Finance junkies have probably noticed by now; even the fast-paced world of tech news is slow for people who spend all their time hitting “refresh.” Still, the existing Google Finance sites have received an overhaul, and Google Finance China has launched.
That second development may come as more of a surprise, so we’ll start there. On the Official Google Blog, Product Manager Feng Hong noted, “This was a joint effort across continents with engineers from New York and Shanghai. . . . The site includes popular features such as Google Suggest for stock codes, whether you enter the stock code or name in Chinese or pinyin, and a display of financial information from Chinese sources on the stock price chart.”
Google Finance China
And although this writer can’t read so much as a letter of Chinese, Google Finance China has at least one leg up on Baidu Finance – it loads faster.
As for the new layout, it is, to use a not-entirely-technical term, “squished.” All of the text, along with the main Dow/Nasdaq/S&P 500 chart, seems smaller than before, and the “Recent Quotes” section has been rotated down and to the right in order to make room for some financial headlines. This provides more information, but seems much less clean.
Meh. People who feel strongly about the issue can always take Feng Hong up on his offer: “[W]e encourage you to provide us with your ideas and comments through the Help Center.” Everyone else can return to hitting “refresh.”
