Google Finance has no plans to hire biz writers

Google Finance was unveiled to the media on Monday, and there are stories in the San Jose Mercury News and San Francisco Chronicle this morning, as well as other publications, about the new feature.

As the new site pertains to business journalism, the Chronicle’s Verne Kopytoff had this passage that should be noted: “Google Finance lacks some of what is available on competing Web sites, such as the ability to plot two stocks on the same chart. [Senior Product Manager Katie Jacobs] Stanton said that new functions will be added soon.

“She said that the company has no plans to hire its own business writers. Several of Google’s rivals have their own writers, including Dow Jones Inc.’s MarketWatch, which has a team of reporters, and Yahoo, which has several columnists.”

Mercury News reporter Matt Marshall wrote, “Google pulls company news from 4,500 sources that it collects by crawling the Web. Google also struck partnerships with various vendors of company information, such as Hoovers and Revere Data, a San Francisco company.”

Chris Kraueter from Forbes.com writes, “In contrast, both of Google Finance’s two biggest competitors have begun offering their own content in addition to data and news stories they compile from outside partners. Yahoo! Finance, which dates back to 1996, recently started offering its own group of exclusive columnists, such as Jeremy Siegel and Robert Kiyosaki, and placement on the site is determined by a group of editorialists. MSN Money also employs a team of copyeditors, writers and columnists, led by Editor In Chief Richard Jenkins, a former deputy editor of the Los Angeles Times Online.”