I got some free shares in this one and also topped up on the profit taking. It's been all downhill so far but I feel this one could take off very quickly or be gobbled up by one of the giants. Anyone else joining in the wait and see brigade??

Me

Wait and see for me, although I might buy a token number to receive the reports etc.
Reading the (45p) Launch blurb it seems only 20% of the company is being floated and I'm not sure if the significant holdings of Exec+Autonomy (being about 17%) means that puntersw are really supplying funds, of about 25m whilst getting very little of the action.
In the past I have considered floats of less than 80% to be private companies, since there is no point in retail shareholders voting.
Investors might like to consider just what they are getting at today's price of 50p.
So, I wonder if this share-distribution might be (partly) the reason the stock has not done that well considering some good news (?) has been lined-up so close to the float which seems a tad careless not to get the Agreement "in the bag" before tapping the Public.
Anyone know the background of the Execs?

The problem I have with these internet-based companies is that Execs think they are really valuable businesses - whereas they are mere will O'the Wisps since anyone can replicate the model - and maybe improve it overnight. It's true they could ahve good content at their diosposal but we have seen how Napster and YouTube have run rings round the conventions of "copyright" and if folk really want to see bored housewives doing silly things in their own home /on holiday etc there are any number of web-sites that provide that content....so I wonder exactly what Blinkx has that can't be matched elsewhere. Autonomy has some IP content (hence their investment - but I suspect it was largely a licence rather than real cash )....perhaps someone here can explain all the exciting benefits to the rest of us.....
The (lack of BLNX)- activity on this BB rather reflects my thoughts that this is an investment to avoid, at least until we see clear profits.
Moneyplus, can you give us a frontside view?

good rns out today re a contract with ask.com lifted the sp a bit. I don't pretend to understand all this company can do but I'm holding because it's in a hot area and more experienced pi's are certain it will be gobbled up by microsoft or something similar soon.

Hangon, this co is using "advanced speech recognition technology" to enable search engines to find web content by virtue of the technology literally listening to what is being said on video clips. Why is it that you are convinced there is only a low barrier to entry by other players?

for those who are still doing their homework:

About blinkx

blinkx plc (LSE AiM: BLNX) is the world's most comprehensive video search
engine. Today, blinkx has indexed more than 12 million hours of audio, video,
viral and TV content, and made it fully searchable and available on demand.
blinkx's founders set out to solve a significant challenge - as TV and
user-generated content on the Web explode, keyword-based search technologies
only scratch the surface. blinkx's patented search technologies listen to - and
even see - the Web, helping users enjoy a breadth and accuracy of search results
not available elsewhere. In addition, blinkx powers the video search for many of
the world's most frequented sites. blinkx is based in San Francisco and London.
More information is available at www.blinkx.com

I find Youtube quality is better and I also find it hard to believe Blinkx is more comprehensive than Youtube.

but does YouTube search the speech on the clips?

the point is this (apologies if I'm boring people, but here's what the technology is about):

If you want to search the internet for a piece of text, you can find it by typing a portion of that text into the search engine (aka "googling it"). The search engine finds what you're looking for by matching the text in your input to text on the web.

You can't do that with speech or video, as there is no text to match.

There exists, however, something called "metadata". I'm not a techie, but a friend who recently had a website designed on his behalf explained this to me, and this is how I think the system works.

If you want your website to get a higher profile on search engine results, you would currently employ devices called "meta-tags". The meta-tag is a piece of vital data, selected by the website owner, by which the website content can be made identifiable to search engines. The content can then be given a higher priority in the search results, e.g. the sponsored results in ask.co.uk (I'm not a big Google user, so don't know what the equivalent is). Here's the point: the word used in the meta-tag doesn't have to be in the body text of your website content. So if you are selling alloy wheels for cars, you might include the word "tyre" in your list of meta-tags, so that anybody searching for tyres also finds a link to your alloy wheels in their list of sponsored search results.

