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posted on Thursday, May 01, 2008 12:50 PM by PetePrestipino

by Milind Mody, eBrandz

It is widely believed that the first press release was issued over 100 years ago by Ivy Lee on behalf of the Pennsylvania Railroad, which had just suffered a tragic accident. The press release was issued to prevent alternate versions of the accident from being spread among the press. And, 100 years later the intent of a press release hasn’t changed. It remains a valuable resource in any marketer’s tool kit. But its importance in the Internet age and the world of search engine optimization has never been greater.

Top 5 reasons to write a Press Release

1) Organic Traffic: With their Universal Search protocol, Google has started showing press releases in organic search results. If your press release is well-optimized, it can rank for two to three days in Google organic results. The press release can also get traffic from Google News and other news aggregator websites.

2) Link Building: You can use your important keywords as anchor text and link them to relevant pages on your website. When the press release is distributed these links will be picked up by distribution partners. Links from many of these sites will not be counted, but some of them will.

3) Reputation Management: If someone has criticized your company, one sure way to get the criticism off the first page of Google Blog Search or Google search results is to issue multiple press releases. Of course, if you want to do a professional job, then you need to get external links to your press releases and bookmark and tag these releases.

4) Bloggers and Web 2.0 Audience: Many bloggers subscribe to online press release distribution services like PRWeb. If your press release interests them, they might blog about it and give a link to your press release or your website. If you consistently reach out to this audience, you can get significant links, traffic and sales from them.

5) Traffic from Traditional Media: If your press release interests journalists, they will follow up with you and write a story about your business. This will most certainly lead to a short term boost in your website traffic and sales.

Wire Services and an Online Distribution

Wire services distribute press releases to traditional media outlets like newspapers, magazines, radio stations and news agencies like Reuters and the Associated Press. If your main objective is to target journalists, then use a traditional wire service.

The other option is online distribution — targeted to journalists or bloggers who sign up to receive emails from a particular industry, category or sub-category. Popular news aggregator websites like Google News and Yahoo News are also targeted. Additionally, many bloggers subscribe to distribution and news feeds.

Chances are one press release from a good online distribution service will get you multiple listings spread across Google News, Search and Blogsearch. For the widest reach, consider both wire services and online.
The difference in distribution methods can be summed up as push vs. pull. Wire services push press releases to media outlets, while consumers pull information from online services like PRWeb through email alerts and RSS feeds.

Press Release Basics

Most wire distribution services charge by blocks of 375 or 400 words. That includes title, a brief summary, body of the release and contact information. If the release is more than the word limit, you will be charged extra per 100 words. Images, video, documents or podcasts are also charged extra. But many online PR distribution sites do not have the typical 400 words limit. Image and document attachment is also commonly provided with the basic service.

Before turning loose your press release, decide where you will make the most impact. Wire distribution services classify a press release into:

1) National Release: Targets all national media outlets for a particular industry like Automotive, Consumer, Sports, Technology or Travel.

2) Regional Release: The four main regions are Northeast (includes New York and New Jersey), Southeast (includes Florida and Virginia), Midwest (includes Illinois and Ohio) and West/Southwest (includes California and Texas).

3) State and Local Release: New York State and New York Metro can be two different options. In general, New York-related distribution is expensive, because of the high number of media outlets in the region.

4) International Release: Again, there are many classifications and sub-classifications of an international release based on countries and/or continents.
Apart from the above categories, some wire services also target Hispanic, African-American and North American Chinese media outlets.

Keep in mind that you should draft and submit your press release two days in advance, because most wire services will call for a verbal confirmation before distributing.
With online services you can specify 5-10 industries to target. By default, the region is set to global but if your release applies to a specific city or region, you need to choose the appropriate setting. Any journalists or bloggers who have subscribed to releases for that region will then receive your release.

Now that you have decided what type of distribution service you will use and where you will target your audience, it’s time for the most important part — creating effective, compelling press releases.

Seven Tips for Writing a Press Release

1) Unique Value Proposition: Instead of writing a press release for simply the launch of your product or service, create a press release around your unique value proposition. This should include those special attributes making your service better than the competition.

2) Avoid Hyperbole: Keep your language natural and tone conversational. Nothing is more counter-productive than a jargon-filled sales pitch. Report facts.

