Harnessing yet another data category to its search-engine prowess, Google is introducing a financial information service intended to compete directly with offerings from Microsoft, Yahoo and other sources, Google executives said on Monday.
Google said the service, at www.finance.google.com, would distinguish itself by providing stock charts with interactive qualities like those on its Google Maps service, allowing users to find deeper or specified layers of data by sliding the cursor.
The site will focus on current and historical data for both public and private companies, and following a Google practice for its new offerings, it will not immediately carry advertisements.
"Our focus is on the user and the product," said Marissa Mayer, Google's vice president for search products and user experience.
She said the company would consider revenue possibilities later.
Google said the initiative grew out of a survey it conducted 15 months ago, asking its users what kinds of new services they would find helpful. The response was dominated by two themes, maps and finance.
Financial analysts said the service plays to Google's strengths.
"Financial information is a category of information that can lend itself fairly well to the task of organizing and presenting, what Google is really good at," said Safa Rashtchy, a financial analyst at Piper Jaffray, an investment firm.
At the same time, Google faces a challenge in entering the extremely competitive consumer market for financial information against rivals like Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL, and financial companies like Fidelity Investments and Charles Schwab.
Like many of its competitors, Google will purchase financial information and data from third parties, including Hoover's, Interactive Data, Reuters and Morningstar.
But Katie Jacobs Stanton, a senior product manager, said Google had taken advantage of its Web database to add material, like executives' photos culled from corporate Web sites.
"We wanted to make it easier for our users to query by a company name or a chief executive," she said.
The new service, developed by an engineering team split between India and the US, makes extensive use of Google News, a service that tracks more than 4,500 Web news sites.
One feature the company emphasized was the ability to track when news stories appeared along a timeline display of stock prices. It will also link to discussions on Web logs about specific companies.
The service will offer its own bulletin-board discussions on financial topics. The boards will be moderated by a new group of Google employees hired to ensure the quality of the discussions, Stanton said.
Currently, Google directs those who look up stock ticker symbols on its site to four financial information Web services. The firm said it would continue to offer that option.
Taiwanese Olympic badminton men’s doubles gold medalist Wang Chi-lin (王齊麟) and his new partner, Chiu Hsiang-chieh (邱相榤), clinched the men’s doubles title at the Yonex Taipei Open yesterday, becoming the second Taiwanese team to win a title in the tournament. Ranked 19th in the world, the Taiwanese duo defeated Kang Min-hyuk and Ki Dong-ju of South Korea 21-18, 21-15 in a pulsating 43-minute final to clinch their first doubles title after teaming up last year. Wang, the men’s doubles gold medalist at the 2020 and 2024 Olympics, partnered with Chiu in August last year after the retirement of his teammate Lee Yang
FALSE DOCUMENTS? Actor William Liao said he was ‘voluntarily cooperating’ with police after a suspect was accused of helping to produce false medical certificates Police yesterday questioned at least six entertainers amid allegations of evasion of compulsory military service, with Lee Chuan (李銓), a member of boy band Choc7 (超克7), and actor Daniel Chen (陳大天) among those summoned. The New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office in January launched an investigation into a group that was allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified medical documents. Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) has been accused of being one of the group’s clients. As the investigation expanded, investigators at New Taipei City’s Yonghe Precinct said that other entertainers commissioned the group to obtain false documents. The main suspect, a man surnamed
US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer began talks with high-ranking Chinese officials in Switzerland yesterday aiming to de-escalate a dispute that threatens to cut off trade between the world’s two biggest economies and damage the global economy. The US delegation has begun meetings in Geneva with a Chinese delegation led by Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (何立峰), Xinhua News Agency said. Diplomats from both sides also confirmed that the talks have begun, but spoke anonymously and the exact location of the talks was not made public. Prospects for a major breakthrough appear dim, but there is
The number of births in Taiwan fell to an all-time monthly low last month, while the population declined for the 16th consecutive month, Ministry of the Interior data released on Friday showed. The number of newborns totaled 8,684, which is 704 births fewer than in March and the lowest monthly figure on record, the ministry said. That is equivalent to roughly one baby born every five minutes and an annual crude birthrate of 4.52 per 1,000 people, the ministry added. Meanwhile, 17,205 deaths were recorded, resulting in a natural population decrease of 8,521, the data showed. More people are also leaving Taiwan, with net
RSS