Sharing Alpha

I am biased (as an investor in Seeking Alpha) but I love Seeking Alpha's communication and transparency with contributors and readers (I am both). They share both their thought process and progress with the community in a way that is helpful and inspiring.

Below is the email I got today even if I did not hit the minimum threshold for a payout this quarter :(

Dear Michael,

Seeking Alpha has seen some amazing achievements in Q1, and we'd like to thank you for being a part of our success. We are currently ranked 350 among U.S. websites and have set our sights on some more amazing goals as we make our way through 2011.

Yesterday marked a Seeking Alpha milestone on two fronts: a reorientation of our approach to content, including a redesign of the home page, and the first-ever contributor payments for Q1 participants in the Premium Partnership Program (PPP).

Let's start with the latter. PPP has been successful beyond our expectations. Here are some of the key stats:
· 355 contributors participated in the program in Q1, including 219 that exceeded the $100 threshold and are being paid now
· 40 contributors will be receiving checks of more than $1,000; another 90 will receive checks of more than $500
· Average pageviews per premium article were an exceptional 5,558 - meaning average earnings per premium article were $55.58

While we always believed PPP would be only part of the total SA value-proposition to contributors - which also includes exposure, reputation, customer leads, etc. - to our delight some contributors are making meaningful money. We did not expect at this early stage average earnings of more than $50/article. We are thrilled that PPP has enabled contributors to combine the benefits of earning cash as a freelance investment analyst with the freedom of blogging. For those of you who haven't yet done so, testing out PPP is as simple as submitting an exclusive article to our submissions team; there are no long-term obligations or barriers to entry.

A couple of small notes: Q2 Author Boards currently reflect cumulative earnings for Q1 and Q2. We will shortly update the data so that each quarter displays separately. Also, on a tiny number of premium articles in Q1, unusual traffic patterns (high percentages of pageviews from one user) forced us to disqualify those articles from payment. We will continue to monitor traffic patterns to maintain the integrity of PPP.

What we've found so far is that Seeking Alpha readers are very focused on actionable investing ideas. Articles with follow-through to tangible investment ideas tend to generate substantially more pageviews than articles that are theoretical and lack ticker-tags which fail to answer the question: How can I invest in this? Because we're focused on maintaining our strength in actionable investment ideas and analysis, many of the recent website changes are likewise geared toward putting greater emphasis on actionable ideas.

Changes to our homepage include a greater focus on content, news, and market data. We hope to do a better job of answering investors' question: What do I need to know today? by uniquely combining real-time news and data with your insightful analysis, and our knowledgeable community. On the bottom half of the page, signed-in users will find the most recent articles by the contributors they follow - which we hope will give greater impact to the number of followers you have accumulated.

We've also reduced the number of dashboards to four: Long & Short Ideas, Investing for Income, ETFs & Portfolio Strategy, and Macro View. I believe these four do a good job of capturing the key reasons most users come to Seeking Alpha: to research stock ideas, fixed-income investing, portfolio analysis and asset-class allocation, and to follow the news and the economy. We also reduced the number of modules on each dashboard, and trimmed our sectors to the standard nine.

All of this has implications for leaderboards as well. Sector leaderboards will be reduced to nine, and 'dashboard theme' leaderboards will reflect the reduced number of modules on dashboards. In cases where modules were eliminated, we 'mapped' old ones to new ones (for example, Today's Market and Market Outlook are now one theme). In some cases this has resulted in changes to leaderboard standings as different groups grew and shrunk accordingly. Bear in mind that leaderboards are based on pageviews to articles over the trailing 90 days, so any anomalies should work themselves out of the system relatively quickly. We do realize that this change may create some initial unease, but it's important to understand that none of your pageviews has gone to waste, and all of them are being counted towards your overall rankings among our contributors. We highly value your contributions to Seeking Alpha and appreciate the time that goes into creating each article.

The best of the article crop will continue to be highlighted in specially designated sections, such as Editor's Picks and Most Popular. We've also added a link to the Readers Recommend section on the homepage. Most Popular sections also appear on the dashboards.

