I recently came across 2 interesting and innovative tools that help (..or maybe not) wade through the massive sea of investing/trading information out there.  The first site I came across which my brother mentioned to me is www.chacha.com.  I was intrigued by the idea of speaking to a person through instant messenger and wanted to see if they could deliver good results… so I ran a little test. 

I asked the guide to give me their results for "top stock market investing blogs".  Not too difficult for someone who is supposed to be considered an expert in the investing field right?  Heck, they probably have a list bookmarked on their desktop.  Wrong!  The first guide I spoke to came up with good results in the first 2 (see below).  [I say first guide because I was passed off not once but twice to another guide who "might be of more help"]  I would consider those first 2 resources in any top list.  Then it kind of falls apart.  I certainly wouldn’t consider the last 4 resources in the "top" category.  The Pokey Pine blog hasn’t been updated since Nov 2006, I haven’t heard of several of the top blogs that topblogsites lists, the college site looks fairly new and cxoadvisory? hmm…. you get the idea.  Not shown is one suggestion from the guide that led me to a site about finance, NOT stock market investing.   Clearly, ChaCha has a long way to go before Google should be worried.  If I were in charge I would fix one thing right off.  Guides who pass the query off aren’t rateable (if that’s a word).  The guide who clearly struggled in an area she was supposedly an expert in didn’t get the poor rating from me.  Your success at weeding out poor guides are greatly minimized this way.  Anyway, I wasn’t real impressed but I’ll give it a go again sometime with a different subject.  This is still in beta so it will be an interesting site to follow over the next year or so.  That is if they don’t burn through the cash employing all those guides.

Business > Financial Services

Yesterday, I came across another innovative way to search the investing world.  TheLion, aggregates blog entries and a few top discussion boards (yahoo, raging bull, clearstation).  Just type in a ticker and lists all the entries for that company.  I’m not a fan of the discussion board boasting and bashing and the number of blogs they’re are aggregating appears to be fairly limited since it’s a new part of the service, but if you’re into the discussion boards and want some blog articles thrown in, it’s a useful service.