Member Info for jc1220

"...providing a scalable, modular, zero-emission powertrain solution. This powertrain will initially be installed in a woodchipper manufactured by GreenMech Ltd, Europe's leading woodchipper manufacturer."

I think this company is really undervalued. It's well run, in a niche market with plenty of room for growth, comes across as quite a traditional company but they seem to develop innovative & progressive tech - whilst providing their customers with good value.

Given his likeness to a potato, my bet is Potatospud

Surprised by the news but might make a lot of sense. With Gfinity not developing any games themselves there's a chance they could end up on the periphery (i.e. 'being on the inside' and hosting your own esports league must have huge benefits than paying an external company to host it for you, and as soon as a company develops their own in-house esports solution Gfinity would no longer be needed - something that is likely to happen over time.)

That being said, I didn't expect this to happen right now, given the cash flow the websites are now creating might have fuelled more rapid growth (which would also limit the chance of us being diluted - although in some ways the latter is inevitable for them to grow at a competitive rate.)

I think this poses a huge opportunity for Codemasters to make a similar move to Activision Blizzard buying out Major League Gaming some years ago, given their ownership of Formula 1, DiRT, GRID etc. It could be huge for them.

I wonder if Keyword Studios are interested as well. I'd have thought having an esports solution in their portfolio would be an exciting prospect and complement their current services.

I'm curious as to why people are nervous about Finncap - I assume they have a bad track record?

Anyone aware of BioCote and how SYM might compare?

I've become aware of the former via Harlequin Floors whose new flooring comes with BioCote built in.

I wrongly bought in on this during the hype faze and have slowly become aware of the political headwinds with the oxo-biodegradable plastic and how some of their products are not quite as unique as they first appear. Similar to others I'm questioning why commercial contracts haven't followed over the past months (or years?)

Perhaps there's more to come in the near future...

I still think people are waiting to see the figures behind all the news.

This company has previously made & announced what sounded like great deals but had to burn shed loads of cash to run the business. The JV's and website income should create a far better foundation to grow from, so let's hope both of those are a success & the results reflect the progress being made (Not sure what results up to 30 June will look like given the slower business between Jan-March, so we'll see - maybe another buying opp.

I think the biggest tailwind is the new consoles. The more realistic driving sim / sport games become, the more entertaining they'll be to watch & therefore the bigger market for Gfinity (given they're already working with BT Sport, EA, Formula 1 etc.)

It's clear they're leaving FPS games (CS:GO, Fortnite, COD) to other companies. These are far more popular in the Esports community right now, but sim. games popularity should continue to grow over the coming years which is where Gfin is perfectly placed.

Not sure who else is watching - the live show is pretty good, but there's a couple of things I'm a bit disappointed about:

- I can't believe there's no in-game advertising! There's a huge number of boards / banners / signs around the race track which has their 'Global Racing Series' branding. I'm really surprised they're not monetising this. The only reason I can think of is they're demonstrating the potential with their branding, and will approach potential buyers with viewing figures - but why oh why are the marketing companies we're working with filling the websites with clickbait and not doing something more interesting / meaningful here?

- The whole event just doesn't feel live. I can't quite get into it as it feels like a series of replays. The commentators are good, but you can tell they're a little green. I feel like the whole event needs more passion / fire / liveness & something that I should care about.

Does anyone know how the deal with BT Sport works? I.e. will BT Sport pay a fee for the programme & then make their money back through advertising, or are they likely to do some sort of split (i.e. small fee up front & then split advertising income 50/50)?

I think there's potential here - and I'm genuinely engaged by the racing, so interested to hear what others think.

The website(s) seem to navigate fine and intuitively to me. I agree about the ads being clickbait s*** though. That's obviously thanks to the same ol' agencies running them (like they do on the majority of these sites.) Not sure what I prefer - a better, more seamless, less irritating website or bigger revenue that'll push us to profitability & generate cash to stop us from being diluted. When you put it in writing I think the latter is better, but hopefully later down the line they use said cash to develop a bit more 'class' (as surely that'll increase dwell time, engagement etc.)

