The Birth of Stocktwits and the Slow Death of CNBC…

  • Posted by
  • on April 9th, 2009

I hate CNBC so can’t deliver biased commentary. Furthermore, I don’t watch, but I did watch my partner Soren on CNBC yestreday who was promised a chance to talk about Stocktwits and than chopped up with yutz commentary to dilute the entire premise. In essence, typical CNBC.

I did ask my partner Phil Pearlman to take my views and his and our communities and set the record straightonce again.

CNBC’s coverage of StockTwits yesterday was inaccurate and so we would like to set the record straight for the sake of clarity.

Its partially our fault as we know well the game they play there yet agreed to the interview, frankly, for the sake of promoting our business and so we apologize for any misunderstandings created by our participation in the coverage.

First, the report falsely suggested that the service we now provide will become a paid service. This is untrue. Every feature that exists free now will remain free.

We will be rolling out over the next couple months and starting next week a set of diverse premium products that we have taken great effort and time developing to make certain that they will provide uncommon value for our community.

Second, the station implied that using our service might not be the wisest method of making investment decisions. We view this as comical coming from a source that trots an endless array of talking heads regardless of their performance and allows them to talk their book unobstructed by such frivolties as accountability.

They even brought out a guy from Morningstar, Paul Larson, to question why people with a winning strategy would share it. Capital DUMB coming from an organization who gives investment recommendations to investors. And dumber still given, as our own @StockJockey points out (you can’t get anything by our best!) that Morningstar had you going down the tubes with Bill Miller as he doubled down on his bank bets and then doubled down again.

Of course talented market participants are willing to share their best trades. People are innately social and feel their best when they are connecting with others, being generous and learning. These are fundamental laws of human nature.

This is the wisdom of collective effort and transparency.

Add to that mix, 33k pairs of eagle eyes so far who vet others comments and keep each other at their best and the prospect of making money and you’ve got the whisper bullhorn !

Indeed, if Bill Miller had shown up on our site with a million followers, he would have none left today.

Finally, CNBC did not even mention the involvement of Howard Lindzon, either on the air or in the write up of the segment. Likely, this is because he has been a vocal critic. So instead of inviting transparent debate they have choose the old hush hush.

Surpress your critics, now there’s an angle…

Its no surprise some do not yet get what we are doing at StockTwits. Retail investors hav been fed such bullshit from the advisory community and the financial news media for so long it is no wonder they are confused, mistrustful and pissed off.

Nevertheless, over time we believe as we bring the goods day in and only improve people will get it and they will clammer…

The information in this blog post represents my own opinions and does not contain a recommendation for any particular security or investment. I or my affiliates may hold positions or other interests in securities mentioned in the Blog, please see my Disclaimer page for my full disclaimer.

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