Twitter Hijacks Cashtags -- Stocktwits

StockTwits, a financial communications company, was founded in 2008. The company’s signal achievement is the creation of the so-called “cashtag” — $TICKER. When a user clicks on the cashtag at the StockTwits site, the Twitter stream associated with the ticker is displayed along with a stock price quote and other information.

Yesterday, Twitter introduced its own “cashtag” stream:

Howard Lindzon, the founder of StockTwits, is not amused:

I am disappointed of course that Twitter is hijacking our idea and time (will only confuse the masses) [sic], but StockTwits moved beyond that basic functionality 4 years ago. In a dirty way, it’s the ultimate compliment so we will take it as such for the moment and keep rolling out functionality that makes us the best real-time communication platform for people that love stocks and markets.

It’s a bit hard to feel Lindzon’s pain, though. Without Twitter, there would very likely be no StockTwits.

Twitter appears to have reclaimed a piece of its own turf.

Paul Ausick