Does Social Networking and Stocks Mix?

I won’t give away all my thoughts in the space, I am saving that for my investments, but much is at stake.

A few days ago I was writing about the mystery of Google Finance and their lack of interest in promoting their own good site.

If you are at a cocktail party, money and stocks is always a topic of conversation and it has not translated too well to the internet. Lot’s of financial sites make money, but there is no loyalty and no global community. Yahoo should absolutely own this space, but they have just goofed. Maybe it’s just not possible in the end. There is so much at stake, but little guys are acquired at the first sign of traction.

BusinessWeek takes a deeper look at the online brokers and their forays into social networking in this week’s issue . It’s a good read.

To me it does not make sense for the eventual winner in the space to be closed off within one/each brokerage system. The eventual winner should come from an ‘open’ platform. The fact that the online brokers are claiming so much success means they are lying or that some big things are coming to the space.

UPDATE – Here is the current financial landscape within Facebook . Pretty thin, but this will heat up fast as stakes for the college and young eyeballs heats up.