3) Optimize your Press Release for Search: Include your most important keywords in the press release title and first paragraph, but not at the cost of important information. Hyperlink important pages with suitable keywords as anchor text.

4) Create an Online Press Room: Because only limited information can be included in a press release, it’s a good idea to create an “Online Press Room” on your website. It should list your media contact with an email address and direct phone number, contain a high-resolution logo of your company in various formats (JPEG, PSD, CDR) and high-resolution photos of key people in your organization. Point links to important products, case studies, client comments, press releases and media coverage. Provide a link to this page on all press releases.

5) Create Google and Yahoo Alerts: Create Google and Yahoo alerts with your company or individual name. This will help you see which websites are covering your press releases.

6) Decide your objective: If the primary objective of your press release is online reputation management, then you might want to go for a service like PRWeb. However, if you think there is an angle in your press release which can appeal to journalists, use a wire service that also has SEO options.

7) Use Stock Tickers: If your company is not publicly listed, but associated with a listed company (i.e. if the listed company is your client) you can ask their permission to include their stock ticker in your press release. This will help you get visibility across all journalists who will be searching for the listed company.
Press releases can be extremely valuable for both short- and long-term purposes.

If you are not yet convinced or feel that you need some practice, start with a free service, then move on to professional service. However, a single press release will not give you much exposure. Try to write at least six press releases a year that will cover your unique value proposition, good customer experience, and awards and recognitions.

Distribution Services

PR Newswire: PR Newswire is the biggest name in press release distribution service. It is also the most expensive. A 400-word national release can cost $680 and $185 for additional 100 words. A 400-word release with a photo will cost $1,325. Regional distribution will cost less. The national release includes SEO, but for other distribution options, add $255. If you don’t want a national release, search for PR Newswire partners

like WebWire, which offers a 15 percent discount.
Business Wire: Business Wire was taken over by Warren Buffet’s Hathaway Berkshire last year. In general, Business Wire costs 8-10 percent less than PR Newswire. Business Wire has partnered with Vocus/PRWeb which powers their Enhanced Online News Text optimization tool. Through PRWeb, Business Wire can produce SEO-friendly press releases while PRWeb can now provide traditional wire service to their clients.

Marketwire: A 400-word national release on Marketwire costs $460 with $150 extra for additional 100 words, less for regional and state/local distribution. Additional photos cost $50, SEO enhancement costs $75 and audio/video links cost $75 each. Customer service is good, making Marketwire is a nice option if you are price conscious.
PRWeb: PRWeb is not a wire service, but an email-based service. Journalists or bloggers who signup with PRWeb receive a daily email from PRWeb based on their preferences. The release is also distributed to other websites that subscribe to PRWeb feeds. The basic service at PRWeb starts at $80 per release. Their SEO visibility service starts at $200 and there is a podcast interview option for $100, where one of PRWeb’s staff will conduct a four to five minute interview with you. This is a great option for business owners who want their press releases to stand out but don’t have time or energy to produce their own podcast.

Free Distribution: Apart from these main services, there are some free online distribution services like openPR.com and PRLog.org. These websites are regularly crawled by Google News. But a word of caution: These free sites make money by displaying Google AdSense ads alongside your press release. It’s entirely possible that your competitor’s ads are shown alongside your press release!

About the Author: Milind Mody is founder CEO of SEO firm eBrandz Inc. Part of eBrandz’s service performs search marketing for a division of United Business Media, parent company of PR Newswire.

Beer, Blogs And Bias (Say That Again)

by Michael Masnick from the i’ll-drink-to-that dept on Friday, April 25th, 2008 @ 7:40PM

The Wall Street Journal has an article focusing on a blog set up by Miller Brewing Company called Brew Blog. There are a few different, interesting points worth discussing here. First, the blog isn’t used as a blog about what’s going on at Miller Brewing. Instead, Miller hired an experienced reporter, and told him to just cover the beer industry as if he were a beat reporter. In other words, it’s reporting news — and even breaking stories on the competition. In fact, it revealed that main rival Anheuser-Busch was planning a new beer before A-B was able to make the announcement itself. This is certainly a recognition of how content is advertising. The blog clearly isn’t “advertorial.” It’s full-on reporting about the industry, in a way that’s interesting and relevant to those in the industry.
What may be even more interesting, though, is what the article says about journalism. In an age in which journalists are whining that their jobs are disappearing, here’s yet another example of where suddenly there are new types of jobs for journalists appearing every day. But, even more interesting, is a quote at the end of the article highlighted by David Card. It’s from Harry Schuhmacher, the editor and publisher of a fee-based trade publication on the beer industry:

“I tell Miller you’re subsidizing a free publication, and it hurts the trade press,” he says. “But they don’t care.”…Mr. Schuhmacher adds that he writes fewer positive pieces about Miller than he once did because he knows Brew Blog will always publish the same stories.

