Twitter has made stock quotes clickable, in a small update which could spell big problems for one start-up.
The social network has made stock quotes preceded by '$' clickable on the site - for instance $FB for Facebook and $AAPL for Apple.
Users had already started using the convention before it was implemented. Its development follows that of hashtags (#) and @replies, both of which were in large part 'invented' by Twitter's users.
Announcing the change on its site Twitter said:
And the news was greeted with cheers (and a few jokes) by the site's users, including Fake Mark Zuckerberg who said:
Not everyone was happy with the new service however - including the founder of StockTwits, a site which uses similar ideas to run for its full-featured investments site.
Founder Howard Lindzon wrote on his blog:
It's interesting that Twitter has hijacked our creation of $TICKER ie. $AAPL. It only took four years to 'fill' this hole, though a few months back they told me in a detailed email it was not a hole they wanted to fill.
You can hijack a plane but it does not mean you know how to fly it.
Twitter is about advertising dollars. They have $1 billion of venture money on the line. Lot's of pressures I am not interested in.
Go check out $HIT or $WAG (walgreen's) on Twitter search or thousands of other features around curation that we have thought about for 4 years and implemented.