I really look forward to seeing what income the JV with ADMM generates. It seems that the 'building community' side for e.g. Cadburys has lowish operating margin - hence BoD's desire to build more JVs. If they have better margin I think the opportunities are really exciting (based on their ability to attract big teams & big partners + the tailwind of games becoming better, more realistic and more accessible + the websites to advertise the events to a large audience + the ability to scale & run things simultaneously.)

Re: whether to put more £ in now - I'm personally waiting until full year results to see the market reaction. It seems like the share price will be held down by those pesky 1p warrants for a while (?) &, if there's good news & the market likes what they see, buying Gfinity at sub £50m will still be good value. The news wasn't that great between Jan-March this year, and the lack of deals will still affect results - but it'll be interesting to see how that balances with the huge number generated from April - June. I personally think results will be underwhelming but everything after should be very positive. But what do I know, I'm just speculating & it's all IMO.

It looks like people are waiting to see the figures rather than buying on the hype. I'm not surprised given the run the share has been on since March and the historic cash-burning issue.

That being said, I can't believe this is stuck at a £30mil market cap. The clear strategy, new CEO, targeted profitably and the new consoles coming (aka the hype) should all provide excellent momentum and push this above that figure. As sports games get better and more realistic Gfinity can only benefit (especially given the relationship they have with the biggest brands.)

Excited for the next 6 months!

I assume people might have missed that Team Redline features Lando Norris and Max Verstappen!? Who knows whether they'll race in the event, but it goes without saying that, if they do, it will be absolutely massive. Lando has been particularly active on streaming recently so I have high hopes.

For those with website concerns it's worth having a look on your phone. Over 60% of the traffic is likely to be coming from mobile devices (possibly even more given the age of their target audience) and it's quite clear the website is designed to work best on those devices. The ads are far less intrusive and it's much easier to navigate. I also agree that the adverts on desktop browsers are way too intrusive but most people will just use Adblock and- as you've all said - given how insanely fast Gfinity has historically burnt through cash it's a much much needed source of high margin revenue.

Also worth bearing in mind how bloody fast Gfinity Media is growing. It's good to look at bounce rate, dwell time (etc.) but having a quick look at other leading sites (gamespot, steamcommunity, playstation.com) they're all pretty similar. Views spiked in May and have decreased since (thanks to COVID) but with the new consoles coming the content is only going to get better and more engaging - and they're adding a fourth site next year to wrap their racing esports activity in a neat little bow.

Looking forward to it.

Good to see VW spending some of their advertising budget with Bidstack.

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/chrislaarman_programmatic-ingameadvertising-display-ugcPost-6700044852803063808-1WlQ/

If Bids have finally got their ass in gear and are working with some big brands it could be very good timing for V10 R league (assuming they can integrate with Assetto Corsa...?)

Thanks. Not sure how I missed that.

Does anyone know who 'Charles Street International Holdings' are?

Tried to do some digging but haven't had much luck. Curious given they own 24% of the company.

I agree, great results. Easily could have gone the other way with poor management. Really pleased with the work Peter Pritchard has done since taking the helm.

I was also pleased to hear about the plans for the new site and how well they've looked after their staff (and families) during the first months of you know what. Well done to those that got in on the dip and held the month or two of yoyo! Very much onwards and upwards.

Good note re: share dilution. I had a quick look and Jun 17 shares were approx 20p with market cap of 43 mil.

We currently have 3.7p with market cap of 28 mil, so I make it that approx 6p will bring about that 43mil cap.

It's silly to chat share prices without working out what it means for the value of the company as a whole, but I do think this is going to be a big year for Gfinity with John Clarke at the helm, strong focus on cutting costs, new partnerships announced with details to follow (including the 5 year ADMM partnership) and the mad exposure the esport market is getting. That doesn't necessarily mean it'll be a successful year - they've got to walk the walk but the early signs are very positive.

