Please Review StockChatBoard.com: Digg + HN for stocks | Hacker News Reader

Please Review StockChatBoard.com: Digg + HN for stocks

stockchatboard.com

11 pointskp81224 comments

First thoughts were, why should I submit these ideas or stocks. Why should I really trust people's advice based on karma? I would rather see people ranked by the accuracy of their predictions.

Perhaps when you submit a stock or vote on one during the week it could record the current price and after a few days your karma points are based on the new price of the stock.

I also think you should have links to the stock price. I'm too lazy to type in all the ticker names into google.

The incentive for submitting ideas is to get other perspectives and information to take into consideration when making a decision. I often have a gut feel about a certain stock direction, but would like to hear how others feel about it. That's an interesting idea for the karma. Currently, like HN it's based on upvotes from others, except there is no karma awarded just for submissions. Great idea about posting the current stock price next to the titles. I'll look into it. Thanks!

Yeah, this might work better in prediction market form, where people get rep points after their prediction has come true.

I agree, and virtual trading is in the works, which will likely carry more reputation weight than karma.

http://stocktwits.com with this would be great.

I like StockTwits, but the information seems to be all over the place. My goal was to make opportunities easier to find, as well a bit of enhanced research by crowdsourcing.

Also, how would you detect fakes! I can say I bought 1000 $AAPL at 80 last year and sold them for 270 this year to get some karma.

Look at http://profit.ly for a twitter like take on stocks

Karma is only awarded from other members in discussion areas. Additionally, a virtual trading system is in the works to accurately track member performance. The trades are entered on the site, and compared to the actual market so there would be no fake scores.

Isn't the stock market the Digg for stocks?

Touche. But by the time you get news from the market it's probably too late to be useful.

Hahaha.. circular. By the time news happens.. its already too late =)

I currently use the Motley Fool CAPS site[1]. What about your service is going to be better than CAPS?

[1] http://caps.fool.com

It's not so much about being better, but rather in addition to something like CAPS, because I think CAPS has the right idea and both services could shed light on trade opportunities. The model for CAPS is highly ranked/successful members sharing trade ideas and I think that's valuable. One difference, however, is that I plan to pay any members with significant audiences visiting their profile blog on an ad revenue sharing program. This will hopefully draw participation from many top traders to the site.

Sorry if this comes off too negative. But, you want to pay 'top traders' who probably already make good money a few bucks to blog about their tips and other information?

Im not too familiar with how 'info friendly' traders are, but I was under the impression people didnt openly share all their tips.

Wont the community end up just being full of people trying to promote specific stocks they are interested in and not necessarily ones people in general might want?

Edit - So I looked around CAPS and it seems they have a blog section. So i guess people do like to share something. But the comments and votes seemed pretty dead today.

I still think people are more interested in what people are actually DOING in the stock market rather than what people THINK about certain stocks. I would love learn from 'top traders' by looking over what they have done in the past. Lots of people talk, few people do.

It's not negative; it's an astute observation, and I thank you! :) I suppose some might fully have the intention to promote stocks they are interested in, but all submissions are subject to community voting so theoretically only opportunities of true merit should rise (I have plans to defend against gaming the system). Successful traders sharing tips actually makes sense if they've already bought into a position, because they are essentially promoting that position. Many "expert" analysts get paid to give opinions, and I think everyone should have this opportunity.

Well, I've bumped into a few traders (mostly in the energy commodities trading arena) and you really get all sorts. There are the guys that won't even tell you where the bathroom is in their building, then there are the guys that love spreading their opinion around so they can reap the recognition when they made the right call.

Presumably equity traders (which I believe is the focus of this site) are the same way.

I do think the OP is going to have something of a tough sell to get any of them to participate though. I'm not sure if the incentives are high enough... particularly during the "get it off the ground" phase.

Still, I think it's an interesting idea.

I'm not your target audience at all but here's the first thing I noticed:

The big blank blue space up top (plus the logo) take up roughly 20% of the screen real estate. The nav then takes up another 5%.

1/4 of the screen wasted and now I'm finally at the content!

An ok concept, but poorly executed, in my opinion.

What is the user voting for? The stock itself? Or the reasoning behind the submission? What will you do about multiple submissions on the same stock, say AAPL, that could flood the frontpage?

That's a fair point. The user is voting for both the stock and the reasoning. The idea is that people with the best insights will rise highest. It's certainly a new concept which may evolve as time goes by. There will also probably be a duplicate checker to alert the submitter.

It would be useful if you find a way to link a stock with a news' submission. You know "buy the rumor, sell the news".

So for me the useful information is the news or the rumor and not any user's bet.

I think that is what www.stocklamp.com is trying to do.

Yes, I know what you mean and I'll continue to look at ways to integrate buzz about a stock. However, my rather ambitious goal would be to have the site almost create news, similar to the Digg effect, so that top voted items on the home page might one day garner so much attention the stock might rise by default.

Instead of showing the vote buttons but having them do nothing when the user is not logged in, use a tooltip to tell them that they can vote, comment, etc if they create an account and login.

Will do, thanks!

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