And the price just carries on dropping...

As I write the share price is now a third below the level of the share placing (18p) only months ago.

So Blinkx placed shares at 18p (and AUT ended up with over 50% of those shares) - and the price headed south.

Credit Agricole bought a 3.1% stake at (I'm guessing) around the 14p mark - and the price kept on dropping.

As I write the bid/offer is 11.5/12p - down 1p today and looking like it's heading even further south. That price is roughly 75% below the IPO level of 3(ish) years ago - and in the time I've been invested - more than two years now - it has never breached 30p (and in the past year I don't think it has breached 20p).

Of course markets around the world are tanking at the moment over the fears of a Greek debt default - my trading screen is a sea of red at the moment - but even allowing for that, I can't help thinking that if Blinxk hadn't completely bolloxed their PR/newsflow almost since they came to market, that the price would have been much much higher before this widespread sell-off started and they would be better weathering the storm. The next set of figures are due in less than two weeks now (19th May), and there is not the slightest sign of interest from the markets; even the usual T10 brigade have failed to materialise in anticipation of a run-up in the share price to results.

And of course it's notable - once again - that there is one party which isn't buying shares at any price - the company's own management team. They'll raise money by placing shares at 18p, and I imagine they were happy (having seen Lloyds sell their stake) to see Credit Agricole come on board at c14p - but Chandratillake and the rest of the Blinxk team haven't bought at either of those prices, or indeed this current price, or even when it hit 8.5p 18 months or so ago.

Why is that? I think shareholders are quite entitled to wonder aloud about why Blinkx management doesn't have enough confidence in their own company's future to buy shares in the open market with their own money. Shareholders are quite entitled to be concerned that there are now only about 2 years left of the exclusive license to Autonomy's technology (which I quite accept Blinxk has built on in that time) - doubts over what happens when the exclusive license runs out is only one reason, I suspect, why the markets are so disinterested in Blinkx.

The company needs to release a comprehensive trading update with the next set of figures. We need to know - we are entitled to know, goddamit! - exactly what the hell is going on with Pinball, why Transaction Hijacjking was shelved and what plans there are for its future monetisation, why Blinkx keeps releasing more and more products (SmartShopper, Deal-Scout, Blinkx music) without then doing anything with them - in short I think shareholders are entitled to know everything which affects the value of their stake in this company.

And if we don't get it, I think at the next opportunity shareholders should vote to get rid of Chandratillake and the rest of the sorry crew, and replace them with a new management team who gives a damn about their shareholders and doesn't just act like the R&D department for a certain large, Cambridge-based search technology company...