Video content, revamped message boards, and the formal debut of badges that can be used to display Yahoo Finance content on blogs and websites should help the site maintain its dominance in online financial news and information.
We are delighted to see the unveiling of Yahoo Finance Badges, only a couple of months after we broke the news about them during the May 2006 Syndicate Conference. The Badges and some other updates to the market leading Yahoo Finance have been unveiled for their users.
Reuters reported on the changes at Yahoo Finance, noting the Badges release and a couple of other moves made by the Yahoo team. One of the changes involved the message boards, used by people to discuss stocks and their attendant news.
Yahoo discussed the Finance Message Boards and highlighted four changes made to them. For one, authors can no longer be found by searching for a name as a keyword.
Instead, one can use the Advanced Search option in the search bar to find posts “Authored by” a given username. Also, clicking the View Message link next to an Author’s message will display all of that author’s posts.
Messages will be grouped by Topics now instead of appearing in chronological order. Topics with the most recent reply will be the ones that appear at the top of the Topics list.
Navigation has been tweaked so that the Previous and Next links work differently. From the post:
The First, Previous, Next, and Last navigational links no longer refer specifically to the time the message was posted. When browsing the list of topics within a board these links refer to pages based on the order of the topics you are viewing. For example, if you sort topics by latest post, the most recently updated topic is first in the list and the first page contains the most recently updated topics.
Recommendations have been replaced with the five-star rating system used on other properties like Yahoo News. By rating each message read, users can help other visitors find better quality posts while moderating down the less useful ones.
On Yahoo Finance, users should now find a more interactive experience in the stock charts. The report said a full screen stock chart will allow people to view long-term historical stock data and events. Google Finance made a version of that functionality a feature when it launched earlier this year.
Reuters also cited Yahoo Finance General Manager Peggy White on the future of Badges beyond financial content. Yahoo has other Badges in the works, to permit the placement of Yahoo content like news, sports, and entertainment on blogs and websites.
—
Tag:
Add to 
Bookmark Murdok: 
David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
