StockTwits raises $800K round | Hacker News Reader

StockTwits raises $800K round

howardlindzon.com

21 pointsbyrneseyeview23 comments

Huh?

I went to the stocktwits site a few days ago after hearing about their acquisition of chart.ly. I could not figure out what they did. I get a cute live feed of people talking about stocks and... that's pretty much it. Who throws 800k at an app that is basically a much less aesthetically pleasing skin of search.twitter.com with the search fields essentially prepopulated? I told myself I wouldn't be so quick to judge too, but after spending about 10 minutes on the site, I left with nothing more than a stream of strangers' opinions and expletives regarding specific stocks , and my following of their twitter account without permission.

I'm looking for any and all enlightenment as to why this is worth 800k.

I was cautious to come to the comments and offer my opinion, but I'm with you here, not only specifically regarding stocktwits, but this type of funding in general.

When I read that StockTwits uses WordPress which was also funded by their investors, I got visions of investing pyramid schemes. Fund a company that pays for and uses products from other companies you fund and do this over and over to build up the pyramid of investing.

I have to admit that I am not that savvy here, so perhaps that is why it doesn't make sense to me, but my personal anecdotal experience indicates that these types of investments are becoming more and more common and I am highly skeptical of their validity in the marketplace.

There is a lot of skepticism about whether or not Twitter can be monetized, so shouldn't there be even more difficulty monetizing a service built entirely on top of a difficult to monetize service? Are tweets going to have a little embedded ad from twitter and from stocktwits?

Plus, the investors are increasing their risk by investing in a company that uses a service that may itself cease to exist. The apparent trend in this kind of compounding risk from venture capitalists is not a good sign for the future in my view.

They will be selling user behaviour analytics, this is a gold mine for hedge funds. My startup would be first in line for that data too.

yeah right... amateurs sharing stock tips in < 140 characters. A hedge fund goldmine for sure...

I think you didn't get it, hedge funds will be stealing money from these amatures, by knowing what's on their minds. Crowds, if you can predict them (or direct them), you can be rich.

start searching real time discussions from the web's savviest investors.

I'm sure the web's savviest investors are just sitting around on Twitter pointing out their upcoming positions and next big moves in the market.

Other than that, I do think this is a brilliant platform for generic real-time stock news (why is this stock tanking 10% in AH??). The Google Finance and Yahoo Finance message boards are often clogged with so much junk and spam there's nothing of value.

The funny thing is, there's probably 1000x as many investors talking stocks on IRC, as there are on twitter.

One of the biggest users of the Mibbit IRC widget is a share dealing community in Brazil.

Yeah well IRC lacks all those cool killer features like yellow background gradients, tag clouds and RoR.

don't forget the fail whale

Normally, I'm with you on the irc vs twitter thing, but twitter is centralized (meaning it's really easy to search all the data coming through) and its real time search thing is pretty good. Maybe it's something you could add to mibbit?

Yup, good point. I was mainly meaning if you want volume of users/serious traders, they're more likely hanging out on IRC, than tweeting afaik.

Saying that, opt in, publicly logged channels are in the pipe line for Mib :)

I'd guess they spend more time hanging out in expensive locales in NY and London, or at Gorat's, or other non-twitter, non-IRC, non-online places.

I don't have enough industry experience to put any authority behind this statement, but investing in a company that has no profits and who's business model is based on using the API of another company with no profits seems like a bit of a dance at a dreamers ball. Isn't this exactly the stuff bubbles have been made of?

I'm going to go ahead and assume they know something I don't. (They do have the $800k to invest in the first place, after all.)

VC's and the like are very bullish on twitter, ergo investment in things related to twitter, and undoubtedly pressure for many portfolio companies to somehow bolt twitter on to their app/service.

I happen to like twitter, myself, but I agree this is obviously a huge risk for anyone. At least they are building something that will generate revenue (assuming demand):

Stocktwits premium, which is coming very soon , is like Stocktwits, but with even more awesome (or as I like to say…’The Social Bloomberg’).

Does no one think that fool.com or TheStreet or Dow Jones or the FT or [pick 'em] will pick this up to show that they Get It(TM)? Really? Come on.

I agree.

As an occasional angel, I see a lot of startups that exist solely in the shade of another tree, so to speak. It seems hard to defend (if it becomes too big, the overarching company can easily cut you off and/or adopt the features) and easy to replicate.

Am I the only one who's a little scared that a company who relies so heavily on another companies' service, has got funding?

I wish them luck with their ongoing success of course, it's just worrying, that's all...

It's high stakes (lower because of the economy) acquisition-bait.

I agree. What with this, and the bit.ly funding, there's just further to fall when an adjustment back to reality is needed.

So this is essentially the pump-and-dump stock advice I've been getting by email for years, but condensed down to <= 140 characters and delivered realtime. Awesome!

First of all there a billion 2.0 apps on the planet that have no biz model and they get plenty of funding. Sure its sad, but don't be mad! Second Stocktwits is built on twitter, and thats good and bad, good that its harvesting real time stock chatter that is wickedly addictive if your trading and you wanna know why a stock is blowin up or tanking. Get a few good ones to follow and you'll be on the cusp of a trend like the pros. The bad is mostly for stocktwits not so much you, they are built on twitter so they are at the mercy of it- meaning someone could hijack content pretty easily. BUT thats why they are going after bigger stuff which is to get behind a few champion traders and go subscription service for extended goodness. Ask anyone who pays for a stock info service, tips, super screeners or whatever, they pay thru the nose in general, and some swear by it. Once you get to know a few of the better traders on Stocktwits you'd pay as well. In all its not a bad product and someone in Wallstreet will gladly acquire it once it gets a bit more refined.

He's been successful with other ventures and that how you build credibility with investors. Right now we're only seeing the beginning of what he is working on. Without knowing the entire story, its hard to make a judgement on his potential chances of success.

now why they bought chart.ly other than the fact its short url domain sqwuating action.. who knows, they could of done better than that, but maybe it was a cheap short cut, but odds are the url was more than the actual service...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com