Shares of Demand Media closed its first day of trading at $22.65.
As you know by now, the company’s stock went public at $17 a share, its first trade was at $23.50 and traded as high as $25.
So the question now becomes at what price would will the stock of Demand Media be trading at the same time next year?
Today is January 25th so lets call for the closing price as of Friday Janauary 27, 2012.
You can make your selection at the poll on the right and leave any comments below including any exact price picks if you want bragging rights.
I personally don’t see the upside to Demand Media.
This is a company that has not turned a profit in 2+ years (-$33M since 2009) who relies heavily on low quality content and search engine indexing for revenue.
I voted $10 – $20, but I think it will be on the lower side of that.
Brad
agree with brad, on the downside of demand media,
it’s just a low quality content farm,
the stock will be worth under $1 a year from now, better buy some PUT options folks
Chose $5-$10.
I’d be short as well. I’ll say $17.35
My guestimate is $10-$20 (lower side) , for the same reasons as Brad mentioned, Google could prove to be a nightmare for them going forward.
I really love the new look of demand medias website though…sweeet !
Best of luck to them
4 to 6 USD
which it really doesn’t matter, tipically execs will cash in pronto a la Marchex…
Google is not going to give them preferential treatment whatsoever, they take search results very seriously perhaps tired of Bing mocking them on USA TV….
In addition who is to say that a serious challenge might be presented in the form of a
” content ‘ freelancers marketplace” with no middle man
*********
This can not be good:
http://www.thedomains.com/2010/11/12/blekko-calls-out-google-bing-for-indexing-spam-demands-parked-domains-mini-sites-spam/
I also read somwhere that a large percentage of those minisites(8%?) are of the “cheap viagra” type…
I bought and sold DMD 3 times today, making money every time. I give it about another week before we start to see our first drop back down to around $19 or so. Then by this time next year, $7.00. If they get rid of all of the content BS stuff, they would probably be much more profitable just with the registrar/hosting business. It’s worth $7.00 a share in my opinion.
Remember arbitrage? Overnight, Demand Media could be out of business.
Didn’t you just report that Google had it in for minisites and junk content?…
$5-$10 next year this time … it looks more like a pump and dump stock after Google’s announcement.
Dc
eHow is only a portion of the company, they still own Enom.com which is the 2nd largest registrar in the world
eNom or not!
It will depend on IF Wall Street still likes …
the gamble of Internet Projects at that time …
IF not … it will like .Co by then …
Bargain Basement stuff … eNom or not!
@MHB
Enom might be the second largest registar in the world by number of domain registrations, but Demand Media itself has declared losses of $30M in 2009 and $3M+ in 2010. At some point even tech companies need to make profits to justify their market cap.
Brad
Hello Mike,
There is an old saying or two on the 2nd comment.
1. He who owns the land, controls the deal!
2. DOMAINERS own the leases NOT the registrar!
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
I think the DMD will be atleast worth 50 usd per share. Why? Because other than domainers, stock holders, they like in invest in online stuff.
Knowing that DMD has the potential and owns many properties, things will be good for DMD unless they do some bizaire move like halvarez etc. But other than that, they will be in good shape.
Between $8.00 and $9,00 …stock is way over-priced now …and earnings will be average at best…many investors will bail when earnings don’t impress.
It’s up to the Google,
Our Master!
Insiders will be cashed out laughing to the bank and CEO will form another venture.
Short this. I’m predicting 10 to 13 range
Can’t wait see what godadddy does. That’s the one be inn.
How does one find the balance sheet and income statements (or equivalent infos) for Demand Media?
I checked their site and there is no 10-Q, or 10-K (quarter or annual financial statements), which makes sense since they IPO… but how does an investor get the infos on their revenues?
Found it:
seems to be the S-1 form
http://services.corporate-ir.net/SEC/Document.Service?id=P3VybD1odHRwOi8vaXIuaW50Lndlc3RsYXdidXNpbmVzcy5jb20vZG9jdW1lbnQvdjEvMDAwMTA0NzQ2OS0xMS0wMDAyNTgvZG9jL0RFTUFORE1FRElBSU5DLnBkZiZ0eXBlPTImZm49REVNQU5ETUVESUFJTkMucGRm
@Brad,
In my opinion, moving writers from eHow to Demand Studios influenced article submissions. Now writers have to choose articles on paid topics, and or revenue share. Writers used to crank out the articles, which increased traffic and generated good revenue. IMO, the format change may have some role in the loss.
