Is C2 doing any advertising or promotion? I haven’t seen anything in publications, nor in searching typical trading terms on search engines.
when I was on a search analytics type website a couple weeks ago (dunno if it was compete.com), it gave the impression that C2 spent about $14 a day on SEM/web advertising. Dunno how accurate that is.
Doesn’t seem like much with how much we (vendors) pay to use the sight. I know there is a lot that goes into this from Matthew, but it would be nice to see the site grow more than it has.
Certainly (especially from a vendor perspective), more advertisement would be nice. But, something to think about: the most prominent web site on the internet (Google) never did advertisement for itself. There is nothing that beats a testimonial by a friend…
(And on the other hand: how often did you click on a advertisement - and how often did you actually buy s.th. there… )
The best advertisement for C2 certainly is to be referred to be others…
(this is, e.g., how I came here, an advertisement would never had a similar effect). So, instead of outright advertisement, I would recommend more PR-like measures, discussions in forums, spreading the news, etc.
- But of course, this is also s.th. everyone can do 
E.g., free software that connects to C2-API can be way to raise awareness…
Just my 2 cent
Klaus
The text below is from C2s FAQ page. Yet, I have to say that I have not seen anything promoting C2, anywhere. If others have, please advise. If not, then it seems to me that developers should expect that some of their 30% fees should be allotted to advertising and promotion to attract viewers/users. While C2 is providing the platform, let’s not forget that developers are providing the goods. This is a shared responsbility.
“How can I attract more subscribers to my trading system?”
Collective2 spends hundreds of thousands of dollars to attract traders to this site. This large marketing effort helps you garner subscribers.
Dear David,
point taken
While I would consider "hundreds of thousands of dollars" a complete waste on advertisement, it should not be in the FAQ then. -
And I have no clue, how one could earn this amount of money with the C2 website in the first place… - at least currently.
Cheers
Klaus
I agree. if this site would become a forum sponsor at a place like EliteTrader.com, as Beau and others have suggested, at perhaps $1000 or whatever a month, I think traffic would dramatically increase. As it is, I drop its name quite a bit.
There is a constant stream of new people there, seeking systems or profitable methods.
I don’t see the hundreds of thousands. I have serious doubts about even $100,000 in totality. I could be wrong, but as you folks said, I rarely see collective2.com appear in trade-related searches.
Well, consider this: There are currently 630 active systems with 4 or more trades. All those vendors are currently paying $90 to have their system listed, which makes a total of more than $100K in revenue from listing fees annually.
On top of that there are the fees from subscribers. This is much harder to estimate, because the total number of active subscribers is unknown. But given how much has been invested in this site, the autotrading technology, and at least some 60 vendors who keep their systems active even after 2 years, I would guestimate at any point in time the number of subscribers is anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand (counting people subscribing to multiple systems multiple times). So, to see how quickly these numbers can accumulate, let’s assume there are 1000 active subscribers, paying an average monthly subscription fee of $100. That would mean another $360K (1000 x 100 * 0.3 * 12) in annual revenue for C2. On top of this there’s revenue from advertising on the C2 site, and perhaps trading revenues (as C2 itself has basically a ‘free’ subscription to each system).
Of course, the real figures will be very different, but it doesn’t seem implausible to me that C2 is making a healthy revenue from the site.
IMHO, I “think” Collective2 and Matthew Klein are a class organization built on a solid platform to capitalize going forward well into the future.
Ever since I have been on board just shy of 2 years ago, MK has been very astute in keeping up with change and improvements based on suggestions and otherwise.
I can only imagine the next beta release will be head-and-shoulders above the current and that Matthew is in for the long haul. IOW in due time, it will not be hard to get a great return on putting out a relatively small investment in advertising to bring these services to forefront in the minds of investors and the industry in general.
Hats off to the developers and maintenance algorithms that continue to propel us forward with all the possibilities. That being said, I can venture to say that those of us on board are relatively few compared to what I eventually “see” will be. Sure Matthew can extract 250-500k per year from this site, but the concept and those of us who contribute is far more in value which I’m sure he knows can be leveraged with a rather medicre ad budget from this annual amount.
Regards,
Gilbert
[LINKSYSTEM_30875056]
Your last point about C2 having an essentially free subscription to every system. Is this true? Matt if you are listening, maybe you can clarify this point. What is the C2 policy on using C2 systems to generate C2 revenue? Seems like a conflict of interest to do so.
I guess I might assume that C2 could subscribe (like anyone) to a system, but it would be nice that this type of subscription come with a degree of disclosure to avoid conflicts of interest. Seems like I recall some provision about preventing institutional subscriptions, but I have not seen the option lately.
Jim
see art 8 in the Terms of Service:
you agree to grant to Collective2 Corporation a free subscription to your trading advice
by the way, Matthew has always been quite open about his own trading of C2 systems. Do a search for ‘dog food’ on the forum, and you’ll find some threads related to this. I don’t know whether he just trades with the aim to test the technology, or to make real money.
Interesting, they should at least pay for it and inform the system developer of their trades. I wonder if they at least show-up on the autotrade total (Matt?) or invisible.
Jim
Since you opened this same question on two different threads, I will repeat part of my reply here also (you did not suggest that C2 open a $1million fund here so I deleted that part of my repeated reply):
1) Few vendors here really know what they are doing. If I was a site owner, I would think long and hard about trading even most of the “top” systems, which usually, do not really have aqn edge.
2) If Matthew uses any of the systems (except for reselling them), I think that would be one of the few perks of site ownership. I doubt this site is highly profitable, and is time intensive. Using a C2 system is Matthew’s business decision, and I don’t think he is obligated to tell anyone. And who would enforce it? It is like a customer telling a store owner he cannot buy at wholesale from the products coming in, because his customers have to pay retail. Many business owners do that.
As Science Trader said, Matthew has disclosed that he has the right and has traded systems and been open about such use.
All autotrading executed through certified C2 technology – whether done by a C2 programmer or anyone else – appears within the AutoTrading totals and stats you see on the site.
I have indeed personally autotraded various systems in the past, in order to test C2 autotrading technology (I risk personal capital, not C2 company capital). Historically, the quantities traded have been small. The broad right to trade any system at any time, carved out in the Terms of Service, is designed mostly as legal protection: we reserve the right to trade a system in order to preclude cranks and troublemakers from accusing us of doing something we would have a hard time proving we didn’t do. Even so, we don’t do it very often.
Although it makes for interesting forum posts to wonder about C2’s secret business strategy (are we really building this elaborate web site and infrastructure so that we can see everyone’s trading strategy?), the reality is pretty boring: we work 18-hour days to try to build the technology and software behind this web site, and to provide a high-quality service to traders and system developers. That doesn’t leave a whole lot of time to figure out how to game the system, or take advantage of people, or do anything nefarious.
Sounds good, thanks for the clarification.
Would you show-up as a subscriber to the system or just on the autotrade total?
I think a notice should be given to a vendor that you are trading their system or that you show-up as an official C2 subscriber on the revenue page, etc.
In general, I think it is a good idea to keep these activities on the full disclosure side of the coin. I don’t have issue with them, I just think it is better to disclose such activity to the system vendor for the sake of eliminating any conflict of interest.
Jim
