5. What is the vision for the site a year from now and five years from now? When a business decides to go in a new direction, often instead of firing or laying people off the company will marginalize an undesirable employee's responsibilities so that, under their own volition, they quit. Another method to get employees to quit is to create a work environment where the conditions are hostile or at least very uncomfortable for the undesirable employees while enhancing the desirable employee's position and benefits.
In SI's case, the members are obviously not employees, but they do produce the content of the site. The strategy of the owner of the site will dictate who is desirable and who is not. SI was born during the dotcom bubble when people who you would never expect to actively trade or invest in the stockmarket, were active and often making money. There was no conflict between the content of the site and management's strategy because one was created to facilitate the other. This was also a time when large numbers of people became exposed to the shadier parts of stock trading where scammers would run pump and dump promotions of crap stocks to the great financial detriment of the amateur retail trader/investor. SI's management certainly didn't do anything to stop the pump and dump stock promoters, but at the same time, it was a friendly environment for members who made it uncomfortable for the pump n dumpers to hang out on SI.
After the crash in 2000, a lot of people lost a lot of money and either weren't invested in the market, changed their investment style to be more passive or simply preferred to be more discreet in their investment discussions. Yet, many relationships were developed during the boom and subsequent bust. So SI became a simple social media site that had an investment theme and a unique community feel. At the same time the political divide in the country became more obvious and politics became a major part of the site content. This isn't necessarily a good thing for advertisers who would prefer to advertise on investment focused sites. But the fact is, many of the veterans stuck around because of the sense of community, regardless of the immediate dominant cultural fad.
As SI struggled to find its identity in the 2000s, but management still had the same values as was prevalent in the 90s. So there certainly wasn't any sense of having the door held open for us as we were herded out of the proverbial door.
What is the vision of the site? All one has to do is look to whom the representatives of the site are friendly and those to whom they are hostile.
I predict that, in the near future, this site will see much more activity on penny stock threads. Stock promoters and trading gurus will have their own protected threads and they will either officially or unofficially be protected by the site rules and/or administrators.
We will see an increase in accusations that naked shorts and boiler room short raiders are depressing the price of a stock
And we will see a lot of cheerleading and excitement about very marginal companies with ridiculous claims.
Basically, those members who have values consistent with the management of the original SI, will be a threat to the new customers. These members are now the undesirables. They will be encouraged to see the new SI light or to "quit" SI through increasingly uncomfortable posting restrictions.
Out with the old, in with the new. |
