A co-worker recently approached me to look at a site he had invested in and to determine what I thought they might be able to accomplish through better social networking aspects of the site. Since this is a space that I have wanted to get into for a while, or the ability to use my blog for something other than my own rants it sounded like a good idea.
The site that I am going to profile is one regarding stocks so I determined that first I should think about what aspects of the social networking space would be a good for a website about stocks. I came up with a few core aspects that would directly benefit a social networking centric site about stocks.
First off I believe the ability to group yourselves together as you see fit would be crucial for the site to have any life in it at all. Without the interaction or the ability to gather together the site might as well be a sheet of paper in some guys basement because thats about all the affect its going to have. If you allow for individiuals or perhaps just power users the ability to create a group and allow them to invite and rank members of that group with their own discussion forums that would spur them to gather and discuss their favorite particular stock topic. Whether it be blue chips or the tech sector or all of the “fantasy” shareholders of a particular stock holding their own pseudo board meetings.
The ability to recommend a particular stock with the inclusion of a notification system that would alert those who have marked you as someone they trust. This would be particuarly useful for power users in a community that know their sector and are able to make strong recommendations for the community at large. Sort of like different news agencies are today but allowing an individual to have that sway or power over a group that chooses them. Included in this system could be the ability for trusted groups or individuals the ability to request how others feel about a particular stock.
Two other smaller features that I would find interesting on a social network centric stock site would be the ability to post a hot tip and send it out to your friends and/or selected individuals and since the site is keeping track of what region you are in anyway they could compile that information to display it to the user giving them an idea of the hot stocks in their region.

Like I said, just some thoughts I had. Look forward to the next post on this topic where I profile the particular site requested.