)

Dominic has purchased a total of 63.3m shares at an average price of 1.36p per share

Currently you can buy shares at 1.39p

So, any investor wishing to purchase more shares, can do so at just about the same average price that Dom has bought into the socialGO product - therefore no need to be diluted in comparison to Dom

Overall, after looking back at these placings again, I still don't know what all the fuss has been about. I do agree that the previous business was badly run and a big failure. For that reason alone, it stands to reason that people should have a healthy scepticism of the management's ability to make SocialGO a success. However, I don't see any real evidence that the Board have taken investors for a ride during the SocialGO era (as has been suggested might be the case, by some)

It's not as if we have seen them restructure share capital to issue shares at a discount to the nominal value, which would be bad (but has been very very common during the recession). All we have seen is investment from management in the company at prices similar to those that we could also buy at.


A good investment?
It's still an incredibly risky investment, albeit with outstanding potential returns should SocialGO become a player in the social networking sector.

The management have a proven track record of success (with Eidos) and of Failure (with asic/bubble/iDVDs). So, time will tell...

[the analyst] 08/9/2009 21:15

I do agree with you on one point though, Ian...

Dom should work for free!

But is his pay really as bad as you make out? The basic pay for an Aim CEO is currently £198,706. Dom took £104k in 2007 (the old company), then that dropped to £96,000 in 2008 and remained constant at £96,000 in 2009. He did not take a bonus either, whereas the average bonus on AIM was £30,500

So, he took a pay cut upon entering the SocialGO era, then no pay rise in 2009 and he has never taken a bonus

So what's the big fuss?

Your comments are starting to make you sound affected, imo

[the analyst] 08/9/2009 21:08

Also, Ian, I'm not sure why you seem to think it's awful every time BGT raise more funds

Personally, I expected the last fund-raising and I DO EXPECT more fund-raising in the future, whether it be by another placing or through exercising warrants. It's when they DONT manage to raise funds to further the product development and marketing that they have failed investors

Businesses like this do not come cheap and there is no guarantee of success, but if they do make it to profitability there will be a huge reward. That's the risk and the potential benefit

I just don't get your stance - on the one hand you say they don't have enough money to survive, then when they raise money to continue developing SocialGO you act all shocked and disgusted, saying they are doing investors badly. Do you expect them to give money for free or seriously, would you expect them to raise cash at a premium? This has been one of the worst times for raising cash in history! Surely raising funds to keep development going is a good thing

By the way, being 'well funded' is quite distinct from being funded through to profitability. They are currently well-funded, but we don't know how long it will last or if it will take them through to profitability.

I wonder if you expected the asic/bubble/iDVD business to make you very rich and have been affected by the disappointment that didn't happen?

If it was me, I would just be grateful that I was lucky enough to get out with a profit, despite the fact I invested in a failed venture :)

[the analyst] 08/9/2009 20:52

iantc, I'm not sure you read my post properly - The main point I was making was that the business you guys invested in failed. I stated quite clearly that BGT was essentially bust after the iDVD/asic/bubble failed. I don't see how you can say that is a rose-tinted view of the past!

People that invested in the bubble/asic/iDVD (like yourself) invested in doomed products and a company failing like that would normally be expected to have gone into administration. It sounds like you managed to sell out in time, but the products you invested in were all failures

Again, I don't see that as a rose tinted view. I see that as a previous disaster

As I stated, investors that held on to their shares are VERY fortunate to be getting a second chance, imo. I think Dom messed up running the business, but he has been very good to investors to keep them in the picture with SocialGO

If he had taken the company into administration and sold the assets, the proceeds of those sales would have gone to the administrators too and investors would have been left with nothing