Finovate 2008 Coverage - The First 6 Presenters!
<font>Intuit – Quicken Online</font>
Mark’s Review: 
Rearview mirror + Binnoculars for your financial life. They are really looking to target and help the 70% of American that are current living paycheck to paycheck.
Quicken Online is now a FREE offering. In addition to tracking, also includes a ‘spending money outlook’ shows where you are, what you’ll probably be spending in the future, and when your next paycheck is coming. Also now includes a mobile component.
The sleeping giant of PFMs is awake and l think their latest offering is right on!
Quicken went free! Helping people manage their finances for the future – great ideas for a PFM. Available Oct. 30 on their website. I wonder how it compares to the other free online PFMs here today (Wesabe, Mint, etc). Mobile-ready with daily stats that texts you to tell you if you have enough money to pay upcoming bills. I’ll definitely be trying this out later.
Lisa’s Review:
<font>WeSeed</font>
Mark’s Review:
The stock market is intimidating. Uses fake money and fake stocks to ease and educated people into the market. Focuses on starting with what you know using what looks to be a clean robust search and moving towards fake trading that company. Great fake purchasing process including alert settings and then moves into your portfolio with social aspects.
A very clean and straightforward barrier buster to learning about and getting your feet wet in the market. Currently looking for beta testers
Not sure what WeSeed is – tried to understand from their website. People are intimidated by the stock market – WeSeed creates a way for everyday people to trade. Fake stock & fake money? Sounds a little like training wheels for the stock market – not a bad idea. The site looks really nice. Provides company descriptions and comments from users. Buying stocks is extremely easy. I like the “confirm your fake order.” They definitely made it playful. Connects you with others that are into buying the same stocks you bought. Breaks down the stock market into types of people (pet-lovers, parents, fashionistas…). Seriously, the site looks great.
Lisa’s Review:
<font>Wesabe</font>
Mark’s Review: 
If you can be an ‘oldie but a goodie’ in the online PFM space, that’s what Wesabe is. They very really the first to put money and community together with customization and personalization.
They expand on that with a customized homepage with customized graphs. The current interface for adding and changing graphs looks pretty rough and cryptic (using urls) but they are moving to a ‘graph gallery’ making it easier to implement these in the future.
Ah, Wesabe. I signed up for wesabe a while back, but didn’t get very deep into it. I have preferred Mint to Wesabe, but let’s see what they’re doing. Customized community and personal data. Tags for your purchases – very nice. See what Wesabe members are spending and compare – all anonymous. Graph gallery to come in the next month, built by users. They’re wanting to provide data to help their members make better decisions. I like the site, but I still lean towards Min.
Lisa’s Review:
<font>Check Point</font>
Mark’s Review: 
Cyber crime is a $1Billion a year problem. Checkpoint sits on top of the browser to help alert users of phishing attacks and compromised sites. Does use some enhanced algorithms over just phishing lists. Runs your browser in a sandbox environment. It’s an interesting offering, but I believe browsers are moving towards building this stuff right in.
Of all the little things to be bothered by, I don’t like the little chat bubbles at the bottom of this page. Check Point is a network security software. Their software pops up a big notification of a phishing site (example was a fake eBay). Pretty scary info about what’s downloaded in the background while you’re surfing the internet. I like the software, but not sure I’d choose this over some other anti-virus program.
Lisa’s Review: 
<font>Sybase 365</font>
Mark’s Review:
A turnkey mobile banking platform for banks and credit unions. Handles carrier compliance issues so you don’t have to. Includes full front end integration to allow your customers to setup their accounts on the platform and get going with alerts. Uses natural language (instead of special keywords) allowing users to request information and perform activities in an easier way. In addition to SMS also has WAP support. (I don’t know what WAP is…but I’ll update when I find out.)
Love the accent. A mobile banking platform. The site looks really dull, though. No big wow factor at all. Intelligent SMS. Consumers are texting more than they’re calling these days – I can vouch for that. I really don’t see the differentiating factor with Sybase. Maybe I missed it. The presentation was a little lackluster. I may need to see how the value in networking time later.
Lisa’s Review:
<font>FiLife</font>
Mark’s Review:
Personal Finance website built to help people find the right financial products. Includes community reviews and ratings in addition to experts that write and give guidance.
The latest development is a ‘credit card picker’ (with more ‘pickers’ to come). Includes a ‘value to you’ computation along with some cool visualizations that help you choose the right card.
There’s a ton on this site beyond credit cards, so it’s worth checking out.
I think the pickers to come could be valuable, but given the current credit situation, seems like a tough one to start with.
The site is really busy. Product picker that sorts through products based on your expenses. I love the bubbles that show you individual credit card offers. It seems like a great website to help you find the best deals out there to help you manage your money better. Wow, I loved the stacker animation. Very cool things going on within this site. I like how it takes specific details about your personal financial situation and serves you tools to harness your money.
