Approximately 30,000 elite members paying 50$ make it around 1.5 million. Baron doesn't get anything like this. Roughly Baron gets 25k pm in advertising revenue, so that is 300k per year. Say, BMT and ET get same money in Ad revenue per year - anyway it is inconsequential compared to 1.5 million above that Big Mike has got over the last 3 yrs. Information on ET's Ad revenue can be estimated from this thread. My guess is Big Mike is making even more in Ad revenue and definitely he is taking "kick-backs" from the vendors. http://www.elitetrader.com/ad/mediakit.cfm _________________________________________________ To Whimsey - I just wanted to make a broader point with this thread. I agree both the sites have advantages and disadvantages and internet is big enough to accommodate both of them. We can freely discuss what all is wrong with ET and its sponsors here on this board itself. But it is impossible to discuss what is wrong with BMT and their sponsors on that board, because he will ban you and your 50$ will disappear. Anyways - I think I have made my point. If Big Mike changes his attitude based on my "rants" here, it will be good for him and his business only. Mind you that neither Baron nor Big Mike is going to give me a cut from their profits. LOL!! Finally, I guess one line to summarize my view as of Feb 7, 2013 is : "BMT is way overhyped and misleading and has less useful information with less successful trading crowd Vs ET as of today".
OK, I had to log in, because I don't like bad accounting... First, how do you know the paying membership? The site says 37K members, paying could be half of it or even less. Second, that is lifelong payment, so you have to divide it with 3, because that's how long BMT has been around. (and it was $20 two years ago) Third, Big Mike himself said (yes, there is a parallel thread on BMT) he wished he would make as much as Baron, so that pretty much settles the question who makes more... Forth, Baron makes 3-4 times more than your estimate, remember he thought the 6 million offer for the site was too low...(sidenote: profitability =/= quality) Fifth, no business like to get a direct comparison to its competitor, so what is the point of this thread? (beside being an advertisement for BMT) Sixth, why can't they just be what want to be and everybody decides for themselves which site to visit? Seventh, why not use BOTH???
Wow, never thought I would agree with 100% of anything you posted. But here we are. Yes, Baron makes far more then BMT. Also, Baron is in bed with all his vendors. There have been numerous examples on this site where the first amendment only applies to people ranting against vendors who are NOT sponsors here. Once they pay up, vendor threads are heavily moderated. I don't have a problem with this, just saying. Also I get spam from Baron from time to time hocing some FX bucketshop or whatever. I honestly don't understand the point of this thread. Arguing over which message board is better? Really? And how is BMT overhyped? They are NEVER mentioned on this site. These points are directed at gmst btw.
Thanks for chiming in My estimate is 80% of all members are paying members. One quick way to see that is when you open bmt homepage, on the bottom of the page - you can click to show all the guys who visited in last 24 hrs. It will list all the guys there - Elite guys are in yellow - A quick glance shows that almost 80-90% are in yellow. However, this is all possible that say only 25k are active instead of 37k and so out of those 25k, around 20k are paid guys. Seriously, why will Big Mike say that he makes more than Baron? His site is already being questioned for not holding to our rights under First Amendment, playing upto vendors etc. etc.. Why at this crisis time will he say that he making a lot of money? If anything, he will play the underdog. I am not aware for 6 million offer for ET. Can you please post a link where this was discussed? I will also be interested in knowing how you think Baron makes 3-4 times than my estimate? What other revenue sources other than Ad sponsors? BMT is like an overhyped stock and I am an activist - Think Carl Icahn. So, based on my thread, either Big Mike changes his attitude and becomes more open to criticism on his site or else - I hope to bring to the fore overvalued and overhyped current state of his site. To some degree, its like shorting an overvalued stock.
Again, what hype ?? Besides I'm afraid your style in this thread is reflecting badly on ET. An activist, Icahn ?!? Please anyone, give back the boy his milk .
ET started a decade ago and BMT only 3 yrs ago. However, BMT has taken away a lot of market share. Its your ignorance that you have not heard about them - or maybe you are a successful trader To you and Maverick: This thread is cutting across both ways. There is a parallel thread going on at BMT. Because BMT primarily caters to newbies, a lot of folks there would not have heard about ET before - OR most of the times, they are just told the stories of how bad ET is and how good BMT is. Now, for the first time, ET is being discussed on BMT!!! Before this, Mike used to make sure that noone at his forum could discuss any of his competitors openly - especially ET. So, in some sense - this thread has already forced Big Mike to open up. Whatever comes out of this thread or if nothing comes out of this thread - I consider this thread already a success in that it has forced Big Mike to amend his ways - in which he was suppressing our first amendment right.
You don't have to agree with all my points This is possible only on ET. On BMT, everyone says "yes, yes"! My style in this thread might hamper my online reputation, what does it has to do with reputation of ET? I do not represent ET in any way. I am a member of both the sites. Just that I can't express anything openly on other site, can't question anyone on other site. Peace.