In addition to displaying account balances, this new gadget, now available for download from Fidelity Labs, can also be configured to display alerts on certain account-related activities, including trade notifications and price trigger alerts. Customers can choose to either add the Secure Gadget as a standalone gadget or they can click a button to add a customized Fidelity Tab to their iGoogle. The tab includes the gadget itself, plus two RSS feeds from Fidelity: Fidelity Investor's Weekly and Fidelity Investment Insight Podcast.

Fidelity iGoogle tab (click to view larger):

To use the gadget, customers log in using their SSN or Customer ID and PIN, as they would do online. That information is not saved on Google's servers on any other 3rd party servers, says Fidelity.

The Fidelity Labs web site states that they developed the gadget, but it looks to us like it came from WorkLight, an enterprise 2.0 startup whose banking 2.0 survey data we reviewed earlier this year. At that time, the survey results showed that nearly half of the respondents said they would use web 2.0 tools if offered by their current bank. We also took note of the secure banking gadgets they had under development - gadgets that greatly resemble this one from Fidelity - which we considered to be very promising technology.

The release of Fidelity's gadget may hint at the beginnings of a new trend in banking - making banking 2.0 mainstream. Along with numerous web 2.0 services for managing finances, many of today's banking customers can manage their money from their mobile phones while other customers are receiving personalized recommendations on their iPhones, as well. However, none of the services offered so far have the potential for mainstreaming banking 2.0 the way a Google homepage gadget could. It's already a technology most everyone is familiar with and it's being offered by the financial institution itself, which should help customers feel comfortable about its security. We hope more financial institutions will start offering gadgets of their own in the near future.

Explosive Growth

In Q3 2008, VeriSign Messaging and Mobile Media Divison's mobile messaging networks enabled more than 58.3 billion messages per day to travel through their pipes...10% more than in the previous quarter and up from 280 million per day in Q3. Based on these record-breaking numbers, VeriSign projects that their mobile messaging networks will enable close to 200 billion total messages by the end of the year.

Enterprises and financial institutions have seen growing numbers of mobile messages sent, too. From Q3 2007 to Q3 2008, the total number of messages delivered rose from 129 to 227 million - a 115% increase.

Much of that activity comes from SMS's new position as the preferred platform for mobile banking. VeriSign's Mobile Banking platform, which includes seven of the top ten banking brands and three of the top five credit card companies, has grown 35% since last quarter alone.  

Mobile messaging, as defined by VeriSign, isn't just SMS, though. They take into account a number of different types of messages, including the following:

• SMS - Short Message Service. SMS is the most common form of mobile messaging, also referred to as "text" messaging.
• ICSMS - Inter-carrier Short Message Service. ICSMS messages are text messages exchanged between carrier networks.
• MMS - Multimedia Messaging Service. MMS allows users to send multimedia messages that include images, video and audio.
• ICMMS - Inter-carrier Multimedia Messaging Service. ICMMS messages are multimedia messages exchanged between carrier networks.
• P2P Messages - Person to person messages, or messages sent from one mobile user to another.
• A2P Messages - Application to person messages, or application-generated content such as news alerts, ring tones, promotional video clips, and enterprise messages that are sent to mobile users.

It's interesting that even as the iPhone and other app-filled devices grow in popularity, when it comes to getting information quickly, we're still turning to the mobile message - and now more than ever before. Will this trend ever level off as more people switch over to the smartphones whose "real internet" experiences no longer require text-based workarounds for getting the information needed? By the looks of these numbers, it doesn't appear that will be the case.

Image credit: enV by Nesster

At the same time, however, Compete's survey also found that almost 45% of respondents who use online banking think that using a wireless device would be 'useful' or 'very useful,' while only 12% think it would be 'not at all useful.'

This data from Compete also fits in well with a survey from WorkLight we reported about in June, which stated that 48% of consumers between the ages of 18-34 would use secure gadgets for personal banking if their bank offered it.

Judging from these data points, mobile banking can clearly look forward to robust growth, especially once consumers get more comfortable with using the Internet on their mobile devices.

Mobile Banking Has to be Easy

The poster-child for online banking in the U.S. so far is the mobile site of the Bank of America, which has close a one million active users, 2/3rds of which are under the age of 35.

