Google Finance

Google on Tuesday launched a beta version of Google Finance, a Web site aggregating information about companies and mutual funds that features an interactive chart correlating news and other events with stock price spikes and falls.

Charts can be changed to show stock activity for different time periods by clicking and dragging, and they can be zoomed in on to get more detailed information. News stories that correspond to specific days are displayed on the side and are automatically adjusted to reflect the selected time period.

People have been able to get a stock quote by typing a ticker into the Google search bar. Now the Google Finance page will be one of the top links on the results page when a ticker is typed in the search bar.

Google Finance can be found at finance.google.com and links to it appear in a featured area at the top of general Google search results pages when users search for stock or corporate information that appear to be finance related.

Beneath the finance-focused search box at the top of the Google Finance main page are sections that provide summaries of the market, stock quotes and links to news, blogs and moderated-finance group discussions.

One of the more novel features of the site gives user the ability to view financial news alongside historical price charts over various time frames. As the user zooms back in time, the news results change with the date.

The site identifies financial stories within Google News, the company's existing news search site that features articles from roughly 4,500 different sources. By contrast, Yahoo's financial news relies on three dozen top editorial brands.

And while Yahoo was the first of the major Internet sites to incorporate blogging alongside news in its Yahoo News site, Google Finance is first to run blogs alongside financial news.