Investing at the intersection of technology and social media (The Future of Investing)

This post was originally included as part of an ebook that I published alongside the launch of my book, Tradestream, entitled “Tradestreaming and the Future of Investing”. The content was so good I wanted everyone to have access to it .  This is a great one from thought-leader and investor, Roger Ehrenberg about the opportunities for new tech and startups at the crossroads of technology, social media and finance.

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The real-time Internet is providing investors with actionable insights and information previously unimaginable. Technological innovation – distributed processing and massive storage through cloud computing – has played a significant role in this transformation. However, it is at the intersection of technology and social media where the greatest innovation has taken place.  Thought-leaders across all domains, including finance, investing, economics and trading, have increasingly been sharing their views on the Internet. And a new class of companies have emerged to harvest, index, curate and disseminate these valuable insights. But more importantly, these companies have facilitated conversations between thought-leaders and members of the community. And it is in this dialogue where the greatest value is created. These changes impact not only investors, but producers and consumers of media everywhere. Trusted perspectives are being turned into actionable insights in real-time, with the judge of quality being crowd-sourced. Is this story important or merely noise? Is this unusual options activity truly predictive of earnings out-performance or simply a statistical artifact? Is this analysts’ off-consensus iPad shipment estimates based upon better insights or a flawed understanding? Innovative companies have helped to identify high-value individuals to serve as catalysts for discussion, but trust, reputation and status must be earned by community leaders and members alike every day. And it is the judgment of community that will ultimately determine a person’s influence within the community. And this can only happen through today’s cutting-edge technology, innovations in how social media and online communities are built and curated and the increasing volume of high-quality content. When it comes to investing and the impact of technology and social media, what seemed like the future is accessible today.

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Roger Ehrenberg (LinkedIn) is Managing Partner of IA Ventures, a seed-stage technology fund focused on “big data” tools and technologies. Mr. Ehrenberg has an array of investments across financial technology and social media including Stocktwits, Covestor, Selerity, bit.ly, Buddy Media, TweetDeck and TLISTS.