Think about this for a bit. People complain that when you have a company-sponsored publication it will inevitably be biased — but the sponsorship of that site is totally open and in the clear. The site’s content stands for itself. Yet, at the same time, a supposedly “objective” traditional journalist is admitting that he writes fewer stories about Miller because he’s upset that it’s competing with his own publication. From that, it would certainly seem like the Brew Blog is a lot more credible (it’s biases are out in the open), while this fee-based trade pub admits that story choices are sometimes based on personal vendettas.

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[ UPDATE: This post caused some big debate over at TechCrunch. I respond here with the blog post titled "can you work at a startup and have a life?" I updated #11 to make my point a little less harsh, more true to my true feelings ]
The HowTo team at Mahalo has been an amazing surprise effort. We didn’t plan on making howto articles, but when we built various how to search pages we realized that many howto articles were, well, lacking. So, we started building select ones where we thought we could help. This one on how to save money is very good.
I’ve got a bunch of tips on how to do this for business. Among them:

1. Buy Macintosh computers, save money on an IT department
2. Buy second monitors for everyone, they will save at least 30 minutes a day, which is 100 hours a year… which is at least $2,000 a year…. which is $6,000 over three years. A second monitor cost $300-500 depending on which one you get. That means you’re getting 10-20x return on your investment… and you’ve got a happy team member.
3. Buy everyone lunch four days a week and establish a no-meetings policy. Going out for food or ording in takes at least 20-60 minutes more than walking up to the buffet and eating. If you do meetings over lunch you also save that time. So, 30 minutes a day across say four days a week is two hours a week… which is 100 hours a year. You get the idea.
4. Buy cheap tables and expensive chairs. Tables are a complete rip off. We buy stainless steel restaurant tables that are $100 and $600 Areon chairs. Total cost per workstation? $700. Compare that to buying a $500-$1,500 cube/designer workstation. The chair is the only thing that matters… invest in it.
5. Don’t buy a phone system. No one will use it. No one at Mahalo has a desk phone except the admin folks. Everyone else is on IRC, chat, and their cell phone. Everyone has a cell phone, folks would rather get calls on it, and 99% of communication is NOT on the phone. Savings? At least $500 a year per person… 50 people over three years? $75-100k
6. Rent out your extra space. Many folks have extra space in their office. If you rent 5-10 desks for $500 each you can cut your burn $2,500 to $5,000 a month, or $30-60,000 a year. That’s big money.
7. Outsource accounting and HR—such a no brainer.
8. Don’t buy everyone Microsoft Office–it’s too much money. Put Office on three or four common computers and use Google Docs.
9. Use Google hosted email. $50 or free per user…. how can you beat that?!?! Why screw with an exchange server!?!?
10. Buy your hardest working folks computers for home. If you have folks who are willing to work an extra hour a day a week you should get them a computer for home. Once you get to three hours of work a week from home you’re at 150 hours a year and that’s a no brainer. Invest in equipment *if* the person is a workaholic.
11. Fire people who are not workaholics. don’t love their work… come on folks, this is startup life, it’s not a game. don’t work at a startup if you’re not into it–go work at the post office or stabucks if you’re not into it you want balance in your life. For realz.
12. Get an expensive, automatic espresso machine at the office. Going to starbucks twice a day cost $4 each time, but more importantly it costs 20 minutes. Buy a $3-5,000 Jura industrial, get the good beans, and supply the coffee room with soy, low fat, etc. 50 people making one trip a day is 20 hours of wasted time for the company, and $150 in coffee costs for the employees. Makes no sense.
13. Stock the fridge with sodas—same drill as above.
14. Allow folks to work off hours. Commuting sucks and is a waste of time for everyone. Let folks start at 6am or 11am and you’ll cut their commute in half (at least in LA).
15. Go to each of your vendors every 6-9 months and ask for 10-30% off. If half of them say yes you’ll save 5-15% on fixed costs. People will give you a discount if they think they are going to lose the business.
16. Don’t waste money on recruiters. Get inside of linkedin and Facebook and start looking for people–it works better anyway.
17. Really think about if you need that $15,000 a month PR firm. Perhaps you can get a PR consultant to work on 2-3 projects a year for $10-15k each and save 75%. More PR firms are wasted half the year while you build up your product anyway.
    {I’m going to add a couple more of mine as I remember them }
18. Outsource to middle America: There are tons of brilliant people living between San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York who don’t live in a $4,000 one bedroom apartment and pay $8 to dry clean a shirt–hire them!

