AOL Gets Serious About Finance
Michael Arrington
31 comments »
AOL Money and Finance has been around almost as long as AOL itself - forever in Internet time. But they’ve sat on the sidelines as Yahoo periodically updated their own property, and Google launched their own competing site.
Even though AOL has not kept its service as cutting edge as the competition, they still move a lot of traffic. Recent worldwide comscore stats put them third behind Yahoo Finance and MSN Money with 12.2 million unique monthly visits. That’s well ahead of CNN Money (6.7 m) and, surprisingly, Google Finance, which is dead last among the large finance sites (1.5 m).
Third place doesn’t suit AOL’s SVP Money and Finance Martin Moe very well, and his team is making a run for more users. This morning at 6 am EST they are launching an entirely redone AOL Finance - complete redesign and a lot of new features. Moe gave me a demo of the new site and explained some of the key features. I’ve put the old site next to the new site for an example company (Walmart) - see the image here.
News Via Relegence
First of all, they’ve tightly integrated financial news about companies from Relegence, a company AOL acquired last year. This is the first time Relegence has been integrated into an AOL property, Moe says.
The result is a deep browsing engine for news related to the company you are viewing. Blogs, analyst reports, press releases, etc. can be added or removed to filter results. And users can also choose to have news included that merely mentions the company v. articles that really focus on that particular business - see the slider in the image to the right.
Charts & Graphs
Historical stock data, which goes back as far as 25 years, is on display via Flash graphs. This is significantly better than the current Yahoo and Google are offering. The charts, which are large and easy to read, can be easily manipulated to see different time frames. Other companies and indexes can be added to the chart for comparison purposes, a feature I particularly liked. A basic chart is included on the overview page. Simply click “Go To Interactive Chart” to see the deeper functionality.
The chart below shows Apple’s stock price compared to Microsoft and Dell over the same period.
Another feature that I haven’t seen elsewhere is a simple return-on-investment table that shows investment returns for given periods. Or simply set the calendar to whatever dates you like. Again, this is a fairly simple feature but one that you can’t currently find on Google or Yahoo (wow! Apple stock has sure done well the last three years).
This is a significant upgrade, and will raise the bar for Yahoo, Google and the other competitors. Congrats to the AOL Money & Finance team for releasing a great product.
Hi MA
Is AOL going to launch Finance Portal or whatever you call it in India too ?
It launched Hindi & Tamil versions in India recently of their aol.in portal (not much popular i guess)
Most of AOL’s Service provider users are residential and use AOL because of its default on their homepage.
They are not usually savvy searchers. So, these embellishments may not be appreciated by them - and it is possible in this competitive environment, that Google and Yahoo will encompass whatever features appear to have potential on other sites.
security - i think that argument is becoming less and less true. And this product more than holds it own against anything the cutting edge guys have to offer right now.
“Historical stock data, which goes back as far as 25 years, is on display via Flash graphs. This is significantly better than the current Yahoo and Google are offering. The charts, which are large and easy to read, can be easily manipulated to see different time frames. Other companies and indexes can be added to the chart for comparison purposes, a feature I particularly liked. A basic chart is included on the overview page. Simply click “Go To Interactive Chart” to see the deeper functionality.”
Isn’t this exactly what Yahoo! offers in their beta charts (which have been in beta forever it seems)? You have to find the ‘View our charts in beta’ link, but they have all the Flash / Flex goodness, drag to change timeline, add competitors, etc. that you’re describing.
Why does it surprise you that Google Finance is doing so poorly? It looks like crap.
What caught my attention here was the news offering from Relegence. I’ve been trading very heavily the last few months and have been really frustrated with the financial news tools I’ve had access to. I think news on the other financial sites are a major weak point and that AOL could really get a leg up here. Google has a neat feature where the news events are super imposed on the chart, and yahoo has quick access to SEC info, but both pale in comparison to the professional tools Relegence offers.
For me charts are always secondary because they never usually compare to what an “elite” package from an online broker will offer you, but their news usually sux it and I’ve been jonesing for something more powerful and hopping between google finance and caps.fool.com to get my info. Having Relegence features available open on the web is huge.
This will sound slightly skewed coming from a former member of the Relegence team (Disclosure: I was VP of Professional Services there for 4 years prior to AOL acquisition), but Relegence was doing some very powerful things with news at the time. At first glance, I’m not sure how much of it currently being leveraged on AOL money, but there is a great deal of potential for personal investors and traders in the Relegence tool chest.
Edo Segal (founder of Relegence) is a brilliant guy, easily one of the most talented and intelligent people I’ve had the pleasure of working with. AOL has a real ace up their sleeve there. I’m really exited to see the direction they take this over time.
To be fair to google, I suspect more people use google search to get their stock information than any of the dedicated finance sites. Search for any stock symbol and you get the daily chart plus price, change, volume, etc. data. If you could count those pageviews I bet they’re larger than yahoo finance by far.
