Social Networking Meets Stock Investing

TheStreet.com, Inc. has announced an agreement with A.R. Media, a New York-based media holding company, in launching a new Web site entitled Stockpickr - "The Stock Idea Network." Social Networking... Stock Investing... the two seem like a natural fit, right? Yeah, I'm not convinced either. At first glance, these concepts just don't strike me as two great tastes that taste great together. Social networking is a quirky beast, rife with personalized layouts, photos galore, blogs cleft with tinges of lamentation, and message boards with gems of erudite, highbrow commentary such as, "OMG! Those pics are t3h r0x0rz! L337sp33k FTW!" (Or should I say "Sarcasm, FTW!") Conversely, stock investing is a world of suits, power lunches, analyzing trends and living on the bottom line. The only friends you make are the ones you plan to screw over later rather than sooner. Nevertheless, "With Stockpickr we initially started off creating a tool that we could use to generate trading ideas from browsing the portfolios of the top hedge funds and investors," said James Altucher, who also serves as the CEO of Stockpickr. "However, it turned out to be even a stronger platform for investing knowledge once we opened it up to a community of active investors. With the addition of TheStreet.com user base, Stockpickr will be the number one community site for exchanging stock ideas and investment knowledge." I know that social networking is all the rage these days, but this just doesn't seem like a natural fit to me. Why would I want to share my best stock tips with everyone else? It seems counterintuitive to the very nature of the capitalist engine that drives the machine of commerce we call the stock market. I could be way off base here, but I certainly wouldn't imagine the likes of murdok. Visit murdok for the