Real-Time Stock Prices for Free - It’s About Time

Real-time stock prices from the Nasdaq and NYSE are now offered online for free. But seriously, what took them so long? We’re in the 21st Century, has anyone even noticed? You can get nowadays almost anything online for free, just visit our website and increase our traffic, will ya?

Well, some might say that with the SEC involved, it is a surprise that this was approved before the third millennium. But I am not one of them.

Well, is it about time? Apparently, this feature was available in the past on Yahoo! Finance through August 2006. Yahoo! Finance has again announced a partnership with BATS Trading to provide free stock prices online fairly recently - just before the exchanges announced the same thing - RT quotes online for free. Coincidence? Of course not.

The recent announcements by the Nasdaq and the NYSE regarding the partnerships with Google, CNBC and the Wall Street Journal may seem like a “late to the party”, “me too” announcements. However, it was just a matter of days between them, so they must have been working on these partnerships for some time. Also, you must give them some credit for doing it with style. Why get the real-time quotes from a broker, when you can go straight to the source - the exchange itself. That will definitely do it.

Yes. Definitely do a PR fiasco for Google and the other partners, but unclear why the Nasdaq and the NYSE went along with it. They could have done it more gracefully by announcing they plan to offer the quotes under such a partnership, and have interested companies contact them. Because by doing it this way, they have picked one of the sides in the whole Yahoo! Finance/ Google Finance war.

I’m still wondering what ever happened to the real-time quotes Yahoo has offered in the past. What made them stop the service? (and don’t tell me “consolidation in the marketplace and a new pricing structure”. Don’t they want the traffic all to themselves? Or did they not care because they were getting it anyway?)

Yahoo RT Quote

Google is Broken

Okay, I know it’s a funny way of putting it. But really, it is.

Have you not noticed? It used to be, when you were looking for something, you could just find it in Google.

That is no longer the case. Recently I’ve been doing a lot of market research and other web digging, and Google just isn’t as good as it used to be. My sister told me about this shocking phenomenon earlier, and I was, naturally, skeptical. But now I am becoming more and more aware of it - you just can’t find everything you are looking for on the first page of Google.

I wonder whether this is an inevitable evolution of every search engine (after all, they were not pioneers in this market), or whether this is bound to happen to every search engine which is overly populated and over-used.

I’m still giving it a chance though, just because it has been so good to me over the past couple of years. And I’m a late adopter (I’m very loyal). But not for long. They must do something and regroup. Otherwise… well, competition is always out there.

Facebook’s Comments to the Mini-Feed or Communication goes Both Ways

Have you noticed the new comments to the Mini-Feed feature on the Facebook? It’s a great feature.

Facebook used to be a place where the main communication was direct - interactions on friends’ walls, you had to go to their profiles in order to see what they’ve changed and what’s up with them, messages, tagging photos and more.

However, for a while now, there has been a shift. It started with the introduction of the news-feed and the way it was portrayed as the homepage, which shifted the concentration on what your friends are doing through indirect communication. You hear about your friends, without actually interacting with them.

But today, when I tried out the new commenting feature, it felt like old times. It actually made me check out profiles of some of my good friends which I don’t always check out. It made me feel that I am a part of the profile, not just a viewer - which can make one feel like a stalker at times. (Though Facebook should connect these comments to the notification system - I don’t think they have, which is a shame).

That’s why the new commenting feature on the Mini-Feed is so great (and yes, even if it is copied from FriendFeed). It helps keep the communication flowing back and forth. Because communication goes both ways - and that is key.

I’m late

I’m such a late early adapter. I adapt to new technology/trends very late compared to people around me, but that’s way before the rest of the market. This is because I’m fortunate enough to always hang out with very early adapters.

Was lucky enough to have a pc at home before everybody did, because of my family. To have an internet connection before my classmates had - back from the time of mIRC. I remember staying up all night on the chat, while still in elementary school. It was such an amazing notion, to speak with people from different countries right at home.

And when I went to Brown University, I signed up to facebook, even though I was reluctant to do so (”me? to post my picture on the internet? no way”) -  but I still ended up joining before most of the world.

So I feel that I’m a very late adapter, but that early and late it is all relative to your environment. Therefore even though I’m late compared to the people surrounding me, I tend to be way ahead of the rest of the market.

Do you feel that way too? I’ve always wondered how unique my position is as a late-early adapter. Are most people indeed either early adapters - “yea I’ll try that even though/because no one has”, or late adapters - “I’ll only do it after it has been accepted as mainstream”.

