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.

The World’s Food and Commodities Crisis Has Only Just Began

My Aunt who’s in Connecticut said they are limiting the amount of rice you can buy at Cosco. A similar case occurred in a supermarket here in Israel not long ago. Oil prices are surging. China and other producers are restricting the export of grains in order to ensure domestic food supply.

The world has become so needy and accustomed to exhausting energy sources, natural resources and commodities. Even though it is a stretch to say that the living outnumber the dead (the current world population outnumbers the combined historical world populations), however way you compute it. Still, more people are alive today than have ever lived before at any given time.

Therefore, there are far greater considerations as to supply of goods that haven’t been taken into account. 100 million people have already been put in danger by the current situation. We used to think this situation will not affect us. Many people feel that at the western countries, one can always pay more and get what he want. So maybe we will have to pay for food what we do now for gold?

Well, maybe. But maybe the now “poor” countries will realize that their gold is worth them their lives, and simply won’t sell it.

Possible Conclusions: Buy commodities, Live in Asia, Develop alternative energy sources (conserving energy is not nearly enough - we will use it all up sooner or even sooner), stock up on food, what else?

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.

Popcorn mit dem Handy

Yes, you read it, popcorn with the cell phone. The 21st century. don’t you love it.

The Facebook Newsfeed is boring

Really. It is.

In fact, I never really liked it that much.

I remember when they added the newsfeed feature. I HATED it so much then. Couldn’t bring myself to read it or even look at it. It gave me a feeling that it’s all about prying. It made me feel that Facebook was such a nosy media, just by adding the newsfeed. And it is so public. I didn’t do anything for months so that it won’t show up about me. It took me a year to stop clicking on my own “Profile” every time I logged in to Facebook - to stay away from the “home”, where all the data was thrown in my face(book).

The only time that I used to actually read it was when they had the “Like/Didn’t Like” X/V check feature next to each item. That made me feel that it was some sort of task on my “to do” list when I was logged in, which I should complete. To make sure I responded to every item (most of them with X). And I never looked at an item more than once, because it was already taken care of.

But now, I scheme through it very briefly, and miss a lot of things, because it is just not interesting enough. The nosiness aspect is not as much of an issue, because most users now joined facebook after the feature has been included, and are aware of the fact that their every move is broadcasted.

But I just don’t feel that the data there is of importance to me. It is (mostly) just simply boring.

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”.

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”.

Facebook Toolbar for Firefox

Okay then, now that everybody is using facebook, I can let you in on a little secret. The facebook firefox toolbar. It can get annoying after a while, but it is a fun tool nonetheless once you start using it.

It allows you to see all your friends’ recent facebook activity, and your own data, instantly. It shows up as pop-ups - similar to Outlook’s emails, but… without the option to close these notifications. Oops. It can get especially annoying after a while, but you might really like it too. It’s also nice to see the stats you get on the toolbar - friend requests, events, groups, pokes…

And thanks to Roy who let me in on it. There are currently only ~40k active users on this application (which btw was developed by facebook) according to Adonomics. Which isn’t much I would say. I guess nobody has heard of it, and it’s not a viral application. Okay then now it all makes sense.

Check it out then.

P.S. Did you notice that I started linking to things inside the post? Hurray for me. (Yes yes I know, I’ve done it a gazillion times in the past. But not here.)