Anyone else have startup money saving tips? I will post them below as they come in…

1. Peter Rojas of RCRDLBL: You probably don’t need to rent an office, at least not at first. It’s really easy to collaborate online, and unless you have a really compelling reason for everyone being in the same place at the same time, you should save your money for as long as you can get away with it. Plus it’ll force you to hire people who don’t need to be micromanaged.
2. Pat Phelan gives a ton of advice including: a) No company cars, b) put your HQ in the burbs to save 50% on rent, c) Blog instead of hiring a PR firm, d) let one person book flights since it’s an art, e) keep conference calls to a minimum (amen to that!).

• Mar 7th 2008 1:53PM
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Hello. My name is Jason. I’m the CEO of Mahalo.com, a human powered search engine. I was previously the co-founder of Weblogs, Inc. with Brian Alvey, and the GM of Netscape. I’m currently on the board of social shopping site ThisNext. You might remember me from my days as editor and CEO of the Silicon Alley Reporter magazine.
Mike Arrington and I partnered on the TechCrunch40 event in September. We’re going to do it again next year.
This is my blog, this is where I live. You should also listen to my podcast.

My Schedule | About Me | Contact Me

Add me on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, Delicious, Pownce

Jason Calacanis on tumblr, mixx, Flickr

Mar 9th 2008 2:13PM

My buddy Jason had a GREAT post about rules for startups. Read it, love it learn it.

Of course, anyone who has started a company has their own rules and guidelines, so I thought i would add to the meme with my own. My “rules” below aren’t just for those founding the companies, but for those who are considering going to work for them as well.

1. Don’t start a company unless its an obsession and something you love.

2. If you have an exit strategy, its not an obsession.

3. Hire people who you think will love working there.

4. Sales Cures All. Know how your company will make money and how you will actually make sales.

5. Know your core competencies and focus on being great at them. Pay up for people in your core competencies. Get the best. Outside the core competencies, hire people that fit your culture but are cheap

6. An expresso machine ? Are you kidding me ? Shoot yourself before you spend money on an expresso machine. Coffee is for closers. Sodas are free. Lunch is a chance to get out of the office and talk. There are 24 hours in a day, and if people like their jobs, they will find ways to use as much of it as possible to do their jobs.

7. No offices. Open offices keeps everyone in tune with what is going on and keeps the energy up. If an employee is about privacy, show them how to use the lock on the john. There is nothing private in a start up. This is also a good way to keep from hiring execs who can not operate successfully in a startup. My biggest fear was always hiring someone who wanted to build an empire. If the person demands to fly first class or to bring over their secretary, run away. If an exec wont go on sales calls, run away. They are empire builders and will pollute your company.

8. As far as technology, go with what you know. That is always the cheapest way. If you know Apple, use it. If you know Vista… ask yourself why, then use it. Its a startup, there are just a few employees. Let people use what they know.

9. Keep the organization flat. If you have managers reporting to managers in a startup, you will fail. Once you get beyond startup, if you have managers reporting to managers, you will create politics.

10. NEVER EVER EVER buy swag. A sure sign of failure for a startup is when someone sends me logo polo shirts. If your people are at shows and in public, its ok to buy for your own folks, but if you really think someone is going to wear your Yobaby.com polo you sent them in public, you are mistaken and have no idea how to spend your money

11. NEVER EVER EVER hire a PR firm. A PR firm will call or email people in the publications, shows and websites you already watch, listen to and read. Those people publish their emails. Whenever you consume any information related to your field, get the email of the person publishing it and send them an email introducing yourself and the company. Their job is to find new stuff. They will welcome hearing from the founder instead of some PR flack. Once you establish communications with that person, make yourself available to answer their questions about the industry and be a source for them. If you are smart, they will use you.

