15 Minute Site Review: KaChing

Posted by Tom Blue on March 12, 2009 under Companies, Investing, Technology | Be the First to Comment

Kaching is a site that allows its users to make virtual stock picks.  It also allows you to follow the portfolios/trades of other investors.  The idea behind it is for you to be able to follow those users that are consistently doing good(or maybe bad as well).  At one point they want to charge users to follow certain people.

What I like about this concept is that you have a 3rd party that is verifying the user actually made the suggestion and/or virtual trade.  I say this because I have personal experience with this.  Awhile ago I was looking for investment advisors that have daily emails with specific stock picks.  I found quite a few that looked really good and had impressive results, but I couldn’t verify that they indeed made these trades when they said they made them.   With this site you can verify it.  It is also a good way for the advisor to make some extra money.

There was a similar idea called Clearstation that was started during Web 1.0.   The difference is that I don’t believe Clearstation ever planned to get people to sell their advice… It was later acquired by eTrade.

Usability:  The setup and use of the site is quite simple.  I knew exactly what do from the beginning.  I was able to buy some stock and follow some users immediately.  It is a clean and simple site.

Future:  Although I really like the site and concept I think this is a tough time to be starting this site/service.  I don’t think that many people are excited about investing in the market right now….