One aspect of mobile banking that the Compete study doesn't take into account is that a lot of banks simply don't offer very compelling mobile sites yet. Unless the experience on a mobile device is as frictionless and simple as possible, consumers will wait to check their account status at home.

To do so, however, you have to give Mint the login data for all your accounts, which raises alarms for some users, especially because Mint is still a relatively new entity in the finance business.

As we pointed our earlier this month, Mint's users are relatively young, with a median age of 28, but by adding investment accounts and the new IRA calculator, Mint should be able to slowly become more mainstream, especially in these tough economic times. In the future, Mint also plans to allow for bill payment and stock trades through its site, but for now, it is only a data aggregator.

If you would like to read more about our take on personal finance in the cloud and a look at Mint's competitors, have a look at our comparison of the top 10 personal money management sites on the Internet.

The proliferation of these types of apps would have you believe there's a big demand for web-based financial tools. But is there really? We would hope so, considering how their advanced technology can provide detailed analysis about your money (or lack thereof). However, we secretly wondered if the only people logging in to sites like Mint.com and the like are the young kids of Gen Y. Do adults with mortgages, credit card debt, and 401Ks even know how to use these tools?

To find out who's using the banking 2.0 tools and why, we started with Mint.com, who recently gave us a peek into their company's data. As VentureBeat noted, Mint.com's nearly 500,000 users are cutting down on expenses - they've spent an average of $300 less per month in August than in January this year, a 6% drop. However, they believed that early users of this site and those like it were sure to be younger and more tech-savvy. We believe they are tech-savvy, too, since it does require the use of computer and browser, and we know that not everyone can handle such complications. But we wondered: how young are the users really? 

Mint.com Is Slowly Aging

Although Mint.com doesn't require you to fill out anything more than a zip code and email address in order to sign up, they've conducted multiple user surveys in order to get a grasp on their company's demographic data. The end result of those surveys has given them a good idea of who uses the site.

Mint.com admits that they, as a web company, did indeed "launch young." In the beginning, their audience was primarily Generation Y. However, over the past year, their user base has been gradually aging. At launch, the average age of the user on the site was 27, the same as their CEO at the time, Aaron Patzer. Today, the average age is 28, only a year higher, a year later. So are they really growing up?

Maybe they're not aging overall as a site, but when you look at the breakdowns by age range, you can see that some of the older age groups are trending upwards. Look at the 40-year-olds and up, for example - there is some growth to be seen there. Below, you can see a chart that tracks changes between September, 2007 and July, 2008:

Another trend that points to the aging of Mint users is the fact that more users now report owning their primary residence. In December 2007, that number was 39%. Today, 43% report that they own their own home.

Why It Works: You Can Actually Save Money

When we first reported Mint.com's announcement that they had saved users over $100 million while managing $12 billion in transactions, some of you were skeptical. But the company is maintaining those numbers are accurate. This is in part to due the fact that when you take into consideration the number of accounts maintained at Mint (checking, savings, credit card, 401K, mortgages, car loans, etc.) and the number of users (now about half a million), it isn't very hard to push that number up. However, it's also high thanks to Mint.com's wealthier-than-the-average-American user base. As of July 2008, the user's average income level was over $100,000/year and 39% had investment assets over $50,000.

But that's not to say that Mint is only a tool for the wealthy tech elite - anyone can save money with the service. According to a company representative, 1 out of every 10 Mint.com users changes accounts after signing up for the service. This means that those users are tapping into Mint.com's feature where the service recommends them a better offer. For example, a person with a credit card who charges a lot of airline tickets might be offered a different card with travel points. Another person might be recommended to switch from their Bank of America savings account to ING where they would get a better rate, perhaps. And yet another person might be recommended a credit card with a lower rate. And don't be mistaken - those recommendations aren't simply taking into account the introductory period where the credit card company slashes the rate to entice you, but looks at the credit card rate over the course of an entire year before determining whether it would really save the user money.

What About The Other Startups In This Space?

