Anthony's in the WSJ again
Online Maverick Creates
A Rival to Silicon Investor
By JASON ANDERS and CARRIE LEE
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL INTERACTIVE EDITION
Just as Anthony Elgindy was being welcomed back to Silicon Investor following an unusual vote by the site's members, the outspoken short seller was developing his own competing stock-chat Web site.
WallStreetStand (www.wallstreetstand.com) was formally launched Monday and has already attracted the attention of many Silicon Investor users. Some of those members are the same ones who supported Mr. Elgindy earlier this month when Silicon Investor allowed its members to determine whether he should be reinstated as a member. He was booted off the site in August because of his controversial postings.
Mr. Elgindy says he started work on the competing site months ago, "when Silicon Investor started to give me a hard time." Since patching things up with Silicon Investor, he has moved to step away from the new site.
But he isn't stepping far. Mr. Elgindy says one big chunk of his ownership interest in the site is being given away to about 230 people, including 10 to 20 of his friends and individuals who have purchased $600-a-month subscriptions to another Web site he runs, a stock-tip site called Anthony@Pacific (www.anthonypacific.com).
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All of those individuals, which include friends from college and high school as well as business associates, will receive shares in a company that is being formed to own WallStreetStand, Mr. Elgindy says. He refuses to identify any of these individuals.
The rest of the company, a 25% stake, will go to Robert Hansen, whose five-employee firm, EIMS Inc. developed the software that runs WallStreetStand and now maintains the site. Mr. Elgindy paid EIMS, of Melbourne, Fla., about $50,000 for the work, but he says he will get that money back by selling the site's domain name to EIMS for about that same amount.
Mr. Elgindy says he won't have any ownership in WallStreetStand going forward. But he and Mr. Hansen have lofty goals for the site. Both men say they believe the company could one day seek to sell stock in an initial public offering. As an alternative, Mr. Hansen says he believes the site could find an acquirer. "I can see ... one of the search engines that doesn't have a well-known stock chat" buying WallStreetStand, he says.
Ousted Commentator Regains Silicon Investor Membership (Oct. 11)
Silicon Investor Puts Fate of Banned User Up for Vote (Oct. 8)
An Online Maverick Sells the Internet Short (July 22)
It's unclear how WallStreetStand will make any money. Messrs. Elgindy and Hansen say the shareholders could profit if the site begins to sell ads.
Silicon Investor, for its part, says it is aware of WallStreetStand, but isn't concerned about the potential competition. "We're not losing any sleep over it," says Bryan Burdick, managing director of Silicon Investor. "There are dozens of new online discussion sites that get started. Our reaction is about the same as it is to any of those. We wish Anthony well."
Mr. Elgindy says WallStreetStand, which doesn't charge a subscription fee, has about 1,100 registered users. Silicon Investor, which charges $10 a month, has about 120,000 paying members. Many other people use free portions of the site, which is a unit of Go2Net of Seattle.
Although the message boards on WallStreetStand and Silicon Investor have similar appearances, Mr. Elgindy says WallStreetStand has features that Silicon Investor doesn't have. "Silicon Investor is the only [discussion forum] that is halfway decent. I said, 'We'll take the best from [different] sites and see if we can make something everybody likes,'" he says.
For instance, WallStreetStand lets users "ignore" other users who they find bothersome -- a feature that was first introduced on Raging Bull, another popular stock-chat site (www.ragingbull.com). Users of WallStreetStand can also see a list of the "most ignored" people.
Mr. Elgindy says that while the site will remain free, it will eventually collect credit-card information from new members as a means to verify users are who they say they are, and to prevent users from establishing multiple identities.
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