Yahoo! launched its Personal Finance site earlier this
year, on January 19, 2007. In this piece, we will analyze the site based on my Web 3.0
framework.
Yahoo Personal Finance is a
part of Yahoo! Finance and has nine
sub-categories. The site provides financial information, tools, and advice on personal
financial management. The sub-categories of Yahoo Personal Finance are:
- Banking & Budgeting
- Career & Work
- College & Education
- Family & Home
- Insurance
- Loans
- Real Estate
- Retirement
- Taxes
Context: A+
Yahoo! Personal Finance provides sub-categories under the broad categories.
For example Retirement has been
further broken down into four categories:
This provides better context to a person who is looking for retirement
planning.
However note that Yahoo! has not clubbed Stocks, Mutual Finds, Bonds, Research under
Personal Finance, but has included them under Investing – as they appeal to a much
broader financial community than only those who are concerned with personal finance.
Content: A+
Content has always been Yahoo’s strength and the Personal Finance site is no
exception. The website has numerous (66!) finance tools, including Financial Calculators, Experts, Glossary, Rates. It also has 48 How-to Guides.
With its Personal Finance
website, Yahoo has managed to differentiate itself in content from the likes of Google Finance. Yahoo! Personal Finance has
25 partners for financial content, including CNNMoney, Lightbulb Press, Kiplinger, The Motley
Fool, Smart Money and the Wall Street Journal. So Yahoo! has done a
wonderful job on the content front. [Ed: no RSS feeds though?!]
Commerce: B
Yahoo Personal Finance
doesn’t provide any transaction, banking or bill payment facilities. HoweverYahoo! Finance provides the
Yahoo! Real-Time Package on a subscription basis and Yahoo! Finance Research Reports on a ‘pay
per download’ basis.
Yahoo could really beef up the transactional elements of the site, by tying into banks
and brokerage accounts – so that users don’t ever have to leave the site to
transact.
Community: B-
Community has been Yahoo’s sore point and the Personal Finance website lacks any
major community feature – i.e. features which allow social interaction or discussion on
personal financial matters. What they have done is incorporate Yahoo! Answers into the Personal Finance section,
which allows users to ask relevant questions regarding their personal finance – and
answers are then given by real people.
However the Community section needs more punch and Yahoo should incorporate many more
community features – like discussion forums, SIGs (Special Interest Groups), investment
clubs, etc. – on financial matters on the various sub-categories. They need to do this to
attract eyeballs and keep visitors hooked on the website.
Personalization: B
The site allows personalization through My Yahoo, and allows users to customize the
homepage to display their portfolio and track the performance of their
investments.
Again, the Personalization offering is nominal and it could be enhanced hugely. The
holy grail would be to offer personal financial advisors – which may be implemented via
an expert system, or by offering human advisors for a fee. Tying up with private banks
may be another way to go, to make their PCS advisors available to Yahoo’s
customers.
Vertical Search: B
Yahoo! Finance allows a decent search function
and provides screening facilities, which allow users to screen stocks by using various parameters
like share price, market cap, sales revenue, industry, profit, etc. The company provides
similar screening facilities for mutual funds, stock research and bonds.
This function, however, could also be enhanced to include context-specific search
capabilities – for example, college tuition costs for specific colleges.
Business Model
Yahoo earns around 88% of its revenues from the advertisements posted on its web
properties. So in that respect the new personal finance site has broadened its
reach.
The incentive which drove Yahoo! to launch a personal finance site, is the demand by
advertisers to reach out to end-users in the middle of making financial decisions. Yahoo
had previously sold out its advertising inventory for the finance site and therefore
analysts expect Yahoo to generate substantial advertising revenues from this new site.
Yahoo personal Finance has already signed up ETrade, LendingTree, Intuit
TurboTax, Progressive Direct, and Quicken Loans as advertisers.
Conclusion: A+ for content/context, B for commerce/personalization/etc
Overall my rating of Yahoo Personal Finance, using the categories from my Web 3.0 framework, is as
follows: Context : A+, Content : A+, Commerce : B, Community : B-, Personalization : B,
Vertical Search : B.
Do you agree? What are your thoughts on Yahoo Personal Finance?
For more on this topic, see Sramana’s post Personal Finance & Web 3.0 : Overview.
