fsa investigation?
ADVFN PLC
24 November 2006

ADVFN PLC (the 'Company')

Exercise of Options

The Company announces that options to subscribe for 150,002 ordinary shares of
one pence each in the Company have been exercised at a price of 1.25p per share.
These shares have been allotted and application for the shares to be admitted to
trading on AIM has been made to the London Stock Exchange. Admission of and
dealings in these shares are expected to commence on 1 December 2006.

Absolutely SPOT ON there Andy.

Youve hit the nail on the head. Whoever out of the top financial sites eg, Money am, advfn, hemscott, Scrazy, ample etc, etc, has the guts to go ahead and bring down level 2 charges to a reasonable monthly charge will win a big market share I believe.

In fact I can see someone doing this, its just a matter of time.

Could turn out to be a little like the lowering of price on broadband.

hi i use the afn web site
but on the bottom of the web page
affilation scheme copyright run from 1999to 2007
will they get other remember you need 30 working day by letter
to stop the account
do anyone no the date it runs out?

Wayne, you're all set to get the 2007 award for the most impenetrable post :-)

I'll have a bottle of whatever he's on. Judgeing by the second part of his name his maths are much better.

So will I.

I thought it was myself after yesterdays festivities, glad you 2 guys have comforted me.

looks like AFN is going bust...Chambers looking for another gravy train

Maestro

Do these one liners of yours come to you in any particular form or is it totally down to insider knowledge. Their accuracy is so spellbindingly poor that I often wonder if QXL was just a lucky guess, as opposed to all your unlucky ones. LOL

bloomers..why do you think they have moved offices to ONGAR?...hardly the action of a successful company...not exactly a prestigious location is it?

dead cat bounce before the lights go out

Goldfinger,

I think it's a question of who blinks first!

I totally agree, the site that brings down level ll prices to a lower level will generate a lot more traffic IMO, especially if it was bundled with a premium BB membership package.

I would imagine a price of £20 would seriously increase takeup, and any fall in profits could be offset by imaginative use of the increased numbers and hits.

I invest rather then trade, (in theory at least!) so in practice don't have much requirement for level ll, but would subscribe at a lower price.

I think MAM has missed an opportunity since inception to make itself a more serious competitor to ADVFN, and continues to do so.

Quite why MAM or Sharecrazy don't think outside of the box a bit more is puzzling, and MAM are not even leveraging their relationship with Shares either IMO.

Your broadband analogy is a superb example of increased takeup of a product as the price has fallen.

let's hope somebody is listening!

Yes fingers crossed andy.

They're all watching each other like hawks frightened to make the first move but each one secretly hoping that the other does.

I am certain that a well thought out package of charges, whereby everyone pays their little bit would be a great success. You can't keep asking shareholders to foot the bill for expansion, whilst 95% of users do so free of charge especially when revenues, at present, are insufficient to break even.

bloomers,

Good post, I agree such a package would work IMO.

some mug bought 450k...one born every minute

Was it you?.

no i bought at 2.7p ;-)

I'm intrigued by some of this discussion over Level II and profit margins. I don't have any special insight into MAM or ADVFN's finances, but what makes you think that they're not trying to be competitive?

The Exchanges regulate the basic price per user of Level II, the feed suppliers charge a fee on top on that, then there is significant capital investment in hardware and software to present the data in a palatable form, there are running costs associated with hosting the servers and monitoring and updating the service.

I think you will find that, without advertising revenue, the service could not be provided at all.

MM

"I think you will find that, without advertising revenue, the service could not be provided at all."

I am not saying that ADVFN is not trying to be competetive and the above sentence from you is totally correct, but there are other ways of funding and generating revenue which, at present, ADVFN fails to acknowledge as a viable proposition.

The main argument in respect of this is to charge everyone who uses it's site a membership fee, and that includes all it's integrated sites, in order that it will have a regular basic income year on year with which to maintain and improve the site. Anything charged beyond that would be a bonus.

At the present time shareholders are bearing the brunt of paying for the huge majority of users who pay nothing, but nevertheless expect the information to be there as and when they want to refer to it.

This has resulted in, and will continue to mean, further share issues and thus dilution of shareprice because current policies are not generating enough revenue from advertising and premium user payments to cover the current expenditure. It is also a dangerous game to have all your eggs in just two baskets especially when, if looked at in line with pure economics, those two baskets are likely to be affected by the same economic slowdowns at the same time.

With an effective revenue stream from membership fees, in which every user pays a little bit, it would be easier to re-structure premium rates in order that they are within a scale that ordinary investors find acceptable.

I'm all for competition, the secret is knowing the strength of the opposition, in relation to the particular product you are offering, and the faith that you have in that product and it's ability to impress the people you are trying to sell it to.

Once you have satisfied yourself on those points there shouldn't be a problem as, IMHO, users will not desert the best site, for a worse one, for the sake of a few quid a year.

So what is wrong with a service which charges a membership fee, charges premium rates for some of it's services and advertises to it's full capacity and finds any other ways of extracting a few quid out of it's USERS as opposed to constantly screwing it's SHAREHOLDERS.

Charging everyone membership would result in the death of the free BB as very few would pay, and with it the bulk page impressions that generate advertising revenue. An exclusively paid-for site would have much reduced revenue from advertising. The balance of free and paid-for BB and services is probably about right on ADVFN and here.

Haystack

We pay for everything else in this world but I would be interested to know if you are a shareholder in ADVFN. If No

Then I would ask if you are a shareholder at all. if yes

Does the company you are invested in provide it's services free of charge.

As for having a much reduced revenue in advertising, what is generated now is not enough and there is no guarentee that it ever will be. So why do they keep repeating the same model, which has yet to show a profit, over and over again.

That is taking unecessary risk especially when they have had the perfect opportunity to try something different on recently opened, but previously untried, locations, namely Brazil, China, Japan.

There are also those among us who do nothing but continually abuse the free BB system so let's not go too overboard on that score. They are the ones who would not pay because half of them couldn't afford all the names they have.