sorry, i do not have a link. it is from The insider's guide to message boards. here is the info and the complete story including mention of comparable services..
Money Magazine
New York
Sep 1999
Authors: Borzou Daragahi
Volume: 28
Issue: 9
Pagination: 143-146
ISSN: 01494953
Subject Terms: Web site reviews
Investment policy
Personal financeWeb sites
Investment policy
Personal finance
Internet
Classification Codes: 9190: US
5250: Telecommunications systems
9120: Product specific treatment
3400: Investment analysis
Geographic Names: US
Abstract:
Most financial message boards on the Internet are filled with irrelevant
chatter, but there are some pockets of community and civilized discussion
if you know where to look. To help you find them, a guided tour of the
Web's 4 dominant investment chat sites is provided: 1. Silicon Investor
(www.techstocks.com), 2. Motley Fool (boards.fool.com), 3. Raging Bull
(www.ragingbull.com), and 4. Yahoo! (messages.yahoo.com/yahoo/business_and_finance).
Copyright Time Incorporated Sep 1999
Full Text:
SOMEBODY'S TALKING ABOUT YOUR STOCKS ONLINE. TAKE OUR TOUR TO FIND OUT
WHERE.
[IMAGE ILLUSTRATION]
Visit any financial message board on the Net, and you may feel like you've
stepped out of the bus terminal and into the streets of some teeming, unfamiliar
city. Where do you go first? How do you get acquainted with the locals?
And who's the. freak named Food Stamps in a Bodybag screaming "Awesome
earnings run!!!"?
Most boards are filled with irrelevant chatter, but there are some pockets
of community and civilized discussion if you know where to look. To help
you find them, follow us on a guided tour of the Web's four dominant investment
chat sites, then head to www.money.com/contents for a more detailed interactive
guide with additional help and links to where the action is.
SILICON INVESTOR (www.techstocks.com)
Members: 120,000. Daily posts: 20,000.
Best discussion topics: Most large-cap Nasdaq stocks.
Lay of the land: Nicknamed SI by its users, Silicon Investor is the upscale
neighborhood in town, attracting a high percentage of advanced investors
and active traders. Anyone can read the messages for free, but to post
your own thoughts you have to pay ($200 lifetime, $60 half-year). The fee
may give SI an elitist air, but it's just steep enough to deter the less
serious from joining, and many discussion threads are earnest indeed. "Stocks
go down ultimately for fundamental reasons," writes dppl, the founder of
the popular Technical Analysis for Shorts and Longs thread. "But these
reasons are often foreshadowed by technical indications [that] can show
the writing on the wall before the wall is even visible."
Highlights: Not surprisingly, considering the site's address, tech discussions
are by far the most popular forums. Some, like Dell, Intel and Compaq,
have attained near legendary status, thanks to the variety and intelligence
of their posts. But there are also good forurns that are not focused on
individual stocks, such as Market Gems, with its bent toward short-term
trading, or Ask Michael Burke, where a guy named, yep, Michael Burke, opines
on subjects ranging from economics to John Travolta.
Fitting in: Like a gated community, SI quickly escorts rule breakers out
of town. Those who violate the site's hallowed Terms of Use by posting
advertisements or abusive or obscene comments get booted without a refund.
It's probably no accident, then, that unlike at most message sites, many
participants here feel comfortable enough to post under their real names
rather than kooky handles.
Warning: Even the best neighborhoods have back alleys. You should avoid
the $5-and-under forums not only here but wherever you travel, since those
areas tend to attract users more interested in pumping stocks than analyzing
them.
MOTLEY FOOL (boards.fool.com)
Members: 500,000-plus. Daily posts: 3,300.
Best discussion topics: America Online, Amazon.com, Iomega, CMGI.
Lay of the land: If The Fool were a neighborhood, Old Glory would grace
the Victorian homes and lemonade stands would dot the sidewalks. Its mainstream
denizens are generally true believers in the religion of buy and hold.
