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Fidelity, FirstRain and the iPad

Nov 2011/in /by

The iPad is changing the world so fast sometimes it is hard to believe. We released our iPad app in early October. It’s such a hot, sexy app that now I lead off with it. Every time I meet with a prospect the first thing I show them is the Business Web on my iPad (usually pre-configured for their market) and then I’ll describe what we’re doing and why.

And to my delight I find that many of our prospects and customers are investing so heavily in the iPad that they can immediately relate to how FirstRain fits. But more fun than that is the new apps I get to see, often before they have been released. BI apps, sales apps, fashion apps… the world is going iPad.

Today Fidelity announced a major update to their iPad app – this time including FirstRain content. Fidelity has been our customer for many years now, but over the past few months it’s been exciting to work with them on integrating our sector and stock research into their iPad app.

Like we have done online, we are providing Fidelity with Hot Topic research, centered around sectors and trends – what’s rising? what should you as an investor be paying attention to? when you see a topic you want to drill in on, what are the recent developments that help you understand it?

You can download the new Fidelity iPad app for free on the iTunes store. To see hot topics, open it up and click on Research (tab at the bottom of the home screen). Chose hot topics and you’ll see the key active sectors and what’s changing . We identify what’s changing and what’s hot using our analytics technology – identifying clusters of topic, detecting anomalies, comparing them to past patterns, analyzing the new pattern to see if it shows a rising event. Here’s the landing Hot Topics screen this morning:


You see a list of sectors – swipe right to see more. Within each sector you can then drill down into a topic and see the latest business web news and understand what’s behind the trend. For example here — drilling in on Automobile Fuel Efficiency:


The topic research page shows you not only the news you need to read but also the stocks related to the trend that you may want to do deeper research on, and the volume of conversation on the Web on the topic you are researching so you can get a sense of how active it is.

Good apps on the iPad are simpler and easier, and more pleasurable to use than web apps. There is something about the simplicity combined with the tactile experience that changes how we feel about using the application, especially for non technical people and the older generation. We have only had the iPad for 2 years now… it is just the beginning of a sea change that will sweep how we all interact with both professional and consumer applications.

Fidelity: Unlocking the Business Web™ for Retiring Baby Boomers with FirstRain

Sep 2011/in /by

One of the more fascinating developments in our rapidly evolving financial markets is the shift that’s beginning to occur as the Baby Boom Generation—whose oldest members turn 65 this year—approaches and enters retirement. And while this event raises many societal challenges, ranging from the increased load on our health care system to the solvency of our social entitlement programs, it’s equally interesting to consider those folks who are recognizing the emerging needs and opportunities presented, and coming up with innovative ways to fill that need. And it’s a big need.

An interesting article last week from Canada’s Financial post articulates well the big demographics changes to come for countries like the U.S. And Canada, and the potential impact and opportunity for financial service providers:

“As you assess the stock holdings in your portfolio this fall, consider this: According to recent population projections, the proportion of seniors in Canada could nearly double in the next 25 years, while the proportion of children is expected to continue falling. If these demographic changes occur, it will have a major impact on the Canadian economy, which in turn will impact your investment portfolio…Financial service providers, especially wealth and asset management companies, also stand to benefit as an enormous amount of wealth is controlled by the Boomer generation. Institutions that cater to the specific needs of older clients will capitalize on this growing segment.”

One great example of a firm actively adapting to meet this opportunity is Fidelity Investments, who announced this week the launch of a greatly expanded set of market research and education tools focused specifically on helping Baby Boomers and others learn about and select fixed-income market investments. It’s a smart move, and we at FirstRain were very pleased that our technology was selected as one of the top tools available in the new Fidelity fixed income research suite. As their announcement notes, Fidelity users will be able to leverage a custom FirstRain implementation that provides, “trends analysis on the fixed income markets, so investors can see what fixed income topics are being discussed online and with what frequency. The content is categorized and investors can drill down into subcategories that change daily, depending on what is being discussed online.”

It’s a powerful tool that builds on the quite successful and popular FirstRain ‘Hot Topics on the Web’ tool that Fidelity users have already been using on the Fidelity.com Stock Research Center since 2009 (we’re told FirstRain hot topics are very popular on the page).

FirstRain ‘Hot Topics on the Web’ on Fidelity.com’s Stock Research Center

And the reason, we believe, it’s been so successful is because of the incredibly targeted, unique and interesting content we’re able to uncover from the business Web. Because, at our heart, we’re an analytics software company which applies powerful technology to uncover hard-to-find business content: our customers consistently tell us they find content on FirstRain that they wouldn’t otherwise find or would take them a great deal of advanced searching.

Fidelity has been a fantastic partner to work with over the last two years, and we’re very much looking forward to our expanded relationship and tackling these new challenges—and the opportunities they now present!

fidelity

Fidelity selects FirstRain for new idea generation on Fidelity.com

Nov 2009/in /by

Another exciting morning today!

This morning Fidelity has announced that it has selected FirstRain as a partner on its new Stock Research Center on Fidelity.com which they launched last week and are announcing today.

You can see FirstRain’s spike and volume detection technology at work for yourself if you go here – look for this section on the right hand side and have fun!

Our research engine is continuously identifying and highlighting trending economic and industry content from the web and then identifying which companies being impacted by these trends.So then, once a user gets interested in an idea the UI takes him/her straight to the Fidelity fundamental research about the company to help them decide whether to trade on the idea.

The smarts we’re putting to work here are the system’s ability to detect spikes and directionality in any one of the thousands of business topics we have built into FirstRain. The topics are all associated with industries so we can quickly pick out what’s hot in any one area like Technology or Energy. We are continuously processing millions of documents and storing the patterns – and so can distinguish quickly when a spike is occurring in contrast to the normal levels of content about any particular topic.

We are obviously delighted with this partnership.It’s exciting for us to leverage our research engine and contribute to Fidelity’s revised research platform.


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