Go Ticketfly….Inventory and The Web is Always a Good Opportunity

The team at Ticketfly.com has been killing it since they started but starting to get some real recognition.

My fund and Social Leverage have been backers from the beginning as disclosure.

I have had good success with early investments surrounding inventory and the web, first by no skills of my own (Rent.com ), than by learning from that success Golfnow.com (purchased by Comcast), Limos.com and now Ticketfly.com.

In their own words, Ticketfly is ‘a next-generation ticketing and marketing company from the first folks to sell event tickets online‘.

They have not been at it too long on this go around, but were just named a ‘Top 10 Innovative Music Company ‘ by Fast Company and have been landing big accounts .

Andrew and Dan believed there would be huge fallout from the Ticketmaster/Live Nation conglomerate and it is happening. Good on them.

There is fallout everywhere from the conglomerate mergers and web startups everywhere are feasting.

There are pilot fish and Great White Sharks in the ocean and if you know where you sit in the food chain, you can survive and thrive.

Now go swim.

Apple is a Store – OWNED by Smart People – WITH RULES

I don’t own $aapl the stock for the moment, but my kids do.

There is a new brouhaha about the store rejecting certain apps. Thank Goodness.

Maybe because I don’t think I will ever need them. Maybe because I am glad Apple has some rules for their store. Stocktwits has some ‘House Rules’ as well .

Apple is not owned by the government. Stop with the First Amendment nonsense. From this ban, it seems they don’t want apps that really do nothing .

I heard of a consortium set up by Verizon, T, Microsoft and your Mumma, started in Spain this week, that will compete with Apple. Go support them. They will support boobies. Go back to using your Nokia and StarTec.

Better yet, just wait for your Droid phone and that ‘open’ flesh accepting borg called Google.

Or, get a job, because there are plenty of people ahead of you in line with who will kick your ass while you are whining about this .

This conversation is nonsense and I hope you have a great day talking about anything but this.

The iPad and the Financial Web…To Infinity and Beyond

I have not seen or touched the iPad. I may or may not read more and my iPhone seems fine for music. BUT, there is no doubt that the web will be a better experience and I will speculate with all my heart that the Financial Web is about to be transformed.

Moods Drive Markets. The iPhone changes moods. Life is not as bad with an iPhone. Life will be even better with an iPad….if you like losing money that is ☺ .

There are only a few companies that don’t make the financial industry look clunky and old. Interactive Brokers ($IBKR) is one of them. They have been daring from the get-go and if you are a professional trader, they are the Gold Standard. From their lack of human touch to their ‘Dutch Auction’ IPO, they have broken the mold.

It is IMPOSSIBLE that there will not be more Interactive Brokers.

Gambling, Social Gaming and Facebook all fascinate me. Mostly because I do not fully understand them yet.

The US is still fascinated with equities. That may never change, but in the flat world in which we live, Forex has come on strong. Bloomberg is writing about the fortunes to be made in Forex .

Forex markets are 24/7/365 and young people will appreciate them as they are used to things being open all the time on the web.

Because the markets are global and intertwined like never before we are seeing that NEWS does not conveniently break during market hours. The Forex markets and the software that drives them are in a fantastic position.

As costs and spreads come down even further, the winners in the Forex market will be those with the best execution, those most open and simple to use (get money in and out).

In the consumer world of the masses, execution will not matter as much as user experience.

As for fraud, Bernie Madoff had to eventually steal as he took in more money and was faced with performance stress. That is the professional market for you. Performance stress is why cost and execution matter most. There is no performance stress if you are trading your parents $100 at 40 times leverage against millions of others around the world for seconds at a time, knowing your upside and downside the minute you press ENTER.

In Israel I met with Yoni Assia, the founder and CEO of eToro. Since meeting him, I have seen the Forex light. This company seems like an unstoppable force of nature. If you don’t believe me, log on, open an account in a few seconds, and place your bets on your parents Visa card (not you Max!).

In 5 years, your 20-year-old kid will be quoting the Yuan, Dollar, Yen and Euro (maybe) in the same way they talk about social gaming and photo sharing. They will be trading during class. There will be a million Jim Cramer’s. Though Jim Cramer seems tired and old to us ‘professionals’, the circus has just begun.

