Stocktwits has been growing fast this year. Our users are more engaged than ever — or “addicted,” as they often say on the stream.
Behind the scenes we have been working on a great redesign (coming very soon) and some improvements to our 5-star iPhone app. Our biggest new launch will be Search. We have over 5 years of data, and millions of messages on tickers and indexes that we want to give our members access to so they can locate specific messages from the past. Soon Stocktwits search will allow you to find a stream on any topic, person, stock or combination of the three.
To go with all the product improvements, we have made some changes to our board. Our awesome venture capital leads, Tony Conrad (True Ventures) and Seth Levine (Foundry) have stepped aside to allow Rob Peck and Ross Levinsohn to step in. Michael Parekh remains actively engaged on our board.
Rob and Ross will help us push even further into the realm of financial media and Wall Street.
Ross was introduced to me a few months ago by Mark Mullen, and, over a round of golf, I was blown away by his media resume. Best known for his leadership roles at Yahoo and Fox, Ross has helped build and operate both small and large-scale businesses. At Yahoo, Ross served as Interim CEO and Head of Global Media. Prior to that post, he was responsible for Yahoo’s largest territory as Executive Vice President of the Americas. He has also invested in more than thirty companies as both an executive and financier, which makes him a perfect fit for the Stocktwits board.
Rob Peck has been a supporter of the Stocktwits platform from the beginning. He is the head of Internet Research at Suntrust. Previously, he was a Senior Analyst at Lehman as well as Bear Stearns, where he focused on Internet and technology. Rob also led Internet Research at Baron Capital.
We’re bringing in these two smart media and finance gurus because we know business media is being disrupted by niche media platforms like ours, which makes now the right time to hit the gas pedal.
Paul Kedrosky had an amazing tweet with a graphic on the state of the business publishing industry:
Me-thinks the rise of passive investing is inversely correlated with declining fortunes of biz media … pic.twitter.com/mRBwwVBccb
— Paul Kedrosky (@pkedrosky) August 5, 2014
Paul believes the downward spiral is related to people becoming passive investors. “Passive is the new active” is a mantra by the Blackrock’s and Vanguard’s of the world. Our metrics prove otherwise: Active investors are alive and well.
We believe, and our data shows, that people are still interested in the market and just want to consume information in different ways. Stocktwits is real time, lightweight, social and mobile. It’s easy to catch up on the market using our trending ticker bar on both the website and mobile apps. We have a lot of room to grow.
congrats. I think for average people, passive is the only way to go; and I agree with the tweet, more people are going that way. Or, they are out of the market. If you are going to follow the market and be active, then you need alternative information sources other than business TV.
Congrats! Big things to come :-)
good news howard! really looking forward to the Search.
There is a lot crap, hype, and pump and dump by so called expert or PRO “traders” on the http://stocktwits.com
I believe that the number of characters in the discussion window should be no less than 400, so we could make clear justification for our comments. I can mension a few l have problems with …
the problem with those “technical traders” and the Pump and Dump masters… here is the tripple bump, here is the head and shoulder, or a cup with handle … or Parabolic SAR signal …
Some are coming too late with their short ewcommendation like they really want to pump the stock to go higher before they dump it … like Ryan Mallory aka SharePlanner calling short on ADSK “two dollars to late” while his short was a success only because next day entire market was 300 points down .. …, or really foulish Talib_Gunther, .
…
I have also the problems with the gurus Zaks.com who cost me in unearned within 10 days at least $ 185,000 as I placed the order to buy 12,000 shares of SPWR @ $ 27.01 and after their irresponsible for no reazon press release on April 17, 2014 changing the projected forecast value rating for SPWR from $ 34.00 to $ 30.00, consequently acting on mass psychological effects of such ratings I cancelled the buy order and placed new one @ $ 25.01 and of course I have NOT got the stock. Sun Power than in a few days later hit $ 44.00! for the difference of well over $ 200,000 …. in my case …!
I wonder if those GURUs and Analists deliberately manipulate the stocks for their own financial gain… or their company profits …
Fact, Fiction and Momentum Investing
http://dorseywrightmm.com/sites/default/files/SSRN-id2435323.pdf
Congrats on the new Board members! Can’t wait for the new search features. I invest in odd mining stocks and finding threads was almost impossible. Looking forward to some heated discussions on rare earths and uranium!!