Meta-tags are also currently applied to video clips which, by definition, don't contain text. Thus, if you have an entertaining clip of a man bungee-jumping from a bridge, you'd obviously include the word "bungee-jump" in your meta-tags so that people looking for clips of bungee-jumpers can find it. On the other hand, if you wanted the same clip to be identified every time somebody enters the phrase "extreme sports", you could also include that phrase in your meta-tags. The list of potential meta-tag words is endless, as it simply depends upon the imagination and the dedication of the website manager.

Clear so far?

Here's where it gets interesting. Blinkx's technology allows the search engine to recognise speech. So if the man shouts as he bungee-jumps from the bridge: "You owe me a bottle of Bud", you might not have included that on the meta-tags, but if you searched for "Bud" or "bottle", then the search engine equipped with Blinkx speech recognition would pick that up by recognising the speech.

Assuming the sound recording was good enough.

Are we now agreed that Blinkx are offering something slightly more powerful than exisiting text-based search engines?

In Blinkx's own words in today's RNS:

"blinkx uses advanced speech recognition technology to
deliver results that are more accurate and reliable than standard metadata-based
keyword searches."

Hope this helps.

ST.

(edited for clarity).

And by the way:

Perhaps just talking about Google and YouTube and silly video-clips gives the impresion that the technology is only going to be good for messing about with (and yes, I do confess to feeling slightly disappointed that billions of pounds worth of cutting-edge technology are basically in demand so that fourteen-year-olds can send pictures of themselves sh*gging each other to all their mates' mobile phones and/or computers).

So, perhaps a good example of the technology's potential would be this: I have a friend who lectures in Islamic terrorism. At present, if you want to find out something about Islamic terrorism, you'd have to input "Islamic terrorism" or her name, or some other term which is either present in the text or in the meta-tags, into your search engine and call up references to papers she has written.

If, however, my friend gave an unscripted interview on Newsnight, you wouldn't necessarily be able to find the clip using the meta-tags, because perhaps the BBC's archivist only input a few generic ones such as "Islam", "terrorism" and "9-11", and you might or might not find her clip amongst all the mountains of info that your search would throw up. But if you knew that the clip contained a reference to "Salafi Jihad" (you'll have to trust me on this; I have read her stuff), or if you were simply looking for clips containing references to "Salafi Jihad", you'd type "Salafi Jihad" into the search engine and Blinkx would read the video archives and spit out those clips that contained the reference, including my friend when she says to Paxman the words "Western democracies need to consider the threat posed by the Salafi Jihad."

If you then wanted to make a video-documentary that included my friend talking about Salafi Jihad, you'd have the clips to hand and could edit them in or simply view them for yourself, depending upon the extent to which the BBC decides to make them available.

Hope this helps (I'm doing my best ;o).

WOW-I'm very impressed! Thanks ST-now I owe you a Bud!!

The graph says it all

Owch! some chart!

MP, I hope you won't have to collect up empty bottles for the return of the deposits in order to buy me that Bud ;o)

Good luck to all, anyway. I'm biding my time (which is another way of saying I'm too scared to get in while the market is so choppy!).

By the way, Hangon, you mentioned something about buying a small amount of stock in order to get the financial reports, etc. Surely you can read them online by going to the company website, plus any website offering the RNS's would also include the financial reports (including moneyam and a host of other sites, although FT.com is now a bit patchy in its RNS coverage compared with a couple of years ago). I know that if you get the published report it's usually presented in a nice, glossy book-like thing with loads of pictures, but does being a shareholder really confer much of an advantage in terms of access to information, other than allowing you to visit the AGM?

Just a thought . . . .

ST - Good explanation of meta-tags.

My concern with the equivalent for audio is that I hope that they have some intelligent filtering/screening with their search engine. Imagine if you asked to look for audio and video files with phrases that include words such as 'the', 'a', 'of' etc etc. The list of hits sent back would be mind boggingly huge!