We like to think of Seeking Alpha as a work in progress, which is why we experiment quite a bit, and aren't afraid to try new things out. If you have a moment, come to the website and check out the changes - we'd love to know what you think. And feel free to contact me or our amazing Contributor Development department if you have any questions, concerns, compliments or suggestions. We're always available to work with you on finding the best ways to bring you and your content in front of our readers.

Abby Carmel
Head of Contributor Development

Look Out Below! The Dollar is Falling! What Now? Get Awesome!

There is a famous joke/story about former Israeli Finance Minister Pinhas Sapir in which an aide comes to him and tells him that the economy is turning bad and rationing is necessary. Sapir asks the aide "and where is this?" to which the aide replied "Right here in Israel of course." Said Sapir, "Phew, that's OK. I thought things were bad in America."

For years the Israeli economy was pegged to the Dollar, the US economy and everything American, making Sapir's comment less humorous than it appears. However, after 2008, the Israeli and US economies disconnected, with the US economy stagnating and the Israeli economy growing at an even accelerated pace. This is due to both to Israeli innovation and the opening of global markets such as Eastern Europe, the Far East and Brazil to Israeli exports and entrepreneurs.

Sapir's mantra and US focus, however, is seared into the Israeli psyche and business assumptions. This causes both a focus on the Dollar/Shekel exchange rate and a real problem for companies whose principle market is the USA and whose functional currency is the Dollar. I have written very frequently in my posts about the Dollar Shekel exchange rate and the inevitable rise of the Shekel (barring a war), calling on our portfolio companies to hedge their currency risk and hold enough shekels for as long as possible. Despite Stanley Fischer's heroic maneuvers, even he understands that it is not possible to stop the Shekel's appreciation forever. He has slowed it to allow Israeli businesses to adapt but he cannot stop it. As Pimco's Bill Gross describes, without a big US political move on entitlements, the Dollar's decline is inevitable. With the Dollar likely (again, barring a physical or diplomatic war) moving closer to 3:1, it is important to focus on what Israel's competitive advantage is: Awesome Innovation.

As I wrote in parts 2 and 3 of the Humus Manifesto, Israel was never a low cost development zone. India and China were always cheaper. What Israel is good at is innovation. Actually, as Douglas Gayeton said, "Israelis are the world's best at making the most out of scant resources and this is the cornerstone of sustainability." Israeli entrepreneurs need to focus on this strength with the falling Dollar as a backdrop. We need to create awesome products that do good for the world. This is what will and does differentiate us. Better Place is not a "cheap" development (neither in Shekels nor Dollars) but it is staggeringly innovative on a scale that attracts global attention and has a shot at breaking the World's dependence on oil. Israel is a world leader in agricultural technology from water technology such as Netafim, to enhancing distribution for local farmers from Farmigo to Seed technology from Evogene. The Volcani Institute of Agricultural Research is a world leader and needs to be leveraged more as I wrote in Humus Part 3. Sustainable agriculture should get the focus of both the entrepreneurial community and the government and it is needed worldwide including in countries whose currency is not the Dollar. Lastly, Israel has an advanced mobile ecosystem (the mobile phone is a fixed appendage on every Israeli's ear) and with some focus we can create both a cottage industry and large companies in Mobile that attack the global markets. We can lead in these innovative global markets by doubling down on awesome innovation and not fretting the dollar. It should catalyze us for more meaning and more innovation, not more cost cutting.

I want to finish with a long quote from the Humus Manifesto

"We need to use this opportunity to retool our definition both of great technologies and a great economy. Part of our raison d'être in being here in Israel is to fulfill what the Prophets, Herzl and Ben Gurion all had in mind. That is: We, Israel and its citizens, should be an Or Lagoyim or Hevrat Mofet(loosely translated: An exemplary society). We should figure out which radical innovation does good while doing well and set it up here. We should make this a cornerstone of our drive into leadership of next century's economies and technologies (Hat tip to Umair Haque). We should think of economic advantage not only in terms of company's increasing profits and cash hoards but also in terms of increasing employment and creating places and a country where people want to work and feel good working at. The economy should serve to bind society and not divide it, creating a shared sense of purpose, nation-building and mutual responsibility. Our challenges in the technology industry and the world's economic challenges should be viewed as an opportunity to innovate our own business model away from some of Adam Smith's selfish motives and toward a community of trust and shared building. Let us, the people who gave the world the Ten Commandments, ethics and morality, innovate our way to both increasing GDP, generating jobs and inspiring generations and nations with a meaningful pursuit."

