Experiment: do finance people care about blogs?

re: Experiment: do finance people care about blogs?

Juliena Smith — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 14:20:52 GMT

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re: Experiment: do finance people care about blogs?

kamal — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 15:40:20 GMT

finance people do care about blogs but only for those who are being run by well known finance sector legends.

yahoo discussion board

nate — Wed, 17 Aug 2005 05:16:40 GMT

I guess this is the kind of thing I had in mind - although as you point out, it is not a blog..

http://messages.yahoo.com/?action=q&board=MO

another thing on finance blogs: if someone is really good at finance, why would he or she be giving away information for free on a blog?

re: Experiment: do finance people care about blogs?

HeatherLeigh — Wed, 17 Aug 2005 01:06:44 GMT

Nate-that yahoo page doesn't look like a finance blog to me. If that counts, I suspect that any corporate web page could be considered a blog. Technically, if you want to go back and identify the first blog, it's likely Netscape's What's New page (sorry, I don't have the link handy), which I think came out around 93. Anyhoo, I'm not the right person to ask about MSN's advertising product offerings. If there's someone from MSN our there that wants to take this question, feel free. I guess I was just asking about finance blogs specifically. The larger topics of blogs and search engines is probably broader than I wish to get here. There are others more knowledgeable in that area than I.

re: Experiment: do finance people care about blogs?

nate — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 23:43:01 GMT

One more: blogs are directly related to Internet Business Strategy and portals. People spend time on blogs. I wonder how much time when you add it all up across all people and blogs and platforms.

Google blogs have google search boxes.

Google has targeted advertisements (Google AdSense) for blogs. Does Microsoft have something like this?

update: do finance people care about blogs?

nate — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 23:31:18 GMT

http://docs.yahoo.com/info/misc/history.html

One could at least try to argue that "yahoo" started at Jerry Yang's blog, and morphed and grew into Yahoo.

I am not so sure of the history of Motley Fool.

On another note: do you get your electricity from Avista Corp? What has been your experience with Avista Corp?

re: Experiment: do finance people care about blogs?

HeatherLeigh — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 02:55:54 GMT

Nate-good post.

1. and 2. agree...though no direct relationship to blogs. I read recently that most people that are reading blogs don't know that they are on blogs and only 11% (?) of people reading blogs even use RSS. Probably good signs that it's just a matter of time before we see more finance blogs.

3. Sounds like a blog discussion that may only interest finance folks (or other business folks at the P&L level)...I could be wrong. Suspect that is a blog niche that can be filled easily by a prolific finance blogger...cross-over traffic? I don't know. I guess the intersection of finance and marketing-new business development, market sizing, etc., good blog fodder but would they be considered a finance blog, a marketing blog or something else? Maybe the need for finance blogs is being met by other blogs?

4. Perhaps the applications of economic theory are more blog-able than many other aspects of finance. I have always found econ (macro specifically) interesting because of it's relevance to life...gas prices going up, trade deficit, etc.

5. I would venture to say that finance people are all about managing risk. I wouldn't go so far as to say that people are drawn to careers in finance because they are risk averse, but perhaps it's a cultural norm in the finance field the avoid risk more often than not? I don't know.

Great points.

do finance people care about blogs?

nate — Mon, 15 Aug 2005 21:04:12 GMT

Some thoughts:

1. Finance people care about new, internet-enabled communication. Consider the stock message boards at Yahoo Finance or Motley Fool.

2. Internet Business Strategy: The Aug 13-19th copy of The Economist has an article called "Yahoo's Personality Crisis" --> you might want to read this. It talks about the future of the Internet portal business for the biggest players. (MSN, Yahoo, Google, AOL)

3. Blogging changes behavior. Finance people will care about blogging once they realize that it explains aggregate variations (why "actual" results do not match "budget") and make forecasts.

For example, I rented a Penn & Teller show over the wknd (based on your blog?). I also rented Dr. Strangelove (based on Prof DeLong blog - Berkeley - http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2005/08/film.html#comments). How many other people get ideas from blogs?

4. Economists (DeLong blog at Berkeley, Becker-Posner at University of Chicago, numerous others, etc) may have adopted blogs earlier than corporate finance and accounting. (key: may - others may have adopted it as soon as economists).

5. Retaliation - people do not blog because it may not be great for job security. People do not want to risk saying something that could be misunderstood, that is proprietary, or that could be okay to say yet upset peers or the boss and make one's job awkward or impossible. And lots of people do not want to be vulnerable and prefer routine private activities (vs. writing and thinking). Certain careers such as tenured professors may be more conducive to blogging than others.

Apologies for the long post.

re: Experiment: do finance people care about blogs?

HeatherLeigh — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 19:06:46 GMT

Oops, forgot to answer your other question D-Wang. I'm not a "blogger for hire"...just someone in Staffing that also blogs. So I don't have anything to do with MSN Filter. You couldn't pay me for my content...I have to give it away! ; )

re: Experiment: do finance people care about blogs?

HeatherLeigh — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 00:15:12 GMT

D-Wang-thanks for asking. We had a 96% attendance rate (people who RSVPed that actually attended). The hiring managers were jazzed and I still have a lot of follow-up work to do when I am back in the office next week. They noted specifically the quality of the candidates. That makes me happy! I can probably provide more details later...as a recruiting opportunity, we would really measure the event success based on what happens afterward. So more info to come!