Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
I ignored the 10% rule on CYOS - and made out very well indeed.
I also ignored the "10% rule" on EXAS this year, and MBAH, and TNOG, and DNDN, and PTN, and GERN, and SNCI, and HEC, and PMU, and STEM - and made out great on all of them. I buy a position, usually (small one) until that's profitable - if it's not profitable, I will usually average down (with a bigger position) and then play the second and sometimes third lot as separate play altogether. All the while I will hold my initial position (usually - depends on news and a few things) until it's profitable by playing the lower entry plays. Sometimes by the time I get profitable on the first position, it's in "free shares" territory.
I used to get out at 10% losses (or 5% losses, even) - but lost out on some big time plays (VWPT, CYBS, NVTL, NXTL, NXTP, AVN, CREE, on and on and on). If I had held all of those intead of selling (we're talking in the last 2-3 years here), I would be up a gazillion percent.
This is not stock advice. This is just my own personal way of playing this game - that I've developed from my own personal experience, and which I tweak from time to time depending on what's happening in the stock market.
You're absolutely right. (With gay friends like Frank ... who needs enemies?)
The way I feel is ... EVEN if Frank and QTN succeed, and EVEN if QBID shareholders succeed - I'll be happy for the people who worked so hard at QTN to make it a success, I'll be happy for the QBID shareholders who put their money on the line to invest in this idea (and much needed in our country IMO), but I WILL NEVER be happy with Frank.
I cannot imagine what Frank can do now to change my mind about him. He's had many chances to "see the writing on the wall." I know I am a just single shareholder - but that's how I feel about it. The ends do not justify the means to me.
It wasn't 100% the net - but historians agree the Internet had a lot to do with it. The "iron curtain" couldn't keep the secret ways of the old regime going ... it was either join up with the new technologies and step into the modern world, or put a "keep out" sign at the borders ... and that just wasn't a viable solution.
Well, DoubleK - what are YOUR thoughts on this developing scenario?
After all, there is a lot of evidence of "scamming" - historical evidence, and recent evidence (although the jury is still out on this one).
I was hoping that FO's MO would change - I thought he may gotten inspired to change his way by being on the verge of making it big with a new much-needed gay station ... but, judging from his recent alleged behavior, FO's MO looks like it is more entrenched than I had originaly thought.
We are not Iraq. It is hoped that some justice to shareholders and all the other people FO has scammed will come to the fore. I know a lot of people here will refuse to go down without a fight.
The Soviet Union went down due a lot to the Internet. It is a more transparent world we live in. FO should be ashamed of himself - or, if not, someday he may find himself in that position anyway - shamey, shame shame.
So many shows on the surface, so little integrity with management at the helm. What is so infuriating - without even going into the issue of FO's $$$$$$$$$ victims - is that there are genuinely good people with a lot of talent working for QTN. The dream just may blow up in their faces - through no fault of their own.
yes I am really happy about the rollout...we're a lot further ahead then I thought we'd be at this point
But are you unhappy about the lawsuits? And are we not "further ahead" because of some serious shenanigans ..." in which case, we couldn't be lower (I take that back, we could be two ticks lower ...).
rule is can't buy in for 30 days if you want to take that loss? I'd be having nightmares lol!!!
You should be having nightmares all right - and they've all been inspired by Frank Olsen. Possible criminal charges ahead? (I would be having nightmares, too!)
Why would advertisers want to associate with a known criminal?
You don't know that.
Skunks darlin', you forgot to mention that in 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004 there were not the obscene amount of shares as there are now. I'm sure it was an oversight ... you wouldn't want new investors to think there were the same amount of shares then as now, would you? I mean, before they make up their own minds for themselves and all that.
Yeah, riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. You're the only one here with any clue about what's going on.
The rest of us are poor poor doofuses. We just don't have a clue. We need to take various business courses that end in "101." It is a wonder how so many of us managed to get through life thus far ...
It is such a privilege that you deem some of us worthy to have a little dialogue with you. Oh, thank you, Wisest-and-Most-Patient-of-Rodentmeisters.
