I heard the 2nd half of the call and questions. Some new info: -...

I heard the 2nd half of the call and questions.

Some new info:
- the change from premium monthly plans to lower grade cost $500k/month in revenue foregone. From previous announcements, this was deemed necessary to contain the 'spammy' bids that were happening as a bunch of freelancers on the higher plans with heaps of bid credits included decided to submit innappropriate offers as they had nothing to lose. Management has decided this is necessary for future marketplace sustainability, so sellers don't get annoyed with low quality bids. Adding $500k per month to revenues in the last six months makes a big difference to the financials. Was FLN overvalued before this problem was addressed? I guess yes, but this self-inflicted revenue write down is being mistaken for a lack of growth in the business volumes.

- Matt alluded to at least 2 new initiatives to grow marketplace revenue. One was Enterprise, and he believes 2 global companies will sign on within the next 30 days (of the 30 enterprise customers participating in a pilot). He says if the volume these indicate materialises it will be substantial. I get the feeling this will herald a press release, so we shouldn't have to wait 3 months to hear. He also mentioned a step in the sales funnel that is limiting conversions that he said they were about to address with a change, but was intentionally vague. Considering this is what got them in trouble with '1-click projects' I will wait and see.

- He also described the Escrow business as "flying". He said the new API was generating good sales already, with percentages of transaction volumes in double figures (though still single figures in value). His suggestion being the API would favour high volume/low value transactions 'paypal style'. He also mentioned growth in 'lumpy' high value transactions including one just a shade under $10m and a possible transaction of a specrum licence. In response to a question he noted they cut special deals for such high value transactions, and this could be seen in a lower fee revenue percentage.

I had expected the API to take a lot longer to show any meaningful results, so this is good news.

My conclusion is the marketplace is growing well again, but this extra growth hasn't made up for the one time step down in revenue the plan changes made. But if growth continues on trend this will be overcome this year. With Escrow now performing well, focus will be directed at the marketplace to make it better (and he gave some examples like re-architecting the web page performance).