12. Make the job fun for employees. Keep a pulse on the stress levels and accomplishments of your people and reward them. My first company, MicroSolutions, when we had a record sales month, or someone did something special, I would walk around handing out 100 dollar bills to salespeople. At Broadcast.com and MicroSolutions, we had a company shot. Kamikaze. We would take people to a bar every now and then and buy one or 10 for everyone. At MicroSolutions, more often than not we had vendors cover the tab.

Vendors always love a good party

These are all off the top of my head. But they have worked for me so far.

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A group of Maritime investors has decided to keep their cash at home to assist young businesses trying to get off the ground. Already, eight firms have benefited.
By CLARE MELLOR Business Reporter
Sun. Apr 6 - 12:41 PM

Jim Mullen. president and CEO of Adventus Interactive, says his company recently benefited from angel capital investment. He says the money allowed the Halifax-based company, which operates MusIQ Club, to expand and implement a new business model. MusIQ Club is an enriched after-school music program that allows young students to use computer software and keyboards in unison. (Blake MacEwan)

Holly Bond, owner of Bulldog Interactive Fitness in this 2006 file photo, was a beneficiary of angel investment. Bulldog was sold to DHX Media.(Eric Wynne / Staff)

MARITIME ANGELS are starting to believe that there is strength in numbers. Just a few years ago, Halifax business groups were lamenting the lack of an angel business organization in this area.

But it seems one has taken flight, and since September 2005 it has attracted 76 members, who have funnelled $2.7 million into Maritime businesses ranging from biotechnology to educational software companies.

“We know for a fact that our money going into those (eight) companies has leveraged at least $10 million more for them,” says Ross Finlay, a business consultant and one of the founders of the First Angel Network Association, based in Halifax.

“So much money goes to Bay Street every year. Why not keep it at home to support our businesses and support the growth of the region?”

Finlay and Halifax entrepreneur Brian Lowe came up with the idea of the non-profit network one day in the spring of 2005.

The two had just finished raising $1 million in private equity for ImmunoVaccine Technologies, a Halifax biotechnology company of which Lowe is vice-president. That endeavour involved pounding the pavement and cold-calling potential individual investors.

“(We thought) it would have been a lot easier if there had been a network that we could have gone to,” Finlay says during an interview over coffee at the association’s sparsely furnished headquarters in downtown Halifax.

“So we decided, well, why don’t we do it? Nobody’s done it. Why don’t we give it a shot?”

The term “angels” was coined in the 1920s, when it referred to wealthy people who sponsored Broadway plays. It is now used to describe people who invest in mostly early-stage businesses that need a cash infusion to start up, expand or get their product to market.

Most major cities have organized networks of angel investors. The networks began to emerge after the burst of the high-tech bubble, which resulted in many investors losing their shirts.

“A lot of people lost a lot of money because they ignored the fundamentals of why you invest and doing the due diligence that is required on any investment. It scared a lot of people,” says Finlay, a friendly, enthusiastic man whose crisp purple shirt and matching tie are a contrast to the drab office.

“Business angels decided to come together and invest as a group and look at opportunities as a group. (It was) a little more disciplined approach to analyzing investment opportunities. and it proved to be successful.”

Finlay and Lowe spent that spring studying different angel models from around the world and came up with one they thought suitable. They then set out to ask some local business types what they thought about the idea.

“They said it was a no-brainer — a great idea. So we said, ‘Great, here is your invoice for membership.’ We weren’t going to do anything until we had 10 cheques because we needed office space and we needed equipment. There is no better commitment than a cheque,” Finlay says.

In just three months, the network, which charges a membership fee of $850 annually, had 50 angels signed up.

“When we started out, we said, well, if we get 30 people in this network, we will have some fun. That’s all we wanted, just a comfortable little fun thing that we could do in our spare time and have a little bit of an impact, but it just took off. Unbelievable.”

Finlay now spends much of his time away from his paper-laden desk, travelling in the region, meeting with investors and entrepreneurs.

There is no shortage of Maritime entrepreneurs. The network scrutinizes about 80 businesses a year, but introduces just one new business each quarter to its members at business dinner meetings held all over the region.