More than half a million users have registered at The Fool, but the regular
participants are a much smaller, tight-knit bunch.
Highlights: Although posters usually make polite and intelligent comments,
there are far fewer hot spots here than you might expect. The Fool has
fallen out of fashion among board aficionados, garnering only a fraction
of its competitors' daily traffic, and the bulletin boards of stocks as
widely held as Sunoco and Gillette often remain cavernously empty for days.
Start at the section that lists the 25 most active threads over the past
seven days to zero in on the action.
Fitting in: Five full-time constables-The Fool calls them strollers-patrol
the streets, stirring conversations, reprimanding troublemakers and welcoming
newcomers.
RAGING BULL (www.ragingbul.com)
Members: 185,000. Daily posts: 24,000.
Best discussion topics: IPO General Discussion, (MGI Traders Talk, Dr.
Bob's Stock Timers.
[IMAGE ILLUSTRATION]
Lay of the land: Only two years old, Raging Bull is like that hot city
neighborhood where all the new restaurants are opening up. Think New York
City's East Village or Chicago's Wicker Park. It has attracted members
who seem looser and less formal than those at SI or The Fool while being
no less informed. And as at SI, discussions about tech companies and megacap
stocks reign supreme.
Highlights: Though its focus and membership aren't all that different from
SI's, Raging Bull has distinguished itself with some unique amenities.
Its best innovation is the ignore button, which lets you filter out that
guy who keeps haranguing you for being long Compaq. Likewise, a search
bot digs through the day's posts, deleting spam, ads and profane posts.
Fitting in: Eight so-called community developers surf the site, scolding
riffraff, moderating 23 threads and listing the day's top five posts at
the Herd on the Board area. Looking for a trustworthy insider to show you
the way? The weekly Behind the Boards column highlights those deemed to
be valuable contributors.
YAHOO! (messages.yahoo.com/yahoo /business_and_finance )
Members/daily posts: Undisclosed.
Best discussion topics: The ones you create and monitor yourself
Lay of the land: Watch your wallet here, because you're hanging out on
the wrong side of the tracks, and there's not a cop in sight. This is where
an engineer posted a link to a phony Bloomberg story in April announcing
a buy-out of PairGain Technologies, sending its stock soaring before the
fraud was unveiled.
Yahoo! won't discuss usage statistics, but by sheer volume it is easily
the most popular site (Yahoo!'s Amazon board, for example, attracted 1,176
messages on one randomly selected day, compared with 220 at SI's Amazon
board). More is not more. Unless you're 11 years old, you will quickly
tire of the you-suck-no-you-suck banter that most often passes for investment
conversation.
Highlights: There aren't any. What with thousands of threads on penny stocks
and spurious trading systems, the only reason to stick around is to start
your own discussion through the Yahoo! clubs feature and rigorously limit
access.
Fitting in: Are you sure you want to? People do get booted for foul or
threatening language, but troublemakers can simply create new aliases and
log right back on. Save yourself some grief, and hail a cab back to the
nicer parts of town.
BORZOU DARAGAHI
borzou_daragahi@timeinc.com
MESSAGE BOARDS OFF THE BEATEN PATH
Four less popular sites that are worth a look
Stock talk megasites like Yahoo! and Silicon Investor may attract thousands
of posts a day, but lots of thriving smaller communities on the Web focus
on specialized topics. Here are a few less traveled sites where you might
find conversations to match your interests.
MORNINGSTAR.COM
www.morningstar.com.
A great place to discuss mutual funds.
FUNDS INTERACTIVE
www.fundsinteractive .com/wwwboard.
Another leading mutual fund discussion site.
GOMEZ.COM
www.gomez.com/finance /community. For questions and gossip about online
brokers.
ARMCHAIR MILLIONAIRE
www.armchairmillionaire .com/messageboards
Beginner's bonanza, where one thread is titled, There Are No Dumb Questions.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.
Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission. |
