The following excerpt is from an interesting article by Will Ashworth, and printed in the May 21, 2012 edition of InvestorPlace.com. He points our some fascinating stuff about Ancestry.com.
A week ago today, the shares of Ancestry.com (NASDAQ:ACOM) dropped 14% on the news NBC was cancelling Who Do You Think You Are, produced by former Friends star Lisa Kudrow and featuring advertising and product integration by the company. The show generated an increase in new subscribers in both the first and second seasons and most likely in the third as well, although it’s too early to tell.
So, the cancelation is a costly blow for sure, but it’s not the end of the world, even though investors have knocked Ancestry’s stock down 42% in the past 52 weeks. To the naysayers, I say “thank you.” Opportunities like this don’t come along very often. Don’t let it go by.
Ancestry’s largest shareholder is Spectrum Equity with 30.1% of the outstanding shares. Spectrum invests in the information economy. Since 1994, it’s raised six private equity funds totaling $4.7 billion. In October 2007, it along with some other partners, acquired Ancestry.com for $355 million with Spectrum investing $138.6 million of its own cash in the deal.
They have a good idea, but they keep expanding the sale-able products instead of fixing the main program that keeps adding already cited sources…without the operator punching it in. Problem solving, at least with users in my area, consists of getting on the phone and working whatever buttons it takes to get a real person on the line and don’t hang up until they realize what the problem you’re dealing with is understood and you get an answer for how to fix it…otherwise it’s a canned answer that rarely applies to the question. And the books are useless for figuring out how to take advantage of what Ancestry has to offer…unless you know exactly how to ask the question as the index is useless. Frustrating to have a great research tool that no one fixes. I’m using another program for my tree now and using the Ancestry site for the research…as I’ve lost so many hours…more like months…repairing distortions, lost info, shuffled info and such caused by the program. My family isn’t getting any younger and I can’t afford to rebuild the tree several times a year. Fix the program, treat the TV watchers like they are more than 8 year olds and watch the interest rise! Please!?