So far the First Angel Network has invested in eight businesses. They include Origin Biomed, BullDog Interactive Fitness (recently sold to DHX Media); Adventus Interactive, Intelivote Systems Inc., Green Imaging Technology, Safeharbour Security, Open Ocean Systems and Insightfoods.

Iraj Fooladi, a professor of finance at Dalhousie University, says it shows a real thirst for credit among small- and medium-sized businesses.

“(Angels) definitely fill a gap. Every time you see something like that growing that means there is a market for it. Financial institutions basically almost don’t loan to small business for a project. Commercial banks don’t loan for projects; even when they think they are, they are not really loaning for projects, they are loaning for collateral and so forth.

“Here is where the angel investors would come in.”

The First Angel Network sizes up the business, but it’s up to the individual investors to decide if they wish to invest. It is considered high risk investing. Some angels take a portfolio approach, reducing risk by investing a little in all the businesses.

“We don’t have an (investment) ceiling. The floor is typically $10.000,” Finlay says.

Unlike some other angel networks, the First Angel Network will work with and mentor a promising Maritime company, advising it how to become investment-ready. Once the network invests, it forms a strong relationship with the business and often positions an angel on the company’s board of directors. It owns a piece of the business, ranging from five per cent to 40 per cent.

Jim Mullen of Halifax Adventus Interactive says the angel investment in his company last fall came at a crucial time.

The company operates MusIQ Club, a music education program that uses interactive software. In business since 1996, Adventus required an infusion of capital to launch a new business model, says Mullen, president and CEO of the company. “It was very helpful and it helped the business turn a positive cash flow.”

He declined to reveal the amount of the investment but said it was about 10 per cent of the business.

“There is a limited time span to see the fruits of your new model and there is also a much higher risk when you don’t have reasonable amount of capital to work with,” Mullen says.

“If we were left to our own devices with an investment here and there it would take considerably longer to expand and that is a big risk.

Adventus will still require working capital in the future, but is seeing new markets open up around the world as a result of the capital, Mullen says.

So just who are the angels? It is difficult to find out unless you are a member.

Finlay believes the network’s quick growth is at least partly due to its policy of keeping its members’ names confidential. (They must waive that privilege to sit on the network’s board.)

Finlay estimates just over half the angels in the network are from Nova Scotia, 30 to 40 per cent from New Brunswick and the remainder from Prince Edward Island. Newfoundland and Labrador has its own angel network.

Finlay says there is a good mix of investors from rural and urban areas. Some are downright wealthy and others just well-off.

“They are from all walks of life. They are lawyers, doctors, very successful business people. People that have had businesses and sold the businesses. People who have inherited money.”

Maritime angels are “patient investors,” expecting a return on their investment in three to five years, he says.

“One of the benefits of membership is that if you are known to have money, you are hit on a lot, so they are able to say, ‘Look, I am a member of the First Angel Network; submit your business (plan) there.’

“It gets (people) out of their office.”

The overwhelming majority of members are men, says Finlay, who seems somewhat embarrassed at that fact.

“It was never meant to be gender-specific. We would love to have more women. Put that in,” he says.

The network has received support from several companies, such as PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Progress Media Group. It also receives funding from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and the National Research Council.

Last year the group received $180,000 over 18 months from ACOA to provide seminars on how businesses can improve their readiness for Angel investment. Recently, it received $450,000 over three years to support operating costs and to host the National Angel Summit in Halifax in October.

“The reason behind our getting involved in the First Angel Network Association is, it is a very interesting — I guess we call it a micro-lending, mentoring, coaching initiative,” said Richard Gauthier, an ACOA spokesman based in Moncton.

“It makes a whole lot of sense to ACOA to get involved in this, basically to have another option of venture capital but on a very small scale, backed by existing entrepreneurs who have a very keen interest helping to grow small and medium-sized businesses.”

Fooladi says that since ACOA’s mandate is regional economic development, the support makes sense.

“If another organization belonging to government does that, you could question why would they spend taxpayers’ money for this, but isn’t ACOA established for this sort of thing?”

The First Angel Network was recently asked to join a group of 22 angel networks in the New England states, known as the North East Angels. It will bring one of its companies, Green Imaging of Fredericton — ready for another round of financing — to that group’s upcoming meeting.

