David Jackson

http://seekingalpha.com/by/author/david-jackson/

396 Comments

    • Currency ETFs and ETNs [view article]
      Thank you! We've updated the list to include:
      Market Vectors Double Long Euro ETN (URR)
      Market Vectors Double Short Euro ETN (DRR)       Aug 20 01:57 AM
    • What's Changed on the Seeking Alpha Website? [view article]
      Hi DaveW,

      It was a real surprise to find out how many people there are who, as you put it, 'have no problem sifting through the 100+ articles that you put online in the early a.m. hours'.

      One tech guy in Aruba? I wish we could manage with that (it would be a lot cheaper!). We have a fantastically talented team of 16 tech people, including design, CSS and programmers. Over the next year, you should see some interesting new things as a result...

      BTW, on a personal note, I particularly appreciated the care and thoughtfulness you put into your comments here. Thank you.       Aug 18 03:40 PM
    • What's Changed on the Seeking Alpha Website? [view article]
      Sorry about the hiatus -- we're actually working hard to implement the feedback we received from you. It's not as trivial as it seems, because we're in the middle of a series of improvements to the site, and we do extensive testing on any code changes to ensure that they are robust enough for the traffic we get (about 3.5 MM uniques a month currently). Having said that, I realize that you're waiting for us to restore the "most recent articles" view, and we'll do that as quickly as we can. In the meantime, I really appreciate your patience, as I know you're waiting for this.

      I'd resolved in my earlier replies to your comments to listen to your feedback and not use this as an opportunity to tell you the rationale behind some of the current and upcoming changes. But it now strikes me that those who commented here might welcome more explanation. Here goes.

      The core navigation challenge we're facing is that the number of articles we publish each day continues to rise sharply over time. Despite the fact that we reject a large number of articles, we've seen a dramatic increase in the number of articles submitted to us, including by hedge fund managers and others who aren't publishing elsewhere. Excluding conference call transcripts, we're now publishing 150-200 articles each weekday, and we expect the number to continue to rise.

      How do you make that volume of articles navigable? We publish many articles before the market opens, so while there's a constant flow of new articles during the day, there's a substantial mass of new articles first thing in the morning. That poses two challenges: (1) Many (most?) users don't want to browse through pages of unsorted headlines, and as a result many people told us that the old home page was 'overwhelming' or 'unmanageable'. (2) Contributing authors don't get exposure on our home page because their headline rolls off the home page before the market opens, or even if it's published later in the day, it's quickly superceded by newer headlines. As a result of these two challenges, we realized that a simple reverse chronological list of articles will become more and more unsatisfactory for many of our readers as the number of articles we publish continues to grow.

      To help people find what's useful for them, we have to offer a great browsing experience and also more personalization. Personalization is the easy part: watchlists. The big decision there was to allow readers to track authors as well as stocks, and to make it really easy to add stocks and authors to your watchlist as you browse the site.

      Getting "browsing" right is harder. The stats tell us that the current navigation in the top bar dropdowns isn't working. So we've designed a set of dashboards that allow you to see a large number of headlines grouped by themes. Very soon, you'll see us replace the top bar drop-down navigation with clickable links to these dashboards, from which it's really easy to find the individual themes, sectors or topics in more depth. The Sector Dashboard is the first of these dashboards. But don't despair if you don't browse by sector -- there are others that offer different views that we'll show you soon.

      An important result of these dashbaords is that headlines stay in view for much longer, instead of rolling off the home page as soon as new articles come along.

      Your feedback has been enormously helpful in a few ways. First, you've said loud and clear that even if we dramatically improve the overall navigation with a series of dashboards, you *still* want a reverse chronological view. So we're providing a clear link to that from the home page. Second, we'd assumed that to make the dashboards as scan-able as possible, we should omit author names; but you've told us again that author names really matter. So we're restoring them. And third, you've told us that the home page doesn't feel alive enough without the constant bubbling of new headlines in real time.

      Thank you again for your help, input and patience.
      David       Aug 18 02:23 PM
    • What's Changed on the Seeking Alpha Website? [view article]
      Guys,

      There are some weird theories floating round here: our goal is simply to build the best possible service for our readers. We're not trying to "get you" to do anything (and certainly not to register or give us information for our own purposes). We want to give the different groups what's best for them.

      According to what you've written, you don't have a group of stocks or portfolio that you track, you're not interested in following particular authors, you're not interested in news about the market, and you don't want any sort of filtering or sorting of articles. That makes you an important group of readers for us, but a minority.

      We got extensive feedback on the old home page, and found that as the volume of articles we publish rises, a large group of readers were alienated by the feeling that the old home page was "overwhelming&quo... They wanted more help identifying the most topical or best articles. That, for example, is why we've given greater prominence to "Most Popular" on the new home page.

      Similarly, an extremely large group wants to be able to track our articles on stocks or authors they follow in a watchlist or with email alerts. To provide that most effectively, we need to be able to store their choices, and that means requiring registration.

      The good news is that we can cater to every group. We'll provide a home page for you guys that shows you a stream of articles with author names in reverse chronological order. That stream can be entirely unfiltered and can show author names as it did before.

