The top portion is the e-mail that I sent over to Michael and the bottom was his response. I had to break out the dictionary to look up some of the words he wrote in his reply, so if you feel stupid after reading his e-mail don't feel bad. Also I wrote the e-mail on March 22 and received a reply on March 29.
Dear Mr. Gersh,
My name is Anthony Coster. I have been with Reeltime for a couple of years now. I remember following the company from the very beginning starting with Alex Stanczyk as CEO, to Scream Networks helping develop the Scream Player, to the hiring of Beverly and yourself. I thought I knew the direction that the company was heading, to be a replacement of Netflix and the more traditional brick and mortar stores such as Blockbuster and Hollywood Video.
My question is with all the news lately including News Corp & NBC partnering up to battle YouTube and offer their own online video service, Google buying YouTube and teaming up with Viacom to distribute their content, etc, Where does this leave Reeltime?
I realize that we recently partnered up with Lionsgate and CHUM (which I don't see as an important acquisition, maybe you can inform me more about the details) but is it too little too late. I remember back in August you guys were planning on a full service launch. Here it is in March and we still have the BETA tag on the website. I know that marketing campaign was supposed to start in February according to Barry in a recent press release. Again it is the end of March and I scour the net looking for a banner or some type of advertisement to let people know that we are out there.
I know you guys have been very busy behind the scenes doing a lot that most of use do not see everyday. Can you please try to inform me to the best of your knowledge that everybody over there, including yourself is trying to get us rolling in the right direction.
Sincerely,
Anthony Coster
Anthony;
I don't know how I missed this email from you last week. It is not my
practice to make the owners of the company wait. Anyway, here is my
belated answer.
First of all, there is very little time left for the present quiet
period. We have been waiting, perhaps erroneously, but it was our
decision, for some outside events to transpire before we went ahead
with
our marketing plan. You see, with a limited budget, we believe that
we
need free media to reinforce our online marketing efforts. Experience
tells us that our conversion rates will be much higher if our ads are
backed up with free media. Promised free media has not appeared, but we
keep being told that it is just around the corner. The latest promise
is
a week to ten days into April. That is the last wait we will stand for,
but at the present time, we are holding to our plan, and waiting.
Your second concern has also been ours, i.e. another strong player will
arise to cover our space. Marketing 101 is that you can not beat the
market leader at his own game. You must garner strength at a part of
his
market that he does not want. Once strength is gathered, the market
leader will turn on you, but by that time, hopefully, you will have
become strong enough to take him on in his own space.
The good news is that none of the strong actors has appeared in our
space. We are the point click and watch, DVD quality streaming
provider.
Who else is in that space? Downloads and little windows are the game
today. Streaming players are all fielded by smaller companies, and/or
require bandwidth twice what our player does.
That's not to say that we do not feel the heat of Apple's breath on our
necks. Netflix may have bungled his streaming effort, but we can not
expect him to never get it right. Time is of the essence. But we have
still used the extra time to good effect. We are miles ahead from where
we were in website search functionality, and we have a bunch more
content up, and more coming on at a faster and faster rate.
Not to be sanguine about it, but all we need to do is establish
ourselves, and acquire subscribers at an ever increasing rate. Our
second quarter filings had better show strong subscriber growth. These
are serious concerns, and we are addressing them. But we are a long
long
way from anything approaching rolling in the wrong direction. Maybe
things are not coming at your preferred schedule, or maybe even ours.
But we are looking healthy, and nothing bad has happened. The Chum
acquisition, which you minimize, is so much bigger than Lionsgate that
it's not even funny. "Too little, too late?" Nothing could be further
from the truth. "to be a replacement of Netflix and the more
traditional
brick and mortar stores such as Blockbuster and Hollywood Video?" Not
until we have our ducks in a row. It's a nice thought, and is a part of
the plan, but we are not ready to take those big boys on. Yet.
Michael
