Social Networking and Finance: Using the Internet to Meet Market Demands

The world of finance is ever-changing. In a society driven by information and an “Early bird get’s the worm attitude”, there is a need to combine financial advising resources with social networking. From tweets to status updates, news can travel at the speed of light. Financial is just as viral and just as relevant. With Smartphones and WiFi Hot-spots at every corner, these updates should be only a click (or touch) away.Many sites have been integrating social networking into their portfolio management and market analysis tools. CNN Money includes an innovative chart that updates not only prices, but live news feeds, earnings and company press releases. Sites such as FinPortfolio.com and mint.com, include the ability to follow other user portfolios and gain access to collective intelligence within stock charts and other visualized information sources.The idea of social networking includes sharing of previous ideas, sources and connections which, otherwise, may have been unavailable without having the proper contact. The internet has brought business up to speed and users are able to take advantage of these connections. Combine this with finance and experts willing to share in their experiences and analyzing your portfolio could be simple as a click of the mouse. For example, FinPortfolio.com users can analyze other user portfolios and create one of their own based on personal budgets and more reasonable constraints. User experience is key in buying and selling anything. In many cases, whether to buy or sell is based wholly on reputation and not value.Analyst opinion has always played an important role in whether or not an asset is a good buy/sell. Opinions often take shape of both positive and negative results. In most cases, you can find information from both sides of the spectrum. Social networking combined with financial opinions allows users to gain access to a broad range of information and view a more objective and consistent public views rather than one-sided or biased press releases.In any case, more and more financial sites are turn more into social networking search engines. Not only can you find public information about specific assets or companies, but also view public views, personal experiences and ratings analysis from thousands of sources instead of a few. To catch up with investment firms, the little guy can now access most of these sites free of charge and have access to a wealth of information without the hassle of searching or paying for it.