Communicate.com Inc. dba Live Current Media Inc. (OTCBB:CMNN), a media company built around content and commerce destinations, announced today that Geoffrey Hampson, Chairman and CEO, will present at the inaugural LD MICRO Conference on Tuesday, April 29, 2008 at 1:30 p.m. PST on Track 1 at The Omni Los Angeles at California Plaza. Hampson will conduct a breakout session immediately following the presentation and will meet with institutional investors to discuss the company’s business strategy and market opportunity for developing subject-specific DestinationHubs™, from its premium online properties.

LD MICRO publishes a by-invitation only newsletter focusing on discovering undervalued companies in the micro cap space overlooked by institutional investors. Since 2002, the firm has published an annual list of recommended stocks as well as comprehensive reports on select names throughout the year. The conference will include a select list of 60 companies presenting and will have over 250 institutional and private investors in attendance.

Please read the whole press release HERE.

The IPL and BCCI are the focus of a Brandchannel.com report on the huge and lucrative Indian cricket market:

Cricket's branding is being repositioned by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), through the Indian Premier League (IPL).

It’s the most in-your-face sports commercialization and branding exercise to date, where every team—down to individual players—has the ability to be branded and utilized as an endorsement vehicle to sell products from FMCG (fast moving consumer goods), and apparel and electronics, to telecom and banking services. Moreover, corporations like Reliance Industries and United Breweries Ltd. that have bought IPL teams, will use the league and the players to promote their brands. By capitalizing on the vast numbers of fans and their high level of enthusiasm for the game, the new campaign is comparable in size and scope to the National Football League (NFL) in North America and the English Premier League for football (soccer, for US readers).

Please read the whole thing HERE.

The Hindustan Times, India's largest English language newspaper, interviewed Live Current Media CEO Geoff Hampson for a piece titled, "They don't know cricket, but know their business":

Geoffrey Hampson doesn’t know much of the rules of cricket. But, as the CEO of the Vancouver-based Live Current Media group, he pulled off a major coup by upstaging many mainstream media companies and bagging a $50 million (Rs 200 crore) contract to host the IPL’s online content.

Read the whole article HERE (the e-paper version, with picture, can be seen HERE)

In my prior post, I mentioned that I would link to some media coverage of our agreement with IPL and BCCI. Here are some that you might want to read in full, from two of the top internet technology & finance sites:

 click HERE

 click HERE

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Live Current Media Inc. and DLF Indian Premier League to Launch IPLT20.com as Official IPL Online Destination

Exclusive Ten-year Partnership with IPL and BCCI Represents First Steps Toward Bringing Global Cricket Fans Closer to the Game Through In-Depth, Interactive Experiences

Read the whole press release HERE.

This is clearly a milestone event for Live Current. Cricket is one of the world's most popular sports, and in India, the world's largest cricket nation, the IPL and the BCCI are king. Blue chips are spending huge amounts of ad dollars to reach India's massive, passionate cricket audience.

There has been a substantial amount of media coverage about the Live Current-IPL/BCCI agreement, and we'll post some links at the blog a bit later.

In the Apr. 14 issue of Newsweek, Steven Levy writes about Auctomatic and Live Current's acquisition of that company. Please read, "Take the Millions Now."

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UPDATE, April 9th: The article was published in today's Washington Post, under a different headline. 

Internet Retailer has a cool interview with Live Current's Jonathan Ehrlich:

Communicate.com Inc. is undergoing a significant makeover. It is in the final stages of an acquisition, it recently changed its name and it’s stepping up efforts to build a network of e-commerce and information sites to accompany the hundreds of domains it owns...

Now, the company is looking to turn that prime real estate into profit by building destination sites for its domains under a new brand, Live Current Media Inc. Late last month it announced it will buy e-commerce auction software firm Auctomatic for $5 million to help. Live Current says it plans to use much of Auctomatic’s technology and staff to create and manage the web sites.

“The domain name business was a low-cost way to get access to consumers, and now we want to bring products and value to those consumers,” says Jonathan Ehrlich, chief operating officer and president of Live Current Media... Ehrlich says creating informational and revenue-generating sites is now a top priority. “This is kind of like our coming-out party,” Ehrlich says. “We are now totally focused on getting users to spend as much time at our sites as possible,” Ehrlich says.

Read the full piece HERE.

Read the press release HERE 

Read the annual report HERE

From the blog of Chris Sacca, a venture investor, company advisor and former Head of Special Initiatives at Google:

Thank You, Auctomatic

Today, my portfolio company Auctomatic announced their sale to Canadian acquirer Live Current Media. There are so many things I could type after working with the founders this past year, countless lessons learned. However, typing from the back of a cab in Los Angeles on an EV-DO connection, I figure I have sufficient battery for just one real message -- thank you...

Please view the full post at Chris' blog, 'What is Left?' to hear this Valley insider's perspective on the very talented Auctomatic team.

A new company and an acquisition on the same day. For someone in the field of investor relations, could it get any better? This is feels a bit like my first day at the company more than 4 years ago, but even more exciting this time.

I truly believe that Live Current will be a company that will inspire and excite its customers, shareholders and employees.

I look forward to editing and contributing at the new Live Current blog, at which you will see contributions from an array of key Live Current / Auctomatic players, including Geoffrey Hampson, Jonathan Ehrlich, Becky Porter, Mark Melville, Alison Twiner, Patrick Collison, Harjeet Taggar and Phil Kast.

Things are obviously getting very interesting here, so please check-in at this blog often.