Didn’t Marc Andreessen already dismiss AOL as being obsolete? According to a recent quote, Marc believes that in terms of user base, Facebook is a short lived fad that will go down the same path as AOL…
But then again, he’s the guy behind Ning, so does anyone really listen to what he has to say?
All the features you mentioned have been available in bigcharts.com for say 5 years now?
I mean AOL!? c’mon man. I thought you were cool.. damn.
I think it all depends on Ambition, Many successful US comapnies dont expand in related products, Indian IT comapnies grow 40-45% on smaller base and US tech companies grow a few basis points even though they have deep pockets and scale.
http://tekno-world.blogspot.com
AOL Money & Finance also started a new site - Bloggingstocks.com - at the beginning of the year and then redesigned it this Fall and it is doing very well from the traffic charts while also reaching a new audience for AOL.
Wow, a huge leap forward. The sleeping giant continues to quietly pump out great stuff. Combine this with BloggingStocks.com and this is one heck of a product.
Go AOL!
Lame O AOL, Lame. Copy Copy Copy…BS. And it makes the front page of TC? Simply Awesome.
AOL nailed it. Well done, guys!
Feature Innovations does exist outside the big league too..
“Another feature that I haven’t seen elsewhere is a simple return-on-investment table that shows investment returns for given periods. Or simply set the calendar to whatever dates you like.”
Example :
http://www.marketsimplified.co.....index/AAPL
“Another feature that I haven’t seen elsewhere is a simple return-on-investment table that shows investment returns for given periods.”
I’ve never needed this before, but I was looking for something like this a few hours ago to calculate Cisco’s total return over its prior fiscal year. Unfortunately, this AOL tool wouldn’t do me any good because Cisco has an odd fiscal year. It started July 28 ‘06 and ended July 27 this year, or something like that.
Now why can’t I just plug those dates in and calculate the return?
No one buys stock for the periods they’re using.
@16
Right ..as actually what would be useful is a Custom or “What-if” check form any date to any date.
You can do this visually over at the URL on Comment 15, Click on the chart when you entered the position and hold the cursor till the till to exit, and See the gain made on top right
Edo is definitely one of the smartest people at AOL.
The site looks great. They’ve been able to translate Relegence’s expert-focused tools into something that works for a serious investor.
for the next generation of financial websites take a look at:
http://www.socialpicks.com
http://caps.fool.com
http://www.gstock.com
http://www.bullpoo.com
Are you kidding me?! Where are the Options quotes? Where are TA tools on the charts? Yahoo had both for ages. FLASH chart widgets instead of DHTML? Who cares?!
Majority of hits are coming from the AOL members. Who are quite conservative audience. They hate change.
Real time integration of headlines? So instead of 5 minute delay a Press release or an AP wire story will be available immediately? That should make people switch from Yahoo? Give me a break!
AOL! AOL?
They are still around?
http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
@ 3. Michael Arrington, in response to 2. Security
You think that’s not true anymore? Then you have no clue what AOL users are really like. Try getting an onlsaught of emails and comments from them for oh, say, two years, like I have, then you’ll see Security is right on the money. As he said:
“They are not usually savvy searchers. So, these embellishments may not be appreciated by them - and it is possible in this competitive environment, that Google and Yahoo will encompass whatever features appear to have potential on other sites.”
I’m lucky if half the people who use AOL who write to me can read above a fifth grade level, and forget their spelling - none of them can spell decently for more than a sentence or two before they lose it. And they have no patience whatsoever. They want everything handed to them - answers to their questions, help for their problems, links for their reading - with no waiting, and they’re not great about thanking you for your time and help while they’re at it. If I can get them to turn off the damn CAPS LOCK key somewhere between the first email and the third one, I feel like I taught Helen Keller how to talk. Doesn’t happen too often. Don’t overestimate AOL users, you will either get laughed at or wind up laughing at yourself.
@5. The Hater
“Why does it surprise you that Google Finance is doing so poorly? It looks like crap.”
You mean you can find Google Finance? You’re doing better than me. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it once. As Henry Blodget pointed out today in his post (http://www.alleyinsider.com/2007/11/aol-twx-relaunches-stock-quotes-slick-but-uphill-climb.html) there is no link to Google Finance on G’s home page, so there is no way to tell there is such a thing, is there?
But I prefer it that way. I’ve never seen anything from Google that didn’t suck. Yahoo’s search and finance pages are much better IMO.
Congrats to Marty and his team for a job well done on AOL Finance. The job may not be done yet but they’ve come a long way over the last two years. Those who criticize AOL, rightly or wrongly, should take into account the rate of positive change at AOL Finance, vs. Yahoo and Google. At this pace, AOL will blow both of them away within 12 - 18 months.
Regards,
George
and so are the stock picks…
//Congrats to Marty and his team for a job well done on AOL Finance. The job may not be done yet but they’ve come a long way over the last two years.
So it took 2 years and a couple of acquisitions?! Yeah, at this rate of change AOL will sure blow Google away. LOL
As to @22. those unhappy users pay some $20+ a month! They have all the right to expect to get what they want instead of the stuff somebody thinks is cool.