Is Twitter Hijacking StockTwits' Idea?
There hasn’t been much talk about this, as the new offering isn’t something to write home about – but what’s going on with Twitter’s new ticker symbols?
The microblogging platform mysteriously (and oddly) announced the non-service in a tweet the other day and it leaves more questions than answers. The main question being: Is Twitter setting the stage to hijack Stocktwits’ idea?
Here’s the tweet the microblogging master shared the other day:
Okay, that’s interesting . . . but wait, doesn’t StockTwits already do that? You know, the platform that “created the $TICKER tag to enable and organize “streams” of information around stocks and markets across the web and social media?” And the platform that is integrated with and relies, at least in part, on Twitter?
StockTwits Co-founder and CEO, Howard Lindzon, had this to say on his blog:
I am disappointed of course that Twitter is hijacking our idea and time (will only confuse the masses), but Stocktwits moved beyond that basic functionality 4 years ago. In a dirty way, it’s the ultimate compliment so we will take it as such for the moment and keep rolling out functionality that makes us the best real-time communication platform for people that love stocks and markets.
Stocktwits provides context, curation and community.
It’s easy to sign up for Stocktwits and see the difference.
And he’s right about context. Clicking the $GE symbol does nothing meaningful really. At least – not yet. StockTwits should probably proceed with caution though rather than risk finding themselves on the wrong end of Twitter’s ‘consistent experience’ guidance.
What do you think? All’s fair in stocks and war or is Twitter trying to steal someone else’s idea when they should (at least ethically) be brokering a deal?
(Thief in night image from Shutterstock)