Stereotype me

Something funny I noticed recently in a social experiment some students were conducting, in form of a Facebook group. The discussion board there was very active, and I wondered what do all these people have in common to be having such a lively discussion board.

The topic was “stereotype the person above you“. During their experiment, there was a new post every few seconds. I wanted to post as well, but every time I refreshed the page there were several new comments already. (meaning it wouldn’t be about the person above me, but about 4 persons up).

I kept thinking, what made all these people, and myself, want to know what is the stereotype people might have of them?

Why do we dislike online ads?

Why do we dislike online ads more than TV commercials?

Mainly because we tend to act together - people like to behave as a group. I would say “herd” but that might sound a bit harsh. As Aristotle has put it, a man is by nature a social animal.

People also don’t like it when they get unsolicited calls (I hang up as soon as I realize that it is not personal) more than they like advertisements they encounter online. We fast forward commercials on TV if we can, or just use that time to take a break from what we are watching. But the negative feeling towards these TV commercials is not as strong as it is on the internet. Some commercials we might even like, and show our friends - “hey you have to see this one, it is so cool” style.

I believe it’s because we see every advertisement when we are alone surfing the web. Just like unsolicited phone calls. So it is not personal on the one hand, and we don’t feel like we’re part of a crowd on the other hand.

Don’t change - We like you the way you are

Yesterday I spent more time on ynet than on nrg (two major Israeli news websites). That rarely happens to me, usually the opposite is the case. I usually explore nrg, and when I’ve exhausted the site I briefly check the other one out. It’s just that this time it was ynet which got more of my attention.

nrg has changed the design of its homepage. I don’t like it. Not because it’s no good. I can’t even tell you if it is or isn’t. I’m just used to the old one. That’s it. And that’s a whole whole lot. I remember how red it was. You see - I had sentiments to the old design.

People are conservative. They don’t like big changes. They should have left the option to maintain it the old way too. Leave the world as it is and people will still be happy (or will still be unhappy… depends who). Feed the market with a spoon; it matures slowly. Social networks for instance were around much before 2007, but it was not their time yet.

Changes have to come when the market is ready. I don’t mean that specifically this one is a no no, but I also didn’t want to let it pass without some kind of mourning.

Whatchamacallit

It was Douglas Adams who said: “Technology is a word that describes something that doesn’t work yet.” (Thanks Oded for the quote, I was looking for it). I heard this recently, and I think it is very insightful.

There’s a difference between “technology” and a “product”. The difference being, that technology is the stage when it still just belongs to the “early adapters” realm. When it is already widely accepted you don’t call it “technology”. Instead of calling it “this new technology which let’s you do ex-why-zeee…” you call it “a fax machine”, “a phone”, “a stereo”, “a pencil”, “facebook”, or just “whatchamacallit“.

I love that word - “whatchamacallit“, when I was young my parents would use it every so often (as part of the Hebrish we spoke at home); I used to try and make believe that it means something about purchasing a Watch in the Makkolet (a local supermarket in Hebrew). Those were the days.

I didn’t even know it had a “correct” spelling. But apparently it does. What’d you know.

Wishing all you entrepreneurs that your products won’t be a “technology” but a “whatchamacallit”.

Using a Teleporter

When I first thought of the expression “homepage” (yes, that was back in the good-old-90s), and thought of my own homepage. Back then I already imagined something which is similar to my profile on facebook, or to my blog or something that connects me with the people around me, not just an isolated webpage which says “hello world”.

Surely I am not alone, the concept of social connectivity as it is expressed in the new media today has been in all of our minds for several years now. We all were awaiting the implementation of this concept.

Well we were all like “hey I had this in mind” “why didn’t I think about it” “I have” “blah blah”.

So why did it in fact take so much time to happen? Well, this question can be asked about virtually almost any other “new technology”. The fax for instance. The concept was there, it was just waiting for the implementation. (WHY do people in fact still use fax machines? Very troubling indeed..)

It is a matter of market receptiveness (for the most part, when it is not the technology - which nowadays is rarely the case). More people have to be prone to accept the new technology.

There are many other concepts which we are all anticipating as new parts of our lives. Most of them are technologically feasible. But again, most of us are “late adapters”. When new ideas and new technologies emerge, very few people adjust to them immediately. Most people join the party only after it has been widely accepted. This is the hurdle every new technology has to overcome.

What other concepts/ new technologies are expected to emerge? Well there is the Teleporter… Anyone developing one? don’t hold back on this whole “market receptiveness” issue on this one, I’ll help find you some early adapters…