Completely agree. I run one of the more well-known video...

Completely agree. I run one of the more well-known video production companies in VIC, and received a fair amount of negativity for my views on BIG. I regret not making my comments and suspicions about BIG earlier, as it was quite clear to us (using tools like VIDIQ to analyse their Youtube channel), that 95% of their traffic was from bots. I also found it very strange that we had never once seen a single ad or come up against them in any marketing channels or competitive corporate pitches. The first time I heard of them was when a family member sent me $500 to $500million article on Brandon.


My main point in my comments on HC was that I thought it crazy that BIG were considered a legitimate tech-play. To me, BIG was only ever a media company driven by telemarketing. Whilst I understand the the earnings looked amazing and that investors were deceived, there were still some serious fundamentals missing, that just never allowed me to take this stock seriously.

1. Bloodthirsty, cutthroat competition in the form of Facebook, Zomato, FourSqaure, Yelp, and Google Reviews. Could you really really ever envision someone going to the BIG app over these names? The BIG website? The BIG Youtube channel? I think it's perfectly reasonable to imagine the venue/SME using their BIG video across these channels, but the success of BIG as their own PLATFORM seemed utterly impossible to me. This was a huge part of their sell.

2. No IP. Nothing proprietary (except that sales-script). Very low-barrier to entry product.

3. Analytics on their Youtube was pretty telling. Poor engagement rates, high viewer abandonment rates. You could even see a few months ago, that videos that had been reposted from a few months earlier with slightly different titles.

I understand excitement and optimism, and I think that whilst this is a great thing to have in an investing community, it shouldn't ever get to the point where criticism is met with abuse, generalities and arrogance. I'm not trying to say that anyone should have listened or anything like that — investors were lied to — and I really sympathise with you.

I am saying that when it comes to stock forums and stock discussion, that we should be mindful of the village-mentality and be a bit more willing to engage in point-for-point discussion as opposed to chasing criticism away with pitchforks.