Google Finance Service Powered by Open Source JavaScript Integration Kit

Google Finance Launch Announced

JavaScriptSearch
Wednesday, March 22, 2006; 03:57 AM

Google's answer to Yahoo Finance offers an innovative way to track the latest business developments.  It allows users users to search for and find financial information about public and private companies, as well as mutual funds. 

The sleek operation of the site and its interactive features are made possible by implementing AJAX - the backbone of Web 2.0.  According to Adobe developer Mike Chambers, Google uses an open source Flash / Javascript integration kit.  The Flash / JavaScript Integration kit makes it possible to seamlessly communicate between Flash and JavaScript.  JavaScript functions can be called from Flash, and ActionScript functions from JavaScript.

Here's what Google Finance offers to its subscribers:

• Interactive Charts – Google Finance takes financial charts one step further by mapping market data with corresponding news stories in one interactive chart, so users can track news to stock performance. In addition, users can click and drag on the charts to see different time periods, and zoom in/out for more detailed information.
• Search – Unlike many financial sites, Google Finance lets users search for public and private companies, as well as mutual funds, using both company names and ticker symbols. Users can also search for companies by the names of management team members.
• News – Google Finance integrates the Google News service, which gathers stories from more than 4,500 English news sources worldwide. Google News is clustered in groups by news topic, rather than listed by date, so users do not have to scroll through multiple headlines on the same news story.
• Blogs – Google Finance incorporates blog postings for related company information from Google Blog Search.
• Discussion Groups – Google Finance helps users connect with each other by offering high quality discussion forums. To help ensure a high-quality experience, we have a team of folks dedicated to keeping the discussion groups free of spam and irrelevant posts.
• Portfolios – Google Finance offers a fast and easy way to create and maintain your portfolio of stocks and mutual funds.