I have NO doubt that the iPad will amp things to a level not thought possible in the financial markets..

Will the average person make money….NO.

Will that matter…NO.

The business is about keeping the next generation trading longer. Get it yet?

I need a cold shower to temper my bullishness.

Stocktwits Getting The Love…What Does it Really Mean

Stocktwits has been getting some great press. As a Company, we feel we deserve it. The product is getting better everyday and we are organically adding members to the community that are chipping in and following the basic rules. Because of the structure of the business, we are getting instant feedback and can be pro-active on features and community issues, rather than reactive. As I like to say, ‘SOCIAL’ is in our DNA.

Michael Arrington of TechCrunch gave us an insanely good review , but he does not himself trade or invest in stocks. Mike likes the product, the platform and the concentrated activity (idea) flow. Mike knows product as he sees and uses so much of what is new, so that means a lot to us.

Of all the reviews we have gotten as a product/company/community, my fave comes from contributor Josh aka ‘Reformed Broker ‘. He is a stock fanatic and though I don’t trade much anymore, I am a fanatic too. I love the movement in prices. I love the idea of our ‘HUman Ticker’. Here is Josh’s post:
*

Memo to “business” journalists who are busying themselves with clever little pieces on “The Death of the Equity Culture” – not only is it not dead, the Equity Culture is more connected and vibrant than ever before.

How do I know?

How about a little miracle called StockTwits?

Forged in the depths of the most brutal bear market in living history, the StockTwits community has given an identity and an outlet to those of us who are madly in love with stocks. There are over 100,000 of us obsessing over equities 24/7 after little more than a year. How many more of us will there be in 6 months?

And this week StockTwits cut the ribbon on a shiny, new, digital Temple to the Equity Culture in the form of their new Beta site. Anyone who is serious about the markets, from options to stocks to currencies to ETFs, now has a slick, fast interface to all of the best charts, quotes, videos, blogs, news outlets and commentary imaginable – all from one web page!

So maybe this is death, because as a stock fanatic, I am truly in heaven.

Long live the Equity Culture. Thank you StockTwits.

The good news for our community is that the platform has allowed for Forex, Futures, Macro and Financial News Nuts to aggregate as well.

Thank-You Josh and Mike for the reviews and all the others in the stream making this an educational, fun and profitable place to spend my trading/investing days.

The ‘NEW’ Stocktwits – Five Things You Will Want To Do on Your First Visit to StockTwits

This morning Stocktwits has launched a new and vastly improved website.  It is running at beta.stocktwits.com in parallel to the old site as we want your input on key things we might have missed. The ‘NEW’ Stocktwits is just as easy to use, but the killer features should be easier to manage. Most importantly, the website is powered by our own microblogging platform. Sign in is easy, and just like our Desktop product, you can push messages to Twitter if you like.

If you are a new member of the StockTwits community you might be wondering what the most experienced members here enjoy the most about our site. So we have compiled a short list of some very cool features that you will love.

1. The Suggested Stream

The StockTwits Suggested Stream is a no brainer. It is a stream of the very best StockTwits members that we have personally vetted over the course of the last year. You will find a bit of everything but the common theme is high quality market discussions, generosity of ideas and camaraderie.

If you are a new StockTwits member, you will find experts who are discussing your areas of interest and so it it is also a great place to scan for people for you to follow.

2. The Charts Stream

The StockTwits Charts Stream is the human ticker for technicians. Pull it up and you will have no end of set ups at your fingertips flowing in real time. It takes no time to find expert chartists posting a multitude of fresh and actionable set ups.

Simply, you will be amazed that so many are willing to share their best charts.

3. Dip Into the Ticker Pages

Most who visit StockTwits will, right off the bat, have specific tickers they are interested in whether they are equities, Forex pairs or futures. The ticker pages allow you to easily view what the StockTwits community is saying about those tickers which interest you. In addition, you will also have easy access to Chartly charts focused on these tickers as well as the most recent links relating directly to these tickers. Here are a few for you to peruse: $GOOG $EURUSD $GC_F.

4. StockTwitsTV: Plenty Goodness for Everyone

StockTwits is in the midst of building the First 24 Hour Internet Finance Television Network and we are doing it with the help of the very best of our diverse community. While we are only just getting started, there is already plenty goodness for almost all interests.

