Reuters to Create Online Financial Community Site

As reported by The Guardian, Reuters plans to launch an online community later this year for the purpose of exchanging financial information. Touted as a version of MySpace for those in the financial industries, the site will be limited to Reuters' subscribers. As Reuters CEO Tom Glocer says,

"People don't want to have 100 friend requests from teenage girls in Florida if they are trading the credit derivatives market, but they probably are interested in being able to share research."

Reuters currently has 70,000 subscribers for its messaging service, and hopes to lure in analysts, fund manager, and traders to share research, trading models, and other financial information.

Reuters has already gained a reputation for innovative online business practices, having posted one of its reporters to a virtual post within the online world Second Life, where the journalist reports on events happening in the virtual world. Reuters also used its space within the online world to sell advertising, and Glocer claims it is "an experiment that has probably paid for itself 10 times over in marketing."

Whether or not financial gurus are going to be willing to share their information within a community of strangers, even subscriber strangers, remains to be seen, but Reuters is willing to bet that the site will help it meet its projections of a 6% increase in revenues this year.