Google's Finance Site Fumble

But while Google understands ad sales -- and can snap up top talent across fields, thanks to swelling coffers and a rising stock price -- its track record in content areas like Answers and Finance remains unproven.

That isn't to say that Yahoo Finance! should rest on its laurels. The competition will be especially intense from Time Warner's(TWX) AOL Finance site which, with 10.3 million monthly users, is currently the Web's third largest. AOL also is posting impressive growth rates, adding 26% more unique investors year over year, comparable to Yahoo!'s 28%.

But AOL, which recently abandoned its subscription model to pursue only ad revenue, will be gunning for growth. And as a subsidiary of media giant Time Warner, AOL is much more content savvy than Google.

Microsoft's(MSFT) MSN Money -- the second-largest finance Web site, with 11.7 million unique visitors as of October -- also will likely push harder as the software giant gets increasingly serious about ad revenue.

Google, on the other hand, would do well to take a hard look at how it goes about developing its content ventures. The approach that served it well in engineering other products would appear to be the best route.

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