Look Out Below! The Dollar is Falling! What Now? Get Awesome!

There is a famous joke/story about former Israeli Finance Minister Pinhas Sapir in which an aide comes to him and tells him that the economy is turning bad and rationing is necessary. Sapir asks the aide "and where is this?" to which the aide replied "Right here in Israel of course." Said Sapir, "Phew, that's OK. I thought things were bad in America."

For years the Israeli economy was pegged to the Dollar, the US economy and everything American, making Sapir's comment less humorous than it appears. However, after 2008, the Israeli and US economies disconnected, with the US economy stagnating and the Israeli economy growing at an even accelerated pace. This is due to both to Israeli innovation and the opening of global markets such as Eastern Europe, the Far East and Brazil to Israeli exports and entrepreneurs.

Sapir's mantra and US focus, however, is seared into the Israeli psyche and business assumptions. This causes both a focus on the Dollar/Shekel exchange rate and a real problem for companies whose principle market is the USA and whose functional currency is the Dollar. I have written very frequently in my posts about the Dollar Shekel exchange rate and the inevitable rise of the Shekel (barring a war), calling on our portfolio companies to hedge their currency risk and hold enough shekels for as long as possible. Despite Stanley Fischer's heroic maneuvers, even he understands that it is not possible to stop the Shekel's appreciation forever. He has slowed it to allow Israeli businesses to adapt but he cannot stop it. As Pimco's Bill Gross describes, without a big US political move on entitlements, the Dollar's decline is inevitable. With the Dollar likely (again, barring a physical or diplomatic war) moving closer to 3:1, it is important to focus on what Israel's competitive advantage is: Awesome Innovation.

As I wrote in parts 2 and 3 of the Humus Manifesto, Israel was never a low cost development zone. India and China were always cheaper. What Israel is good at is innovation. Actually, as Douglas Gayeton said, "Israelis are the world's best at making the most out of scant resources and this is the cornerstone of sustainability." Israeli entrepreneurs need to focus on this strength with the falling Dollar as a backdrop. We need to create awesome products that do good for the world. This is what will and does differentiate us. Better Place is not a "cheap" development (neither in Shekels nor Dollars) but it is staggeringly innovative on a scale that attracts global attention and has a shot at breaking the World's dependence on oil. Israel is a world leader in agricultural technology from water technology such as Netafim, to enhancing distribution for local farmers from Farmigo to Seed technology from Evogene. The Volcani Institute of Agricultural Research is a world leader and needs to be leveraged more as I wrote in Humus Part 3. Sustainable agriculture should get the focus of both the entrepreneurial community and the government and it is needed worldwide including in countries whose currency is not the Dollar. Lastly, Israel has an advanced mobile ecosystem (the mobile phone is a fixed appendage on every Israeli's ear) and with some focus we can create both a cottage industry and large companies in Mobile that attack the global markets. We can lead in these innovative global markets by doubling down on awesome innovation and not fretting the dollar. It should catalyze us for more meaning and more innovation, not more cost cutting.

I want to finish with a long quote from the Humus Manifesto

"We need to use this opportunity to retool our definition both of great technologies and a great economy. Part of our raison d'être in being here in Israel is to fulfill what the Prophets, Herzl and Ben Gurion all had in mind. That is: We, Israel and its citizens, should be an Or Lagoyim or Hevrat Mofet(loosely translated: An exemplary society). We should figure out which radical innovation does good while doing well and set it up here. We should make this a cornerstone of our drive into leadership of next century's economies and technologies (Hat tip to Umair Haque). We should think of economic advantage not only in terms of company's increasing profits and cash hoards but also in terms of increasing employment and creating places and a country where people want to work and feel good working at. The economy should serve to bind society and not divide it, creating a shared sense of purpose, nation-building and mutual responsibility. Our challenges in the technology industry and the world's economic challenges should be viewed as an opportunity to innovate our own business model away from some of Adam Smith's selfish motives and toward a community of trust and shared building. Let us, the people who gave the world the Ten Commandments, ethics and morality, innovate our way to both increasing GDP, generating jobs and inspiring generations and nations with a meaningful pursuit."