derek abdinor

I find the standard way of explaining XBRL using the barcode analogy doesn’t quite work for me. A barcode is a complex display with arguably more information encoded on that “tag” than exists for the object label itself.

I think of financial statements locked in a PDF or book as a flock of birds an ornithologist is studying. They all congregate at the right time, have some structure to their flight plan, and unnervingly know how to calculate themselves to arrive at a destination

The guy studying the evolution of the flock would do well to tag each bird with details like name/gender/status etc. Then individual movements would allow for greater analysis and data would be accurate and clean.

After deciding on how you’ll tag them, you attach the tag and thus begins the filing flying process…

Dealstream Securities traded derivatives on the JSE Securities Exchange, specialising in listed single stock futures and CFDs. Alleged problems with its trade in CFDs led to them running out of liquidity with its clearing memberand they were pulled off the markets a few days ago.

Assuming that the investment/trading community is probably griping about this topic in the Bull Run or bottling it all up is not the case anymore. Social media is mostly cheap and free, and it makes the information that only a few people have (in this instance, that offices were locked up) go viral in a short space of time.

I listened to the guys who set up TroubleAtDealStream on the radio last night. They were angry about their margins losses through the sudden disappearance of Dealstream, so they sent each other SMS messages and got together. Some of them decided to set up the website at the above address. Sure its not a blog or wiki in the true sense, but its a really helpful resource and embodies collaboration and many-to-many publishing. See also Dealstreamfraud

What do we take away from this? The investment community realises that publishing and making their voices heard is easy, too easy if you’re using existing websites or properties. Does your IR deparment have a social media strategy?

Appendix:
Other examples of chatter around Dealstream:

Twitter mentions
Fin24 blogs
Forums
Comments on news articles (Moneyweb)
Technorati tags
Customer forums (HelloPeter)