Fidelity Labs -- what is it?
Spotted this on the Fidelity homepage last week: "Fidelity Labs," a website that apparently serves as a test bed for new electronic Fidelity Investments products. Users are welcome to give feedback about the tools.
There are two beta test tools on the site now that users can play with: Financial Search, and Mortgage Search. I tried out the search feature, and have to say I was a bit disappointed. For instance, searching for "Fidelity Investments" under news returned just the following three results:
Who's a Contrarian? Not me!
Bean Counting and the Latte Factor
Energy Trusts Still Burn Bright
By comparison, Google News returns 740 results using the same search terms. Some are no doubt only marginally related to the company, but I noted that two of the first ten results had information which Fidelity probably doesn't want to publicize too much -- a big shake-up among managers Of Fidelity's international funds. These are the types of results which Fidelity probably doesn't want to show up in its own search engine.
Other problems with Fidelity Search: It doesn't list the original source of the news, and you can't highlight, copy and paste the URL or headline from the search results into another browser or application.
As for the other tool, Mortgage Search, I didn't try it, but have to wonder if this is a sign of another industry Fidelity wants to get into. Time will tell.
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Fidelity getting into a sector dominated by Starbucks and upscape catering companies? That is apparently the case, according to Jay Fitzgerald of the Boston Herald: Read
There have been a few major changes at Fidelity Investments in the past month. I mentioned one of them in a previous post -- the changing of the guard at Fidelity Magellan -- but there has been another behind-the-scenes shift involving the Johnson family, which ... Read
As I blogged earlier this week, Fidelity has a retirement planning service aimed at retirees. Read