Given JW's Gfinity videos have 2.5k views in total I'm not sure he realistically has the power to double the share price in a week, given all he does is round up news and then just share his cash flow estimates (though what do I know.)

With him out the question I'd be super interested to know why people think the company's current value is unfounded and what you believe it should be.

You can look at Wireless' video views in a bit more detail on social blade. Having a look at the 'user videos' tab their Wireless Connect preview vid scored about 108k views since it was posted on 2nd July (most likely placed well and some money put behind it.)

You can't seem to check out the live festival views, presumably because they weren't left public, but don't forget that they'll count each individual user rather than the total viewing at one time (which is where your 600-2000 number is coming from.) Assuming that the rest of the video views over the past couple of days were from the live festival then it looks like about 90k had a peek on Youtube.

Either way I think the app downloads / users stats will be very interesting and more valuable. Though none of this will = revenue unless they build on the momentum.

https://socialblade.com/youtube/user/wirelessfestival

I agree, I think Melody showed themselves really well this weekend. The tech worked flawlessly and I'd argue the best moments were in the more intimate LA studio or throwbacks to previous Wireless (the two things Melody has most ownership of.)

On top of that, I continue to be impressed by how well designed the mobile app is. It's incredibly easy to use with great design. The marketing/branding throughout the whole weekend was on point, too. I think we all wish they started pushing it sooner, but the latter demonstrates a company building something beyond just the tech.

The only thing I would have hoped for was at least a sniff of affiliate marketing. From what I could tell BLM wasn't pushed at all in production which could have demonstrated how brands (i.e. JD, Boohoo, Nike etc.) could display on the monitors or ads in breaks etc. I feel like this could have been an easy win and help build more revenue in the near future. I equally don't get why Wireless Fest or Live Nation wouldn't have worked to secure this, given they've made zilch $$$ and are refunding tickets like Nobody's business. Hopefully the conversations are ongoing and this weekend effectively demonstrated the potential for advertising in upcoming LA performances.

If you've read Melody's financial report it's really clear how they plan to generate revenue in the medium-term. They're using Wireless Connect - and the past two months of LA-based live streaming - to grow the awareness of the platform + build and enrich the content of the library ahead of a subscription service, paid-for / ticketed events and ad-based opportunities (most likely product placement and session branding of gigs in their studio.)

They've made really good progress over the past couple of months. I don't really understand how / why people are so short-sighted, complaining about why trees not being lit or robots not dancing in the background. The direction is clear and all the while COVID restrictions are in place they should continue to make good progress in that direction.

p.s. I watched some of the festival on my TV and it worked perfectly. I was able to move the camera with my remote.

Useful comparison: the Sansar app (which is currently streaming Glasto's Shangri-La) is currently sitting at number 80 in the Entertainment charts with 12 one-star reviews. I think that offers a good suggestion as to how well Melody has performed on day one. Similarly Wireless and Melody socials are on fire - very different story on Sansar / Shangri-La.

One thing that is a bit disappointing is the limited splash made on the Oculus store. Would like to see more / better reviews on there https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/2617356444966011/

Despite both being VR based I think they're actually very different - Sansar being this whole digital, avatar-based world with Melody being all about the 'real' world (i.e. physical location etc.) As some have said, would make sense for this to be timed to showcase both possibilities within VR.

Interestingly if you look at the reviews on Oculus / Steam for both companies they are very mixed with a number of people's tech not able to keep up. I'd also like to see more recent Melody reviews on Oculus or at least more evidence that people are actually using the app with headsets (no sign of it when clicking around in their app store etc.)

Either way, I can't wait to see the comparison the weekend will provide. I hope it'll give an indication of people's appetite for VR and why it's worth getting into beyond live-streamed gigs on youtube - and how Melody's 'real' world compares with 100% digital / avatar experiences.