Tip’d - New Resource For Sharing Financial News and Ideas

Tip’d, a new social media site, launched last week with the intention of becoming the Digg of the financial world. If you are familiar at all with Digg, Stumble Upon, etc, you can skip the next paragraph, because you’re going to automatically know the drill, but ifyou’re not, it is best to let Tip’d describe itself:

Tip’d is a community for financial news, ideas, and tips. It operates as a social media platform, meaning the community (you) decides which news stories and investing tips should be published on our homepage. Tip’d users vote on stories they like by clicking the ‘Tip it’ button that appears next to each story, and then can comment by pressing the ‘Discuss’ link below the story.

Tip’d is meant for everyone — not just bloggers. See an article on Yahoo News or Money Magazine that you like? Submit it to Tip’d! Read a blog post that you think makes  a good point? Submit it to Tip’d!

Lots of personal finance bloggers have already commented on Tip’d, so I decided to try out Tip’d, and I was pretty impressed.

What Makes Tip’d Special?

When I first heard about Tip’d, my immediate concern was that it was perhaps an answer to a problem that didn’t really exist. Digg, StumbleUpon, reddit, etc all do a very good job of aggregating information that falls out of their traditional technical focus. Does Tip’d bring enough to the table that warrants adding an extra site to the regular routine?

I think the answer might be yes, for a couple of reasons:

  1. Tip’d has the advantage of being specifically focused on the financial world, and so you’re able to support a greater depth of categories and topics than the bigger sites that generally lump all financial news together.
  2. Tip’d also has a very impressive design; it is not only very visually appealing, but it also very easy, intuitive, and responsive. It almost makes it too easy.
  3. Tip’d also seems to have a great team behind it — not only in that their leadership has a lot of experience with social media, but also in that they have the support of some great bloggers like Jim from over at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity.

Questions about Tip’d

That being said, I certainly have some questions about Tip’d that will probably take some time to answer. Mainly:

  1. Will Tip’d Develop A Community? This so fundamental of a question that it seems silly to place it with the rest of my questions. Simply put, if Tip’d doesn’t develop a community, it won’t succeed. The whole idea behind social media sites is that the aggregate opinions will bring the best articles to the top.
  2. Does Tip’d Have A Place For Me? I am still unsure as to exactly what the focus of the site is — while the tagline is a community for financial news, ideas, and tips, their about page describes Tip’d “as a place for investors — both amateur and professional — to meet, share, discuss, comment, and vote on what’s happening on both Wall Street and Main Street.”

    My, interests (and by extension, my blog), though, deal more with personal finance and frugality than investing.I am comforted by the fact that some significant PF and Frugality bloggers have joined the site and are participating, so perhaps that will help create this frugality niche within Tip’d — otherwise it might just devolve into more news-oriented financial topics. I think I would be more comfortable about Tip’d, though, if perhaps there were a frugality category added.
  3. Where does this leave PF BUzz? PF Buzz is a similar social media site that has been around for a while that deals with “the best money and finance articles” out there. As opposed to Tip’d, they have a bigger focus on Personal Finance and Frugality. I have not been an active user of PF Buzz, but I have enjoyed using it as a resource to catch up on the latest buzz. Will these two be competitors? PF Buzz seems to have struggled a bit to take off — will Tip’d face a similar fate?

Try It Out!

Regardless, I think Tip’d holds a great deal of promise, so I definitely encourage everyone to check it out. It is really easy to register, and if you do register, please feel free to add me as a friend — my username, of course, is studentscrooge.

October 18, 2008 | Filed Under Resources | 7 Comments