      Because this was the functionality that we removed, it's not surprising that this is the focus of all the comments here. And that's exactly why we invited feedback: our testing and analysis of our site stats can show what's best for the majority of our users, but can miss the needs of an important groups.

      That's why your feedback is helpful and important, and allows us to provide what you'd like.       Aug 14 02:48 AM
    • What's Changed on the Seeking Alpha Website? [view article]
      Thanks for all your suggestions, everyone. One quick point: all your comments (without exception) have focused on the single issue of the change to the number of articles displayed on the home page. It would be helpful for us to get some feedback from you on the other changes:

      1. Have you tried setting up a watchlist? Have you noticed you can add authors to the watchlist from any article page (see the "Add to watchlist" button below my photo on this page), and stocks from any quote page? How is the experience generally?

      2. Many of our readers are heavy users of transcripts; I don't know if that applies to any of the readers who have commented here. But even if not, have you tried the new transcripts center, and in particular the search?

      3. What do you think of the new "Quick Links" section below the search box (see top right of this page)?

      4. Any recommendations for changes to the Market Currents home page, which you can reach via the "Breaking News" quick link?

      Thanks again for your feedback and suggestions.       Aug 13 04:04 PM
    • What's Changed on the Seeking Alpha Website? [view article]
      The key recommendations from all your comments seem to be:

      1. Provide a view whereby you can see a stream of all the latest articles, unsorted by sector and showing author names, and pagination so you can go back in time. Make sure that page is easily accessible from the home page.

      2. Add authors to the sector dashboard.

      Is this correct?
       Aug 13 12:07 PM
    • What's Changed on the Seeking Alpha Website? [view article]
      Alan, don't worry about being blunt -- we actually care what our readers say and want, which is why I invited feedback.

      Can you provide more color on the sector dashboard -- why is it less helpful to you than wading through a (reverse) chronological stream of unsorted articles?       Aug 12 07:55 PM
    • What's Changed on the Seeking Alpha Website? [view article]
      Thanks for the latest round of feedback...

      The Realist - couple of questions for you:

      (1) What are your thoughts on the Sector Dashboard? seekingalpha.com/secto... What we've tried to do here is show you all the latest articles, but in a more digestible form than having to wade through a stream of undifferentiated articles.

      (2) You wrote: "I also miss the author's name as over time I have come to recognize the ones I like the most." Have you tried setting up a watchlist with your favorite authors? If so, how useful is it?       Aug 12 06:57 PM
    • What's Changed on the Seeking Alpha Website? [view article]
      Hi David,

      Thanks again for your feedback -- it's really appreciated. On watchlists, we've got 2 views:

      Abbreviated watchlist on the home page
      Full watchlist view when you click on the link in the "Quick Links" box below the search box on any page.

      If you try the latter, will you let me know if it helps?
       Aug 12 03:15 PM
    • What's Changed on the Seeking Alpha Website? [view article]
      DaveW, that's part of what we're completing over the next week -- we're going to provide much better navigation for non-sectors -- eg. articles about the overall market, about foreign markets, and about gold, currencies, commodities etc.

      In the meantime, you can find those articles under their respective sectors.

      Did you try setting up a watchlist for the authors you most like? If so, how was it?       Aug 12 02:58 PM
    • What's Changed on the Seeking Alpha Website? [view article]
      Guys, thank you for your feedback. This is very helpful. We'll take a careful look at the issues you raise. It sounds as though providing a page that just shows a stream of all the articles in reverse chronological order, with author names as well, would work well. Is that right?

      Some questions:
      Do you find the "Quick Links" below the search box useful?
      Any thoughts on Market Currents (you can find it via the quick link to "Breaking News")
      Have you set up watchlists? Any feedback on them?       Aug 12 02:47 PM
    • Amazon/Overstock Gamble May Pay Off [view article]
      Excellent article. Jul 28 01:20 AM
    • Key Datapoints on Internet Advertising and Content from The New York Times Co. [view article]
      billsoldest, thanks for reminding me that this contains a lot of jargon!

      Content vertical = A section of a website devoted to a particular topic. That allows you to target advertisers relevant to that topic.

      CPM = Price per thousand ad impressions. That's the standard way of quoting prices for Internet banner ads. (Google text ads, in contrast, are "price per click", namely the advertiser pays a fixed price per click on the ad.)

      Cannibalization (in this context) means that although the price of remnant ad inventory (ie. the price of ads on undifferentiated pages that haven't been sold by the companies direct sales force) has fallen, that hasn't impacted the price the company is getting for the banner ads in premium slots.

      Hope that helps.       Jul 24 11:34 AM
    • Amazon.com, Inc. F2Q08 (Qtr End 06/30/08) Earnings Call Transcript [view article]
      FYI: "EGM" is Electronics & Other General Merchandise. Jul 24 01:35 AM
    • Five Key Quotes from Apple's Conference Call [view article]
      optionsgirl, the market took the issue of Steve Jobs' health very seriously; I'm not agreeing with that, but hopefully providing some info on why. Jobs turned Apple around -- it was only when he returned to run Apple that it started its real recovery. So the Street views him as a key element in Apple's success, similar to Mark Hurd at HP and Jim Cramer's involvement with TheStreet.com. Jul 22 04:35 PM
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