In spite of the fact that it is called "Investor Relations," I have not heard from Richard regarding any of my current inquiries about the DVD.
I got one inquiry at the end of September[!] - and even then it was past the time when we were supposed to get the DVDs. Richard then said he would "personally" see that I was on the list to receive the DVDs (and he sent that email out to many investors at the time).
You just won't find me here whining with my bottom lip quivering.
Who is whining with their respective bottom lips quivering? Ad hominems (with that underlying self-satisfied sarcasm) are not warranted. All we stockholders want is what was promised to us (audit and DVD) ... and then we'll go from there.
... and until we know, it's serious "buyer beware" time.
The release of the audit and DVD would at least make QTN/QBID look like they're trying to be accountable to their shareholders. Right now it just looks like they fleeced us big time.
We don't necessarily have to have our candy bar NOW, but we ARE at least entitled to that audit and investors' DVD that was promised to us - and that are both way late.
It's wrong to give us expectations about the audit and DVD release dates - and then not even give us an update as to why we still don't have them.
... severe uptick Q has been known to do!
Known to do? When? Not with 50-60 billion shares floating around it hasn't...
And, learn what a REAL Board of Directors does, and what VOTING RIGHTS are for shareholders.
and don't give me the 'it's a pink sheet stock' crap.
Q is a SERIOUS business with serious growth in the past 12 months. It needs to behave like one.
just a thought.
You are on target here. Absolutely right.
he's not a qualified trader and shouldn't be giving trading advice...that's very dangerous territory to enter.
So what if he's not a "qualified trader" (whatever that means)? This is not a "qualified trader"'s board, and we can certainly discuss our own ideas about trading. I personally have learned a lot from some of the OT discussions regarding trading styles people employ (here and on other boards through the years).
They continuously mind other folks investments...but giving trading advice is inappropriate...IMO or not.
I'm not certain you can make a case that "they" continuously mind other folks' investments. In any event, we as adults can make up our own minds about what "advice" to take or not.
What's wrong with folks on this board is they don't just stay with their own investment.
And how do you know what folks on this board do with their investments?
It depends ... if one were to take 2% per day every day, it certainly would pay. Those 2% per day gains would add up to huge gains in a short time - not to mention in a year! But understand I'm talking about 2% on one's whole lot of stocks - more like daytrading style. I personally am not able to do that as I have a full-time job.
I sometimes will take less than 10% on a stock if I've held it for longer than I intended to - when suddenly I get a profit on it (i.e., over and above the commissions taken out). [A few times I didn't do that - only to have the stock go down and make me wait again?]
If one takes little profits - even 2% or 5% or 10% much less 20%! - on a daily or frequent basis, then one is eventually compounding those little percentages - and they start mounting up to bigger gains.
One doesn't have to be an "either/or" type of player. I hold some stocks as an investor - some as a swing trader - and, even, when the opportunity presents itself - I will sometimes buy and sell within a day or two.
Hope you're right DoubleK. I have a modicum of hope myself ... just a modicum.
I appreciate your QTN reviews - please keep them coming occasionally.
I think he "tried" getting some respect that is due an almighty self-proclaimed archbishop ... but the groveling just didn't seem to go his way.
Seems hopeless to keep reminding skunks. It is not in skunks' interest to face some facts here. She keeps looking in the other direction.
but ...
"Reality is that which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away" - Phillip K. Dick
... so I guess some of us have to keep reminder her.
As for LLC.....it means, Limited Liability Corporation.
Nope, LLC means limited liability company. It's just a nit, I know, but I make my living by spotting nits ...
QTN just keeps growing....like I said, does it get any better?
... it would be SCADS BETTER if QBID were growing as well. The way things are looking, though - QBID may not have much to do with QTN's success at all.
If only we had the answers to disabuse us of the notion that seems to be before our eyes of late. (If only we could get that audit that was promised to us. And the DVD.)
Bishops (all manner of supernatural business people) are in the "pie-in-the-sky" business themselves. All of which goes to show ... even they can be conned, too?
lol zandant...well you've been here before. Just keep your fingers crossed that we swing in that direction again. Like before, I consider this a buying opportunity. But that's me. The risk is there...
