Thanks to Christophe Langlois for live blogging today. Unfortunately, we had our first serious NetBanker downtime at 2:30 PM today, so after gallantly posting on 32 presenters, he finished the coverage at his Visible Banking site. We’ll post a few more concluding comments tomorrow including the Best of Show winners.
FinovateStartup Live: Vestopia Demos
Last demo of the day. Investment information for individual investors with community aspects.
CEO Steve Markowitz takes the stage. Can use the service, in public beta, to track the activity and advice of vetted professional investors. Easy to use and navigate, attractive interface. Have had success in attracting a large following. Good demo.
FinovateStartup Live: ClairMail Demos Triple Play & Credit on Card
Second to last demo. Back to mobile.
ClairMail CEO Joe Salesky takes the stage with so much energy he doesn’t even wait to be introduced. It’s much needed at this point in the afternoon. Shows mobile bill delivery/payment and login via SMS exchange with dynamic link that needs just a password.
Joe closes with a live demo of how fast a text-message query can be returned, asking audience members to text “bal” to a shortcode on the screen. He’s run over his time but closes with a flourish.
FinovateStartup Live: TradeKing Demos TradeKing Community
Mike Massey is going to focus on the TradeKing Community. Excellent news.
Shame Mike was reading, and not sharing his passion and expertise with us. That's what you would expect from the Director of Community Development, right?
Mike was more passionate and relaxed when he started showing the community homepage.
They have a wide range of activities and features to urge people to produce content and contribute: group, blogs, active forums, research produced by members… Excellent.
FinovateStartup Live: Sparkroom Launches LeadIQ
CEO Jamie McDonald demonstrates Sparkroom's new lead-management service, LeadIQ is currently focused on mortgage leads and has found an average 120% ROI improvement across clients.
FinovateStartup Live: Aradiom Demos QuickFramework
Aradiom and mobile strategies are going to build a mobile banking application live, during their 5-minute slot.
You don't have to be an IT expert: The interface is 100% graphic.
Simple, easy to understand, efficient. Well done, Aradiom. Perfect delivery at this time of the day.
FinovateStartup Live: FirstROI Debuts CheckingFinder.com
Fun presentation. One of the most entertaining of the day. New service allows user to comparison shop for new rewards-checking accounts.
Online account-opening application powered by Andera.
Good interface. Launch date: 2 June 2008.
FinovateStartup Live: Business Logic Debuts MoneyPools
Proactive identity protection. New version of their flagship service, IDFreeze. Yesterday, they announced the first true family package.
Another service to manage your investments. The interface is simple and intuitive. A lot of graphics and a good Web 2.0 look and feel. The colors are not as fun as on either Zecco, or Mint. It looks like a comprehensive service, but not as cool as the leading Web 2.0 startups.
The presentation was also a bit too dry. No jokes, no frills. Remember that it is already 2:30 p.m., and the pace at Finovate is hectic. Nothing personal, but we need some entertaining presentations!
FinovateStartup Launches Tomorrow
Our first annual FinovateStartup debuts tomorrow in San Francisco. The 40 presenters will demo new and improved versions of their products. There will also be a number of new product launches, company rebrandings, and even several company debuts.
Christophe Langlois, from Visible Banking, will be live blogging here at NetBanker, so tune in tomorrow for his impressions. Also, expect even more opinions from the dozen other bloggers in the room, along with a number of other press representatives.
We'll be naming the Best of Show winners here on Wednesday and posting full-length videos of each demo soon. Sign up for our Finovate announcement list here (lower-left corner) if you want to be notified when the videos become available.
Quicken Loans is *Really* Using Twitter
Last week, I may have jumped the gun when I thought I'd found a bank using Twitter (post here). It's pretty apparent that E*Trade is not officially involved with that Twitter account.
But the ever diligent Ann-Marie Murphy was quick to add to the comments that her company, Quicken Loans, is *really* using Twitter to support its Quizzle personal finance site (see Quizzle coverage here). Beginning Feb. 22, the mortgage lender has posted 52 updates through last week (those would be called "tweets" if you are a real geek). That's about one per day, a good steady flow, without inundating the follower.
Here's Murphy's rationale for using Twitter:
We've found it to be a great way to chat with our site visitors, get honest and helpful feedback to make the site better and give interesting home-related tips to followers. I especially like the instantaneous feedback. Ask a question, get a bunch of answers from folks who enjoy helping others.
Now this is what a real Twitter update stream looks like, complete with custom design. Nice.
WaMu Posts Best Banking Facebook Page So Far
As a marketer you have to love WaMu. They are bold, quirky, and not afraid to poke fun at conventional wisdom. I haven't liked all their advertising campaigns, but that doesn't matter as long as the bank is reaching its target markets and delivering results.
While the bank has its challenges cleaning up the mortgage mess, its marketing department and ad agency are still producing good work. Case in point: WaMu's new Facebook page (below).
I realize that all banking pages in Facebook will appear lame to just about every 20-something that happens to stumble across them (see previous coverage here). But 20-somethings do still need checking accounts, debit/credit cards, vehicle loans, and so forth. So they will buy banking services. And what brand will they choose? The one that is at least making an effort to meet them on their turf with Facebook pages, text messaging, and humorous advertising, such as the talking banner campaign shown below.
WaMu's Facebook page, which looks like it was posted April 17, contains videos, a crossword game, a branch finder, a checking account application form, a fan area and a communications app (note 1) that can be added to your Facebook profile. Take a look yourself here.
Excellent work: A
WaMu Facebook Page (23 April 2008) (note 2)
Notes:
1. Even though I added it to my profile, I'm not sure what the WaMu Facebook application does. It appears to be a way to communicate with friends on Facebook and has 49 daily users.
2. The bar across the middle of the page is unrelated to the WaMu page; it's the new Facebook chat feature, that appears along the bottom of all screens, and messes up my screenshot. It does show you where the "fold" exists on a 13.3 high resolution laptop screen.
One Week Away: FinovateStartup Adds Invesra, Sparkroom, and Zopa to Demo Lineup
One week from now, we will be halfway through an amazing day at FinovateStartup, where 40 financial services startups strut their stuff at the UCSF Mission Bay conference center in San Francisco. There are still a few tickets remaining, so come steep yourself in financial innovation at this unique, one-day event.
We are pleased to announce three more companies to the demo lineup: Invesra, Sparkroom, and Zopa. See you next week.