If you are global macro focused, MacroTwits Hour with @GregorMacdonald on Sunday nights is chock filled with deep insights and community discussion. If you are a currency trader, The Forex Report with @KevinMHughes brings insights from a natural pro currency trader. If you are looking for special situations, @ReformedBroker’s Stock Wars covers the untold stories behind activist investors and corporate raiders.

And if you are technically focused, fuhggetaboutit, StockTwitsTV has so much to offer I don’t know where to begin.

You can find the complete programming schedule here.

5. Join The Conversation

Contributing to the flow is incredibly easy, fun and valuable. You will receive feedback and have the chance to exchange market related ideas with a multitude of great minds. All you have to do is type your message of 140 characters or less in the tweet entry box near the top center of any stream page and include a symbol tag beginning with a $ (EX: $AMZN, $AUDUSD, $GC_F).

Here are a few more tips to get you started. 1. Tweet about what you know best. 2. Keep it market focused. 3. Share your best ideas. People will love you for this. 4. Treat others how you would like to be treated. 5. For more on this, see our House Rules.

This is only a surface scratch of the features you will find on StockTwits but it is a great start.

What’s Hot: ResMed RMD

Resmed $RMD is back on the list.  It went down for a little while with every other stock, but you can’t keep a great company, with great products down forever.

Resmed makes products that help us sleep.  As this country ages, and gets heavier, Resmed is perfectly positioned to provide products that will keep us breathing through the night.

The products may not look pretty, but the results are all that matter.

Twitter $TWIT to Make Huge Entry Into Web Video

Twitter $twit just passed 140 employees (any new employee will have to be shrunk by Bit.ly to fit in…sorry).

It looks like they are hiring some web video folks . I am not sure how they will attack web video, but as you know I am very bullish on web video and it is not possible that the money game in this space ended with YouTube.

I don’t think of YouTube as anything more than a tool. I am there to grab something and reuse it. I am there to search. The site works for me perfectly for that function.

On the other hand, I love this post from Dan Rayburn entitled ‘YouTube Turns Five Years Old, But Without Google, It Would Be Bankrupt ‘. He is a cranky dude on the subject but mostly right. Love this riff best:

I don’t know what the percentage is, but the overwhelming number of content owners on YouTube will NEVER make money. YouTube delivers over a billion videos a day but only monetizes a billion videos a week. That means they are only generating revenue from about 14% of all the content streamed on the site. While that number, or one close to it, might be enough for them to make money, it clearly goes to show that the average content owner on YouTube will never see a dime. And to me, that’s ok. YouTube was started as a simple way for people to share videos and that’s it. The problem is that Chad says that, “Five years into it, we’re as committed as ever to the core beliefs and principles that guided YouTube’s creation.” But that’s not the case anymore since the company has had to try every business model in the book to try and survive and make money. Remember YouTube for the enterprise?

As I mentioned a few days ago ago , the massive overpay for YouTube just messed up the whole industry. It made the whole thing heavy…not light.

Twitter could bring some lightness back to the category.

I hope they do something cool (an ex Al Gore Current TV devout is not a good start…no offense).

StockTwits TV – Price and Volume – Interview with Dan Mirkin @TradeIdeas

We like Trade-Ideas over at Stocktwits. We are also friends with the team. Trade-Ideas platform does exactly what it’s name suggests. Our goal together is to integrate them with the community and add context.

I believe that the ‘Tape’ tells all. It is the heartbeat of the markets. The tape has gotten more difficult to raed as dark pools have formed moving voulme off the tape for periods of time. It is putting the power too easily in the hands of a few. I think it’s unhealthy. We could argue all day about is it fair that a hedge fund can pay $250,000 to get closer to the feed in a technological way. I think it’s another unhealthy step. I call Stocktwits the ‘Human Ticker’ ‘human ticker’ because it provides a derivative of the ticker data. Today, Dan gets into a bunch of questions, but mainly why retail and consumers can use price and volume to give themselves a legitimate edge in buying and selling stocks. Dan also pounds the fact that this edge not come from a magical ‘GREEN and RED button scenario.