We produced an in-studio interview between Bob Margolis, Community Content Manager of Reuters AdvicePoint, and Eric Janszen, Founder and President of iTulip.com, in advance of the upcoming Reuters AdvicePoint Conference. AdvicePoint is Reuters new social media community for financial service advisors. Watch a panel discussion we produced on B2B social networking to learn more – the GM of AdvicePoint is one of the panelists.
The main questions I had for Eric were around journalistic standards. Given how much clout bloggers have in the industries they cover, and their ability to spread truth and rumors as they break news, what kind of self-regulation does Eric put on himself to ensure the accuracy of his commentary. This is especially important, in my opinion, with financial blogging. He literally has the abiltity to move markets. He says something, lots of people read it. Other bloggers quote him, link to him, and summarize his commentary.
There is always the delicate balance in the breaking news world between accuracy (finding reliable sources, confirming statements with more than one source, etc) and timeliness (if we don’t break this story, someone else will beat us to the punch). A good example is the NY Times John McCain story. The Times did not want to publish the story, but knew others were sniffing around the story and would publish it. Their competitors forced their hand on the timeliness front, “Either you break the story or we do.”
Eric also talks about how today’s financial blogs are helping financial advisers avoid decision-making delays that result in asset and client loss.
Here is the spiffy page we created for Reuters to send people in advance of the conference. They will send an email blast to prospective conference attendees, and instead of yet another “early bird registration” email, they can say, “We thought you might enjoy this thought provoking interview with a leading Financial industry blogger who will happen to speak at our upcoming conference. We look forward to seeing you there.”
- Peter