“It gives us more access to capital because all of a sudden the door is open. . . . There is a clear path to angel money that is in the New England states,” Finlay says. “That’s a lot more money than we’ve got.”

How successful the network becomes depends on membership growth, he says.

“It has grown to something way more than Brian and I thought it was going to be. I think we are starting to have considerable positive influence with what is going on economically.”

( cmellor@herald.ca)

We defiantly live in the information age, getting  the full story on a potential investment  can be time consuming and confusing. One approach to the issue is to use Wikinvest as a source of some of the detail you need, because of the wiki engine approach the content is not a static / one sided view of the company and may be quite enlightening. Over time this site has the potential to grow into a valuable tool within your investment strategy and decision information collection.

—————————————————–

We’re regular, everyday investors who are sick of the level of information on the major finance portals. An investment is more than the sum of its ratios. So, we set out to create an investment website that explains the deeper story behind a company, giving investors the context they need to understand what they are betting on when they purchase a particular stock or invest in a specific sector.

Just as Wikipedia revolutionized the encyclopedia by attracting a worldwide community of individual subject-matter experts who have created an online reference that at times rivals the accuracy of encyclopedia Britannica while dwarfing it in scope, we need your help to create the world’s largest investment research portal.

Here are a few underlying principles that have shaped our vision for how Wikinvest hopes to simplify investing.

Invest in ideas, not just ticker symbols.

Most investing websites force people to think in the language of ticker symbols. Wikinvest lets you start with concepts, which can be things like themes, ideas, trends, products, and industries. At Wikinvest, investors can type a company name, but they can also start with an idea like the rising price of oil, the crisis in subprime lending, the impact of internet advertising, the success of the iPhone, and the rise of ecommerce – not XOM, C, GOOG, AAPL, and AMZN. And so Wikinvest has created an intuitive way to browse investing content by concept articles, which then explain which companies are impacted and why. For example:

• Did you know Uranium prices are up 1000% in last 3 years? The Uranium article explains who mines, refines and uses this precious commodity.
• Think America’s too fat? The Obesity article describes what companies make obesity drugs, diet plans, and exercise equipment.
• Feeling naughty? You can even learn how to invest in vices like alcohol, tobacco, gambling (even sex & porn).

Explanations, not just financial data and statistics.

One frustration we have with traditional finance portals is that most of them throw up data and statistics on the page, but little of it is meaningful and it’s hard for most people to figure out what’s important and what it means about a company. Wikinvest articles boil down the important nuggets about a company or concept instead of inundating you with the smorgasbord of P/E ratios, earnings estimates, dividend yield, and run of the mill balance sheet data that you usually find.

One great example of this philosophy in action is our WikiChart. Typical stock charts plot a line that moves up and down – but most people want to know why the stock price is moving. So we built WikiCharts that allow people to annotate and explain what’s happening. Investors have already created over a thousand annotations explaining the stock price movements of hundreds of companies — so don’t be shy, jump in on the action and add an annotation!

So why a wiki?

An investing wiki fixes the depressing level of discourse on investing discussions boards, where the content sometimes amounts to little more than name-calling with poor grammar. On discussion boards, posts rapidly fall off the bottom of the page and there is little incentive to post meaningful content. A wiki is different. Good content is retained, bad content (including spam) is removed, and the level of discourse is much higher as a result – complete paragraphs, narrative structure, and meaningful content.

Speaking of spam, that’s one of the ways a wiki is more powerful than a discussion board. When spammers post to discusion boards, there’s no way for the community to delete the spam. But the openess and transparency of a Wiki’s is its greatest strength — anyone can remove something that’s inaccurate on our site.

Six Degrees of Exxon Mobil: Everything is interrelated.

Trends impact companies, companies compete and collaborate with other companies, products drive trends, news and events impact almost everything. Wikis are a great tool that highlight those relationships because articles are linked to each other, creating an immersive experience where you can seamlessly jump from one article to the next.

Sometimes in the office, we play Six Degrees of Exxon Mobil — a little game we made up in which we try to guess the shortest way to link any company to Exxon Mobil. The other day we were talking about Coca-cola: From Coca Cola (KO), click through to Corn Prices, which is connected to Ethanol, which is connected to Oil Prices, which is connected to Exxon Mobil (XOM).

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