There she goes again ... talking about "...been here before." For the upmteenth time, there was NO "been there" with 50-60 billion shares. There is only the obscenely bloated shares situation NOW. QTN has moved on up, but QBID has moved on down and down and down - to the point where there is not much assurance that QBID has all that much (percentage-wise) invested in QTN. And the audit, of course, is not forthcoming to tell us otherwise.
Oh, and as for the risk: As long as skunks is here, the risk is not just there, but it is almost certainly bad news IMO. I would love to think we haven't gotten skunked, but it surely looks like it.
Yep, love that James Randi ... there are scads and scads of 20 year olds that couldn't hold a candle to his perspicacious mind. So sad.
There is no such thing as "psychic ability." It is a scam. There are no "psychics." They are scams. Tests have been conducted - and no one EVER has proven that they have psychic abilities.
OK, here is the rest of your message:
Get in the line to the left and take your koolade with the rest of the blind investors...
So, you see, there is no IMO to be found. Seems like you could not even provide proof of your own "IMO ...".
And that will be Ms. Annoying Little Twit to you from now on, hear?
I asked for evidence. All you provided as "proof" is what we all already now - that the PPS is in the dumps. That is not proof. I was responding to what you wrote:
Oh my, you think the two are separate issues.....?.....LOL
IMO you have NO idea that the two are separate issues - or not. But you seem to be imputing that you DO know. Even though you have brought no proof for this allegation.
I don't know. We don't know. If you know, please give us the evidence.
Expanding to a city like Houston is certainly no fluff. How QTN's success translates into QBID shares is another twist in the plot - and, unfortunately, we haven't been able to get our hands on that chapter yet.
But the PR - to the benefit of QTN - is in NO way fluff.
And like I've frequently said, we've been here before.
And like I have to keep reminding you because you seem to be impenetrable to facts ... neither you nor any of us have been here before. WE HAVE NOT BEEN HERE BEFORE. "Before" we were NOT at 50-60 billion shares.
And if you keep saying we've been here before like a broken record, I'm going to have to counter you until you change your tune. Because you're singing off-tune again, lady ... big time.
If my second post's (from tonight) link is to be believed, Charo is 64 years old.
And I don't have any idea if Chara has had work done. Seems like many celebrities do ... if you feel you simply must waste a couple of hours, take a gander at:
http://www.awfulplasticsurgery.com/archives.html
(nip tuck ... they're not for the faint-of-heart!)
Facts about Charo:
http://www.nndb.com/people/490/000022424/
Not that it's any confirmation of one's sexual predilection one way or the other, but Charo first gained fame when she married bandleader Xavier Cugat (it was one of those May-December things). Cugat was an icon for many years for bringing in the New Year when there were just 3-4 TV stations (then Dick Clark took over, although he's been ailing of late). No ONE person does this anymore (too many channels, too many spokespeople).
I saw Charo and Cugat strolling on Powell Street in San Francisco once. This was sometime in the late 1960s. She was oh-so-young, and definitely looked like a "trophy wife" on Cugat's arm (although he looked just fine, for his age - still had that "spark" in his eyes).
Article in NYT about video on demand (text copied below):
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/05/business/media/05media.html
December 5, 2005
Looking for the Proceeds in TV-on-Demand
By RICHARD SIKLOS
For five decades or so, the television industry's main mission has been to come up with hit programs, get them on screens, and hope people will stop and watch. Now, that is just the starting point.
As an era of ordering TV shows at the push of a button gets underway, new challenges are clouding the landscape in the year ahead: What business models are going to work and who is going to get paid what?
These questions loom behind attention-grabbing announcements in recent weeks from some of the biggest TV networks, cable operators, satellite companies, gadget-makers and Internet players, including Apple, Disney, NBC Universal and Comcast, offering what is expected to be the first of many new video-on-demand and downloading services.
"The video segment of the content industry is trying to be out ahead and not have happen to them what happened in the music industry," said Saul Berman, a partner specializing in media with I.B.M. Consulting, referring to the widespread illegal downloading of music in the absence of appealing legal ways to buy online music.
