Yesterday Google debuted its new Finance page and today I got a chance to browser the app for a while. Google Finance promently features a Flash based live ticker for any stock and includes a zooming interface on that ticker to display financial data for the last three years. A list of news stories (found by Google News, of course) is displayed along side the ticker and is even linked within the data at various points to relate the news to the stock. I can see this as a developing application meant to compete with the likes of E-Trade for portfolio display via Flash (though E-trade's Flash RIA is a lot more complex and integrates buying and selling). I would like an API though so I could integrate the data and ready made charts into various sites. This would be great for internal live stock and market trackers for major organizations. Want to see how the world views your company? Just keep it on your homepage.

Read more about Google Finance around the web: Mike Downey links to Adobe's stats, Paul Kedrosky wants more and suspects this is a Flash demo (he doesn't see the AJAX-i-ness that lovingly integrates with the Flash fun, I guess), JD points to the Flash charting and notices the XmlHttpRequest to connect to the headlines, TechCrunch gives its usual run down with links to what the Web 2.0ers think, our Blog-daddy Jason Calacanis thinks it is no Yahoo and wants to know why more sites don't implement Flash this cleanly (me too), and our blog-sibling The Unofficial Google Weblog sees this beta as a good move that will possibly beat out Yahoo's offerring (guess he doesn't agree with Jason).