

Bloomberg’s VIP Terminal Tweeters - valgaze
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/04/bloombergs-vip-terminal-tweeters.html

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apaprocki
(Bloomberg employee) It might seem like a crazy interface if you haven't used
a Terminal before, but the thing which the articles/screenshots don't really
convey is that it feeds into the existing news backend. We consume 80,000+
news feeds so the Twitter content feeds in just like any other news source.
Lots of handles have been imported and classified different ways and the same
entity / topic classification that occurs for articles will also occur on
tweet content without making a Twitter specific backend or frontend app.

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drucken
Do people/institutions pay to be on the list?

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apaprocki
No, it's just a matter of the data team understanding their relevance to
customers and getting to categorizing them. I think they've done enough to go
live but it's an ongoing process for sure.

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joshstrange
That interface makes my eyes bleed, is that what is considered "cutting edge"
in the stock trading industry?

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potatolicious
It isn't a consumer product - prettiness has nothing to do with usability.
This is an extreme power user environment where discoverability and aesthetics
take a back seat to consistency and reliability.

Think of it less like a computer program and more like the cockpit of an
airplane. It needs to be powerful, it can require training before use, it
needs to be consistent, it needs to be fault-tolerant and mistake-tolerant,
and it doesn't need to look good.

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joshstrange
I get that, I would have just thought even with a product optimized for the
traits you mention would be a little more advance. That said I realize I am
making a snap judgement here from a single screenshot of the software which is
probably not entirely fair of me. I was simply under the impression that the
tools traders used were a little more advanced looking I guess.

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drucken
Do not let the user interface fool you. Bloomberg is about as "advanced" a
trading information system as you can get. Its main competitor, Reuters, is
also no better looking and often used simultaneously. Together they sew up
most of the trading information market, 60%+.

A trader will also have a third application/screen for trade input into their
firms systems.

Bloomberg terminal was designed for non-computer users back in the 80s and the
whole physical layout, especially the Bloomberg keyboard, is a part of the
design. The emphasis is on speed of access by keyboard, consistency,
information liveliness and responsiveness.

It also means, that Bloomberg can iterate to add functionality to the core of
the application (which is not the UI itself), a hell of a lot faster than new
competitors.

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joshstrange
Thank you for this, I really enjoy learning about the inner working of other
industries. Thank you for correcting my ignorance.

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antr
I don't think that this feature is going to be used that often, for two main
reason:

(i) when a Bloomberg user uses the terminal to lookup securities and other
economic/financial information, they don't want to be open about it (trading
strategies, investment focus, etc, are well guarded secrets and become real
competitive advantages),

(ii) most of the firms that use Bloomberg Terminals have Twitter and other
"social" networks blocked by firewalls.

Correction: given that it is a read only, "curated" list of users, I do
believe it will be used. I was skeptic about the ability of being able to
tweet, but it's been made clear that tweeting won't be permitted.

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elemeno
I disagree with you and I suspect it will be used by more than a few traders
as an indicator of sentiment - they'll use it a way to quickly gauge what
people are thinking about particular companies and use that as another
variable for their trading/sales decisions.

Your two reasons don't make a lot of sense to me, based on my experience in
the industry. Specifically -

(i) If you're using a Bloomberg terminal, it's somewhat implicit that
Bloomberg knows what you're using it to look at (as well as who you're
emailing via it etc). If people didn't trust them not to tell everyone else
what you're looking at, no one would use Bloomberg. Your strategies shouldn't
be a secret from the rest of your desk or your own company (assuming you're at
a bank/hedge-fund/prop-house rather than a rent-a-desk prop-shop where
everyone only works on their own accounts and thus the guy next to you is your
competitor). The majority of traders aren't executing their own strategies
anyway, but are working within a set of parameters set by their company or
clients.

(ii) a) This is becoming less true, more and more banks etc. are allowing
access to view Twitter, but not to post to it. b) I think you might have
missed the point of the service where Bloomberg is offering a read only
Twitter feed to avoid the problem of Twitter being blocked.

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antr
Trading strategies within a floor are shared, never with other firms, that is
simply to shoot yourself on the foot.

Regarding Bloomberg knowing what you search for and look at, the
confidentiality clauses are pretty strict in the service agreement.

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elemeno
Yes, that was the point I was making - your original post was implying that
people won't use a Bloomberg feature because "other people might work out how
they're trading".

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ghshephard
I like MG's comment on being included (@parislemon)

"Hope they like Giants baseball and then Michigan basketball tweets tomorrow…"

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yarou
Hedge accordingly. :)