But the road to video convergence is crowded with convoluted business relationships and potential conflicts. Behind the press releases, a major power struggle is unfolding among a wide group of stakeholders - from studios to satellite operators to manufacturers of consumer products - as new ventures are being devised for the digital age.
"We've taken a couple of steps forward, but there really isn't a clear business model yet," said David Zaslav, the president of NBC Universal Cable.
One issue is whether consumers ought to pay for their shows individually or whether on-demand access should be a free component of a subscription to video services provided by cable or satellite operators or newer competitors like Internet or telecom companies. Another is whether the shows will be sold for viewing during a set time period, or will be permanent so that consumers can collect them like DVD's. And, not surprisingly, a big point of contention is how the revenue generated by these new services is shared. As a result, only a handful of the most popular shows on television are available on-demand so far.
Mr. Zaslav and other industry executives and analysts said progress was slow because of the longstanding and often convoluted relationships that exist among the companies that create content, the networks that package and market it, and the distributors who deliver it into households, which can sometimes all be tentacles of the same conglomerate. The News Corporation, for example, owns the Fox TV network and production studio and also controls DirecTV.
Also, the broadcast TV networks that reach the biggest audiences and have relied on advertising as their sole source of revenue have had to run on two parallel and seemingly conflicting tracks.
First, they've had to explore new revenue models as TiVo and similar digital video recorders threaten conventional advertising by allowing viewers to fast-forward through commercials on the shows they record. At the same time, they've had to ensure that marketers and especially the network affiliates that own the majority of the big networks' local stations around the country are not alienated by these new ventures. For example, making a popular show available on demand via cable or the Internet within hours of its airing may lead fewer viewers to tune in during its scheduled time slot. That, in turn, would mean reduced advertising revenue and hamper the ability of the local affiliates to promote other shows in their lineup.
Because of this, CBS, for one, will begin offering reruns in January of hit shows like "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" for 99 cents an episode, but only in markets where Comcast offers cable service and CBS owns the local TV affiliate. And, like NBC and ABC, CBS is so far only offering programming that it owns a large piece of and has the right to rebroadcast. Notably, the CBS partnership with Comcast only runs until the end of August 2006, an unusually brief period for such an arrangement.
Until recently, Comcast, the nation's largest cable company, has made free video-on-demand products a cornerstone of its strategy to convert more of its customers to its digital service. CBS was already allowing Comcast to offer programs like its CBS Evening News free on Comcast's video-on-demand service. But Comcast, faced with the prospect of NBC's deal to show selected programs on DirecTV for 99 cents a show, acceded to CBS's insistence that it be paid directly.
"There was no way we were going to do this for free," Leslie Moonves, the chairman of CBS, said in an interview when the deal was announced last month.
Josh Bernoff, an analyst at Forrester Research, a technology and market research company based in Cambridge, Mass., predicts TV shows available by video-on-demand will eventually be free, and that new interactive business models for advertising on demand will help pay the freight. For instance, he believes broadcasters will adopt "click though" pricing models similar to the fast-growing Internet advertising on portals like Google and Yahoo. Under that scenario, the network would be paid each time a viewer clicked on an ad or perhaps an icon super-imposed on the screen that paused the show they were watching and took them to a longer commercial.
Cable operators including Comcast, Cox Communications and Charter Communications have already made long-form advertising such as sponsored musical performances and infomercials part of what they offer on free video-on-demand. TiVo - a service for which subscribers pay a monthly fee to access - offers so-called showcases to advertisers. These showcases encourage customers to check out long-form advertisements and special promotions when they are browsing through a cable company's listing of TV shows, for example.
Mutual accusations of greediness are nothing new among the various players in the television ecosystem, but the newest technologies have intensified those accusations.
Broadcasters like CBS and NBC will continue to push either to be paid directly or to be compensated in some other way for what they see as their part in helping companies like Comcast or DirecTV put their digital boxes in more homes.
"If we're putting our best content on the digital platform - and if that content excites viewers and therefore increases the number of people that want to keep that box in their home - then we should get a piece of that value," Mr. Zaslav said.
