Financial MySpace the next online trend?

Both Microsoft and Reuters are launching websites in 2007 specifically for financial professionals to communicate with their peers. Similar to the popular teen social networking site MySpace, which allows users to find online buddies,listen to music and post blogs, Microsoft’s and Reuters’ community sites will give accountants and other finance workers a forum for sharing information such as best practices, research, articles and opinions.

The two companies, which announced plans for their respective sites within weeks of each other, had similar thoughts on what the ventures would entail. CEO Tom Glocer said Reuters would“launch a version of MySpace for the financial services community;” while Microsoft’s Satya Nadella said of its site,“You can think of it as the MySpace for financial professionals.” Both also intend to limit use on the sites to subscribers:Reuters hopes to tap into the 70,000 subscribers of its messaging service, and Microsoft’s site will be restricted to clients using its Dynamics applications.