In my experience, search engines of any form rarely deliver what they promise. It doesn't matter what you type in, you always seem to end up with at least one Japanese porn site. [Thinks - is that a bad thing, LOL]

Maybe it is a good idea if BlinkX is going to sell porn, then its sp will rocket.

Sorry guys, never thought it would be this bad ( but up 30% today! from somewhat lower than float).

Someone asked why I wasn't impressed with Blinx speech-recognition technology - - - - the reason is the way the video-clipsa re presented - for if they allow the Public ( or Trusted Users) to "vote" or provide a synopsis, then you have many brains working for free - there being no need to use fancy software.

The Wikipedia-effect demonstrates that big-bucks are not needed to creatate something valuable.

Furthermore, I don't watch video-clips and doubt that many will( to the extent they are willing to pay much for it.)..
- During the Dot-Com bubble there was a company offering old film clips ( Like the 1930's Hindenberg disaster )- but soon realised that no-one really wanted to pay serious money to watch a few sceonds - for this reason I doubt today's mobile-phones can deliver block-buster movies at 5 a throw.
Yes, Porn is maybe another aspect, but these days adults are unlikley to be willing to leave any "Audit-trail" and will prefer to buy a mag+DVD from W.H.Smith - I would, but don't yet have a DVD player.

Anyone here actually using Blinx - can they say how satisfied they are, - regular use etc...?

Soul traders: - I agree with all you say, but sometimes before I invest I want to see how the Execs work under AGM-pressure - if they are very smooth it may demonstrate a con - if they fumble then maybe incompetance..... It takes a careful judgement to determine if they are truthful and competant - something that only the AGM will provide. I usuall get it wrong some time later!

It seems to me,judging by yesterdays upbeat forecast on results,that the big thing going for Blinx is the prospects of online television.
I think that this opens up a whole new ball game,where the prospects must be huge!

bought heavily into BLNX yesterday and some more today.

big things round the corner... rumour of possible Microsoft bid in papers today

theres also this from a while ago

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2007/biz2/0708/gallery.next_disruptors.biz2/index.html

Thanks Dynamix. I got back into BLNX again yesterday, too - on the basis of the imminent results. But I've also thought that they could be a target for Google, so it's interesting to see your comment re possible Microsoft bid - which paper was it?

From what I've read Blinkx' technology is ahead of the game, and the fact that few of us are actually using it at present doesn't actually mean it's entirely redundant! (I was publishing books on home computing in the early 80s, when most people couldn't even imagine wanting to have their own, let alone one for the kids' homework!)

it was just a comment from a reuters news piece on a round up of yesterdays rising shares..

heres an original article from earlier this year.. shows the speculation re Microsoft has been doing the rounds for a while.. I was told by someone Virgin Media had been alerted to it, dont know how much truth was in that though...

Yesterday's trading: Microsoft eyes Blinkx
Geoff Foster, Daily Mail
9 May 2007, 7:26am
Doctor Mike Lynch was Britain's first software billionaire. His beloved Autonomy flirted with the Footsie during the dotcom boom before falling dramatically out of bed, along with many other techno high-fliers, when the bubble burst in March 2001.

It took some time for him and the company to recover but the shares have doubled since January 2006. Sold down yesterday to 732p at the outset, they rallied strongly to touch 827p and close 34p higher at a 800p amid rumours that US computer giant Microsoft could bid for its Blinkx consumer division before it gets demerged and floated on Aim later this month.
Autonomy's management believe Blinkx has huge potential. It has a way to index and search for videos on the web or on a network using video indexing. Industry sources believe it could be better than YouTube. On flotation, Lynch's investors will own 80% of the business, with Blinkx management and Autonomy sharing the rest. Ordinary shareholders are to be offered one free Blinkx share for every Autonomy share they own.

Thanks Dynamix. I had seen that article - thought you meant you'd read something new today. Anyway, still useful here for those who missed it back in May.

Apparently The Independent had a 'buy' advice on Blinkx today but I haven't seen a copy. If anyone here happens to have read it, could you possibly let us know what it says?