Distributors such as cable companies, however, argue that they have invested tens of billions of dollars in the technology to make these services possible and the networks are already being fairly compensated under existing relationships.
Despite the pressure it is under from digital video recorders and the spread of video on the Internet, television supported by advertising is "a successful model that everybody understands," said Jeffrey M. Bewkes, who oversees Time Warner's entertainment businesses, which includes the Turner cable networks, HBO and the Warner Brothers studio.
Mr. Bewkes has been championing StartOver, a service developed by Time Warner Cable as an alternative to video-on-demand and digital video recorders. StartOver was introduced in a small test market in South Carolina several weeks ago.
StartOver offers digital cable subscribers a free restart button if they join a program in progress, with about 60 broadcast and cable networks participating in the venture. While the utility of the service is initially quite limited, Mr. Bewkes and Time Warner hope over time to be able to persuade the networks and their nervous affiliates to continue to extend the window when people could restart programs they have missed by hours and possibly days.
While this may sound exactly like video-on-demand, the difference is that StartOver viewers can pause a show, but not fast-forward past the advertising. It is far from clear that such a service would gain acceptance in households where people with digital video recorders are already zipping through ads. In Time Warner's case, Mr. Bewkes says that because the company has content, networks, the nation's second largest cable company and online heft through its America Online division, it need not pick sides in the shakeout over new digital business models.
However, he is skeptical of a future without TV networks as a platform to introduce programs, build loyalty or direct viewers to affiliate programming like local newscasts. "Nobody's got a crystal ball here," he said. "But I'm not sure we're ready to throw out 30 years of television industry economics."
Article in NYT about video on demand (text copied below):
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/05/business/media/05media.html
December 5, 2005
Looking for the Proceeds in TV-on-Demand
By RICHARD SIKLOS
For five decades or so, the television industry's main mission has been to come up with hit programs, get them on screens, and hope people will stop and watch. Now, that is just the starting point.
As an era of ordering TV shows at the push of a button gets underway, new challenges are clouding the landscape in the year ahead: What business models are going to work and who is going to get paid what?
These questions loom behind attention-grabbing announcements in recent weeks from some of the biggest TV networks, cable operators, satellite companies, gadget-makers and Internet players, including Apple, Disney, NBC Universal and Comcast, offering what is expected to be the first of many new video-on-demand and downloading services.
"The video segment of the content industry is trying to be out ahead and not have happen to them what happened in the music industry," said Saul Berman, a partner specializing in media with I.B.M. Consulting, referring to the widespread illegal downloading of music in the absence of appealing legal ways to buy online music.
But the road to video convergence is crowded with convoluted business relationships and potential conflicts. Behind the press releases, a major power struggle is unfolding among a wide group of stakeholders - from studios to satellite operators to manufacturers of consumer products - as new ventures are being devised for the digital age.
"We've taken a couple of steps forward, but there really isn't a clear business model yet," said David Zaslav, the president of NBC Universal Cable.
One issue is whether consumers ought to pay for their shows individually or whether on-demand access should be a free component of a subscription to video services provided by cable or satellite operators or newer competitors like Internet or telecom companies. Another is whether the shows will be sold for viewing during a set time period, or will be permanent so that consumers can collect them like DVD's. And, not surprisingly, a big point of contention is how the revenue generated by these new services is shared. As a result, only a handful of the most popular shows on television are available on-demand so far.
Mr. Zaslav and other industry executives and analysts said progress was slow because of the longstanding and often convoluted relationships that exist among the companies that create content, the networks that package and market it, and the distributors who deliver it into households, which can sometimes all be tentacles of the same conglomerate. The News Corporation, for example, owns the Fox TV network and production studio and also controls DirecTV.
Also, the broadcast TV networks that reach the biggest audiences and have relied on advertising as their sole source of revenue have had to run on two parallel and seemingly conflicting tracks.
First, they've had to explore new revenue models as TiVo and similar digital video recorders threaten conventional advertising by allowing viewers to fast-forward through commercials on the shows they record. At the same time, they've had to ensure that marketers and especially the network affiliates that own the majority of the big networks' local stations around the country are not alienated by these new ventures. For example, making a popular show available on demand via cable or the Internet within hours of its airing may lead fewer viewers to tune in during its scheduled time slot. That, in turn, would mean reduced advertising revenue and hamper the ability of the local affiliates to promote other shows in their lineup.
