Online financial sites continue to jockey for position, and even as Yahoo was
crowing about a No. 1 ranking, Microsoft was expanding its CNBC on MSN Money
site, adding features tied to the appearance of guests on CNBC.
At the same time, Yahoo Finance was claiming bragging rights as the
most-visited Internet finance destination in the U.S., according to the
Nielsen//NetRatings’ MarketView report for June.
The newly revised CNBC on MSN Money site is scheduled to go live on Aug 2 at money.msn.com.
ComScore Media Metrix also ranked Yahoo Finance first for June, followed by
Microsoft and General Electric’s
NBC merged CNBC.com
and MSN MoneyCentral after NBC’s decision to shut down its online play,
NBCi. The merged site was designed to offer new services letting consumers
pay bills, track account balances and research investments, as well as stay
abreast of market news and analysis from CNBC commentators.
The new features include a function that lets consumers monitor and analyze
stock picks made by guests on CNBC TV, and an alert service that advises
consumers via MSN Messenger Service, e-mail or mobile device whenever
executives of companies they’re interested in are scheduled to appear on CNBC
television.
There’s also an expanded mutual funds research area and a new Funds Transfer
feature integrated with MSN Bill Pay that enables consumers to move money
among checking, savings and brokerage accounts as well as between financial
institutions.
The site also now has an alliance with Multex, a provider of investment
information, so that investors can view chronological abstracts of key
developments for a given company, including its earnings or product-related
events.
Also this week, Microsoft said a buffed version of its MSN service is going into
beta with enhanced features designed to put a dent in AOL’s dominance of
the Internet service provider (ISP) market. It will include some Money
features, including the bill-pay service.
Yahoo, meanwhile, was talking about its No. 1 ranking (8.18 million unique
visitors) in the “Finance, Investment & Insurance” category of the rankings
from Nielsen//NetRatings. The MSN Money channel took the No.2 position in
that category with 7.44 million visitors. PayPal, CNNMoney and Capital One
rounded out the top five.
MSN Money, CNN Money, the CBS MarketWatch sites and Motley Fool.
Rankings are important, as the financial services category is the No. 2
category behind retail goods and services in terms of garnering ad
impressions. According to data from the Nielsen//NetRatings AdRelevance
service for May, financial services captured 14.4 billion online ad
impressions.
For June of this year, NetRatings said Yahoo Finance had 8.19 million unique
visitors who spent an average of 44 minutes per month at the site.
