| BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : DECEMBER 13, 1999 ISSUE | ||||||||
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| BUSINESSWEEK INVESTOR -- THE BARKER PORTFOLIO
Should Your Broker Run Your Home Page? My, my, my: There's My-Kids.com (cyber photo albums), MyFamily.com (inherently difficult relationships online), MyPoints.com (virtual Green Stamps), even MyMoney.com.au (personal finance for Internet users Down Under). Most of these efforts to personalize the Web probably escaped your attention. But I'm betting that you haven't missed discount broker Charles Schwab's (SCH) MySchwab.com, which emerged last spring amid a hail of hype. Now, My Fidelity is the subject of an ad blitz by Powerstreet, Fidelity Investments' rebranded brokerage arm. Both of these ''MyPages,'' if you will, merge stuff from the companies' own home pages, such as links to account balances, stock research, and trading, with information and services often found at popular Web portals, including news, weather, and search engines. ''It's about giving people what they need at their fingertips,'' Tracey Curvey, executive vice-president of Fidelity's online brokerage, told me. It's also about ''relationship building,'' as MySchwab chief Diane Russell put it--a way to keep current clients while attracting new ones. ''With MySchwab,'' she added, ''there's more reason to continuously engage with Schwab.'' Is that a good thing? I wonder. True, you don't even need a brokerage account to create one of these free, personalized home pages. Yet, as with many Web temptations, customizing your own home page threatens to eat time and attention you might better spend elsewhere. And do you really want your discount broker in your face each time you fire up your browser? HELPFUL SERVICES. Curious to see if these MyPages could overcome my prejudices, I recently gave each a long look. MySchwab is a joint effort with portal operator Excite (ATHM), while Fidelity relies on Lycos (LCOS) for personalization software, news, and so-called ''lifestyle'' content. That means everything from tides to horoscopes to sports scores. At MySchwab, I was able to select from more than 150 topics for news headlines. For example, I chose a menu of top stories about business, Florida, The McGraw-Hill Cos. (MGH) (BUSINESS WEEK'S parent), even--although it's a cold topic right now--the Tour de France. At My Fidelity (formerly named My View), I built my site to include news, plus the weather in Melbourne Beach, Fla., New York, and Rome. Both sites also offer helpful services, such as calendars, to nag you about meetings or Mom's birthday. They both allowed me to customize, within limits, not just content but also the page's layout and colors--My Fidelity had 14 color schemes from ''Onyx Overdrive'' to ''Peachy Keen.'' All this is fun stuff, but when it came to minding money, I found some surprising differences. Although Fidelity says upgrades are imminent, when I tried My Fidelity in November it had only a crude means of tracking a ''watch list'' of stocks. Nor did it have a simple way to grab a quick stock quote. Both are key features of MySchwab. My Fidelity also didn't let me follow news on a specific stock or industry as did MySchwab, where I could track news on McGraw-Hill or any stock simply by entering its ticker symbol. These aren't huge problems. Each site had its own strengths and weaknesses. I came away knowing I wouldn't choose one company over the other because of its MyPage. At the same time, I can't recommend that you spend the couple of hours it takes to set up fully one of these pages, especially if your money is invested elsewhere. For one thing, I found more flexible personalization at My Yahoo! (my.yahoo.com). It's closely tied to Yahoo!'s (YHOO) finance area, which displays little ad-links to four other online brokers: Ameritrade (AMTD), E*Trade (EGRP), Morgan Stanley Dean Witter Online (MWD), and TD Waterhouse (TWE). What if you're with Fidelity or Schwab? You may find having a ''MyPage'' is kind of neat. I doubt it will make you a better investor. Questions? Comments? E-mail barkerportfolio@businessweek.com or fax (321) 728-1711 By ROBERT BARKER _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP |
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