I don’t believe 140 characters is enough to run a financial site.

Today, Stocktwits has launched a ‘Premium Blog Network’ where the favorite subjects and ideas that Brian Shannon and Joe Donohue try to share in their twitter streams can be expanded upon. Launched on the fantastic ‘WordPress’ platform our long-term goal is to be the home of the best financial bloggers from around the globe. We handle the design, roll-outs, subscription management, customer service and technology. Most importantly – over time, we should be able to deliver the traffic and the best will truly shine. Our goal is let the best money makers do what they do best…share money making ideas and build communities which leverage the ideas.

Phil sums up the transition:

This morning StockTwits launches two separate premium trading products from Alphatrends and Upsidetrader .

We’ve put a lot of thought and time into planning them and are confident they will add a ton of uncommon value to equity traders who want to take their game to the next level and flat out make money.

For those of you who don’t already know, Upsidetrader and Alphatrends bat third and clean up on the StockTwits all star team for good reasons. Together, they bring over thirty years of market experience to the table and have become extremely successful in their own right.

Joe Donohue AKA UpsideTrader nailed the crash from the get go and then traded it aggressively from the dark side all the way down while diligently recording his motivations on his blog and his trades in real time onStockTwits. It has been among the most amazing trading clinics witnessed anywhere with full transparency and accountability.

Brian Shannon AKA Alphatrends, simply, is a machine. He puts out the highest quality technical analysis videos we have ever seen and novices and experts alike will improve their P&L from his content set. In the two years that he has been producing them, they have become the most subscribed financial videos on Youtube.

In addition, Joe and Brian have been thoroughly vetted by the StockTwits community. It is no wonder they have emerged as leaders and gained a huge fan base with ten thousand followers between them. They make great calls day in and day out. We know this because we have witnessed it with our own eyes but also, and more importantly,because they have, in the short time StockTwits has been around, cultivated the trust and respect of traders who put out risk here.

StockTwits was extremely lucky when we launched that so many smart people and excellent traders showed up early. It set a precedent of very high quality and has proven to have been a key ingredient in setting a tone of excellence in the community.

And these guys are the cream of the crop.

Thanks for your support of these two great bloggers.