When you bill yourself as "the first personal finance site of the post-crash era," it helps to have moxie, Teflon coating, and a media giant watching your back.
Moneywatch.com is all set for a springtime launch, but it may surprise you to learn that it's the handiwork of CBS (NYSE:CBS).
Yes, CBS.
This is the same CBS that handed off its popular Marketwatch.com website to Dow Jones, which in turn succumbed to the amorous advances of News Corp. (NYSE:NWS).
This is the same CBS that just last month suspended the colorful Wallstrip series of market updates, which it had acquired a year earlier.
Launching a personal finance site during this "post-crash era" is either nuts or brilliant. There really is no in-between, so hop off that fence and take a side, my friend.
Critics will point to the media titan's spotty patience with money sites. This is also a very competitive niche. Even if it's initially skirting the stock-centric ways of equity jockey racecourses like TheStreet.com (NASDAQ:TSCM), Morningstar (NASDAQ:MORN), and Fool.com, it's still competing against sites like SmartMoney.com, IAC's (NASDAQ:IACI) FiLife, Time Warner's (NYSE:TWX) WalletPop, and the original content on Bankrate (NASDAQ:RATE).
Optimists will point to the opportunity to present a new platform at a time when jaded savers and investors can use a fresh perspective. It stands to score karma points if it's able to coincide with the recessionary bottom, and can scale in a hurry if it lives up to its promise of weaving itself into the CBS fabric through television, radio, and mobile applications.
Moneywatch appears to be leaning on BNET, part of the CNET acquisition that CBS paid $1.8 billion for last year, for initial support. The Moneywatch.com landing page actually redirects to a BNET subdomain for now.
It's a site worth bookmarking. How well it lives up to its self-proclaimed hype and how quickly CBS will come in with the hook if it does not, remains to be seen.
Post-crash era? Isn't that the feeling you get a couple of hours after drinking a Red Bull?
Some other Google Finance musings:
- IAC's FiLife was birthed from a partnership with News Corp. two years ago.
- Search engines have also been beefing up their finance portals.
- This Is the Opportunity You've Been Waiting For