(IMO) When the company moved writers to Demand Studios, the copy editors were too strict with rejecting submissions. I wrote a few popular articles on Ehow. In any case, I never produced another article after the transition.
My domain valuation “how to” article was rejected 3 times based on having too much content, which they required the word limit to be capped off at 400. eHow articles didn’t have a word limit.
The stock may increase because there will be interest for article content for SEO purposes. Having ownership of a major registrar is a plus too. $48 per share.
$42-$46/share
– TBC
“eHow is only a portion of the company, they still own Enom.com which is the 2nd largest registrar in the world”
But is being so big such a good thing? The largest registrar in the world has’nt got a history of making profits either.
Is building big and bailing out the only way they know to make a real profit?
Google will keep them in the game for a while (enough people link to ehow.com articles that it would break the core of the google algo to change it).
Although, google has filtered yellow pages and other big content play sites in the past…so I’m bearish on the content/domaining farm model, but ultimately as gTLD dilutes the value of the .com, and as direct navigation is never coming back to the levels it was…how can anyone think their assets shall meet the aggressive profit demand of wallstreet?
Bought and sold DMD several times, too. The easiest money DMD ever gave me! I predict DMD stock will be between $3 – $5 this time next year.
from TechCrunch…
It happens, sometimes. I have what I think would be a fun idea for a joke, only to discover – often half-way through writing it – that someone else has already beaten me to the punch(line).
Today, for example, I wanted to write something about Demand Media’s IPO. Given the hideously cynical nature of their business, the dreck that passes for their content, the appallingly low rates paid to their writers (who have – apparently – created $1.5bn worth of value) and now a plagiarism scandal (wait – they don’t even write their own dreck?), it’s clear that Demand is a hideous company. In fact it’s absolutely no exaggeration whatsoever to say that buying shares in them is the web content equivalent of buying stock in Nestle Africa or stocking up on Fanta in the 1940s. I mean, yes, there’s clearly money to be made, but I wouldn’t want that kind of karma.
Still, the fact remains that – as I wrote in my Sunday column last week – Demand’s brand of SEO horseshit represents the future of web content. And with that in mind, I thought it might be a lark to put together a mock up of what that particular dystopian hellscape might look like. Say, the front page of NYTimes.com, as written by Demand.
Imagine, then, my disappointment on discovering that Danny Sullivan had beaten me to it. Here’s his Demanded-up version of the New York Times’ online edition, with every headline turned into an annoyingly specific, Google-friendly question…
http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/27/how-can-i-find-out-for-whom-the-bell-tolls/
Demand Media stock now at $15.85 ….IPO price was $17.00
Also, stock is down over 45% from its high of $27.38 ….. looking at stock chart and applying technical analysis indicates some additional downward momentum is likely
I wish I had seen this before while the poll was still open….
I have often stated to others, “Demand Media has no value other than poorly written articles, often undecipherable in meaning, loaded with keywords to obtain good positioning in Google Search Results. The web traffic they receive from Google results in pay per click ad revenue and if traffic or, ECPM drops significantly they will suffer significant drops in revenue.”
Well that has come true!
The Google Panda Update has hit them hard and they have suffered a significant reduction in traffic.
My initial estimate on the value of demand media stock since day one of their seeking an IPO was that the stock was worthless and there was nothing at Demand Media that has any tangible value, “The Demand Media Stock will be delisted and trading as a penny stock within one year of the initial offer.”
My initial estimate on the value of demand media stock since day one of their seeking an IPO was that the stock was worthless and there was nothing at Demand Media that has any tangible value,
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Sounds extreme, you would value enom.com at $0?
Down to $9.56 today, I wonder if this is going to blow everyones predictions out of the water, even Domo’s?
I’ll stand by my July 19th estimate which is the same I would have made at the original IPO…
It will be delisted and trading as a penny stock…
Trading today in the $8.70’s back up to $9.08 at the closing bell…
It’s ugly and they are bleeding to death….
Also say delisted and trading as a penny stock.
Demand Studios is the worst place to write online if you’re a freelance writer. They treat their writers like garbage, fire at will, and hire ‘editors’ who are barely shy of moron status.
When they go belly up, which they will, I’ll be the first one screaming with laughter.