Because of this, CBS, for one, will begin offering reruns in January of hit shows like "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" for 99 cents an episode, but only in markets where Comcast offers cable service and CBS owns the local TV affiliate. And, like NBC and ABC, CBS is so far only offering programming that it owns a large piece of and has the right to rebroadcast. Notably, the CBS partnership with Comcast only runs until the end of August 2006, an unusually brief period for such an arrangement.
Until recently, Comcast, the nation's largest cable company, has made free video-on-demand products a cornerstone of its strategy to convert more of its customers to its digital service. CBS was already allowing Comcast to offer programs like its CBS Evening News free on Comcast's video-on-demand service. But Comcast, faced with the prospect of NBC's deal to show selected programs on DirecTV for 99 cents a show, acceded to CBS's insistence that it be paid directly.
"There was no way we were going to do this for free," Leslie Moonves, the chairman of CBS, said in an interview when the deal was announced last month.
Josh Bernoff, an analyst at Forrester Research, a technology and market research company based in Cambridge, Mass., predicts TV shows available by video-on-demand will eventually be free, and that new interactive business models for advertising on demand will help pay the freight. For instance, he believes broadcasters will adopt "click though" pricing models similar to the fast-growing Internet advertising on portals like Google and Yahoo. Under that scenario, the network would be paid each time a viewer clicked on an ad or perhaps an icon super-imposed on the screen that paused the show they were watching and took them to a longer commercial.
Cable operators including Comcast, Cox Communications and Charter Communications have already made long-form advertising such as sponsored musical performances and infomercials part of what they offer on free video-on-demand. TiVo - a service for which subscribers pay a monthly fee to access - offers so-called showcases to advertisers. These showcases encourage customers to check out long-form advertisements and special promotions when they are browsing through a cable company's listing of TV shows, for example.
Mutual accusations of greediness are nothing new among the various players in the television ecosystem, but the newest technologies have intensified those accusations.
Broadcasters like CBS and NBC will continue to push either to be paid directly or to be compensated in some other way for what they see as their part in helping companies like Comcast or DirecTV put their digital boxes in more homes.
"If we're putting our best content on the digital platform - and if that content excites viewers and therefore increases the number of people that want to keep that box in their home - then we should get a piece of that value," Mr. Zaslav said.
Distributors such as cable companies, however, argue that they have invested tens of billions of dollars in the technology to make these services possible and the networks are already being fairly compensated under existing relationships.
Despite the pressure it is under from digital video recorders and the spread of video on the Internet, television supported by advertising is "a successful model that everybody understands," said Jeffrey M. Bewkes, who oversees Time Warner's entertainment businesses, which includes the Turner cable networks, HBO and the Warner Brothers studio.
Mr. Bewkes has been championing StartOver, a service developed by Time Warner Cable as an alternative to video-on-demand and digital video recorders. StartOver was introduced in a small test market in South Carolina several weeks ago.
StartOver offers digital cable subscribers a free restart button if they join a program in progress, with about 60 broadcast and cable networks participating in the venture. While the utility of the service is initially quite limited, Mr. Bewkes and Time Warner hope over time to be able to persuade the networks and their nervous affiliates to continue to extend the window when people could restart programs they have missed by hours and possibly days.
While this may sound exactly like video-on-demand, the difference is that StartOver viewers can pause a show, but not fast-forward past the advertising. It is far from clear that such a service would gain acceptance in households where people with digital video recorders are already zipping through ads. In Time Warner's case, Mr. Bewkes says that because the company has content, networks, the nation's second largest cable company and online heft through its America Online division, it need not pick sides in the shakeout over new digital business models.
However, he is skeptical of a future without TV networks as a platform to introduce programs, build loyalty or direct viewers to affiliate programming like local newscasts. "Nobody's got a crystal ball here," he said. "But I'm not sure we're ready to throw out 30 years of television industry economics."