Can I agree with both of you at the same time and not be considered a waffling politician???
Sure you can. You WAFFLING POLITICIAN!!!!!!!
some crazy nutball could ....
Good thing there are no crazy nutballs here <weak grin>, or if there are, they reside in the upper Midwest.
To vote with your feet you first need someplace to walk to. When unemployment is high, people stay is bad jobs and let their employers p*ss on them because they often have no choice. Nowadays (most) employers hesitate to act that way in part because it's so easy for many to vote with their feet.
I think SI takes its core user base for granted. There was a news story last week, not about the SI problems, but about something which may not have been unrelated. Ironically, it came out the same date as the database "upgrade". I am not a Raging Bull fan, but evidently many others are:
June 29, 2000
Overheard:
Raging Bull's Total Board Posts
Surge Ahead of Silicon Investor
By CARRIE LEE
WSJ.COM
Move over Silicon Investor!
In a case of youth begets speed, Raging Bull (www.ragingbull.com) recently charged past the bellwether Internet stock-discussion site in popularity among online investors.
A comparison of total posts on the two sites show that through Tuesday, Raging Bull had received 14.9 million posts, compared with 14.0 million for Silicon Investor (www.siliconinvestor.com), which is three years older.
Raging Bull's rise comes as Internet-discussion sites in general enjoy tremendous growth because of the decade-long boom in the stock market that has helped make investing a household phenomenon.
Raging Bull, which started in September 1997, has over 680,000 users and receives an average of 50,000 to 75,000 posts a day. Silicon Investor has over 300,000 subscribers and an average of 20,000 posts a day.
Tara Burgess, manager of community development for Raging Bull, says the site has spent less than $300,000 on advertising since its inception and has grown largely by word-of-mouth.
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"From day one it's always been about momentum, friends telling friends about the site," she says.
Jill Munden, a Silicon Investor spokeswoman, says Raging Bull is probably benefiting from its free format. Silicon Investor charges posters a $120 annual subscription fee. Anyone can read the boards for free.
"Free sites generally get a higher volume of posts," Ms. Munden says, adding that Silicon Investor boards attract better quality posts. "[Free sites] receive more posts generally because of the quality issue."
On the contrary, argues Ms. Burgess, Raging Bull's business is growing "because of the quality of what's being discussed on our boards."
Raging Bull isn't the only free stock-discussion site. Yahoo! Finance and Motley Fool are also free. Yahoo, which launched its message boards in late 1996, receives hundreds of thousands of posts a day, while Motley Fool, which rolled out its boards in April 1997, gets about 5,000.
Raging Bull has become a haven for investors who want to discuss OTC Bulletin Board stocks -- shares of tiny companies that don't meet the financial and other requirements for listing on a major exchange.
Its popularity among the OTC crowd has benefited from a decision in November 1998 by Yahoo to drop message boards devoted to OTC stocks.
However, Ms. Burgess says Raging Bull's popularity isn't driven solely by discussions about OTC stocks.
"We get some strong volume on these boards, but the most active boards are a mix, including [stocks like] WorldCom and Spyglass along with penny stocks," she says.
Raging Bull has surpassed Silicon Investor amid many changes at Silicon Investor that have worried and annoyed its users, including the site's purchase by Internet portal Go2Net Inc. in 1998.
When the Go2net deal was announced, posters had complained that Silicon Investor was giving up its independence and would become too commercialized.
Some seasoned message board posters also complained last summer when Silicon Investor redesigned its site and included technology that could track a user's habits on the Internet.
Although it went online in September 1997, Raging Bull didn't get much attention until a major redesign of its message boards in mid 1998. The site also has expanded its forums to include sports, current events, and other subjects.
The expanded topics have helped boost Raging Bull's total postings. Raging Bull also is benefiting from discussion boards it has provided since last summer for search engine Alta Vista. Alta Vista purchased Raging Bull in February. Raging Bull's boards also can be accessed through some financial Web sites, such as thomsoninvestment.com and forbes.com.
PR Newswire Helps Track Posters
Companies maligned by anonymous posters on the Internet are getting some help from PR Newswire.
The news dissemination service has formed an alliance with Internet Crimes Group, a cyber sleuthing firm in Princeton, N.J., to help its corporate clients track down malicious posters.
ICG will help track down the persons behind anonymous online postings, e-mail messages, and Web sites that spread rumors about a company or try to manipulate its stock.
ICG's ten person outfit, which is largely comprised of Princeton University graduates, uses technology and old-fashioned digging to solve the cases. ICG 's service isn't limited PR Newswire clients.
Chairman and chief executive, Michael Allison, says ICG has done work for about 25% of the Fortune 100 companies. He says the company has tracked down about 75% of anonymous authors it has gone after. |