Given Mint.com's user base of around 500,000 and their traffic numbers, they are one of the biggest, if not the biggest, personal finance/money management web service. They achieved this growth through smart advertising campaigns that reached out to the mainstream, especially women, in magazines like SELF, Real Simple, and Reader's Digest. That appeared to have worked - today, 40% of new users on the site are women - that's a much higher number than back in 2007, when only 15% of the users were female.

So, what about the others? We reached out to some of the other banking 2.0 sites to see what sort of data they had, too. Out of the ten apps we previously featured, only Wesabe, Rudder, Geezeo, Xero, and Expensr had data on hand. iThryv is still preparing to launch and the rest did not respond to our request.

Here's how those sites compared:

Wesabe

• Over 100,000 users
• 56% male, 44% female
• Median income: $60-80K
• Age: 60% are 30 or younger
• Misc. - 75% have a college degree or higher, 43% are married

Rudder

• The company just launched at DEMO last month, but already have 15,000 users.
• They don't collect demographic info.

Geezeo

• 30,000 users
• 54% male, 46% female
• 30% 18 - 34 years old
• 38% 35 - 49 years old
• Site attracts less affluent users
• More info here

Xero

• Xero has 2200 paying customers
• Their number of customers has grown 132% since March 31, 2008
• Xero will not disclose demographic data.

Expensr

• 25,000 users
• Users in their 20's: 66%
• Users in their 30's: 24%

Great Tools, Now If Only Banks Would Tell People They Existed...

Overall, we can tell there are some general trends here - banking 2.0 sites are still young, but are starting to gain traction among older users. More women are starting to use these applications which makes sense, give that they are typically the ones holding the household purse strings.

However, we think that there should be more of a push by financial institutions to recommend these types of tools to their customers, instead of sticking with the old stand-bys that include desktop software applications like Quicken. As Alistair Newton, Research VP and Industry Services Director at Gartner noted earlier this year, "with banks coming under increasing pressure to deliver a range of short-term cost savings, the ways that banks interact with their customers will become increasingly important in managing costs downwards. There are a variety of ways in which banks can help customers save money and better manage their exposure to debt while saving the bank money by encouraging greater use of self-service applications."

Gartner also maintains that communities such as Mint.com, Wesabe, and Geezeo can be of long-term benefit to banks, especially as they help the more debt-exposed clients to manage their funds more effectively.

We couldn't agree more. Our hope is that in light of the country's economic meltdown, these apps will get the push they deserve.

Image credit: Cash, courtesy of: spcbrass

Banking 2.0: Money Management Moves to The Cloud

There was a time when managing finances from your computer meant you had to use desktop software. Today, that's no longer the case. There are now a number of applications that let you do your banking in the cloud, a trend we've dubbed "banking 2.0."

These sites aren't just simplified versions of our former desktop apps, either. Instead, they offer a number of features that take advantage of their "always on" status. Forget downloading updates and typing in your transactions line-by-line, these new banking 2.0 sites can offer you better insight into your financial situation with no additional effort on your part beyond just logging in.

Store, Tag and Print: 10 Great Photo Sharing Services

The photo sharing market is growing at a steady clip and new services are released regularly. In this round-up, we compare the features and usability of 10 of our favorite photo sharing sites. Two years ago, we published a similar list. So now seems a good time for us to revisit the topic.

Some of these sites focus more on mainstream users and photo-finishing, while others stand out because of their extensive social features. Note: we've included a full table of features for the services listed (see below).

Click here for the full-size version of this table.

Sometimes Google Isn't Enough: New Research Engine Searches "Deep Web"

What do you do when you need to research something on the web? You just google it, right? Using a web search engine like Google is usually fine for casual searches, but when you need to delve deep into a subject, it just won't do. What you really need is a research engine that explores the unindexed reaches of the Deep Web. For that, there's now Infovell, "the world's research engine."

Less than 0.2% of the web is indexed and some of the most valuable information lies beyond the search results returned from traditional engines. That's where a service like Infovell can help. This new subscription-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) engine lets you explore content found on the Deep Web.

See also: Semantics + Google = SemantiFind

Finally: Joost Now Available on the Web

This week Joost announced that all of its content is now available directly on its website and not just through its desktop client. Joost was one of the most hyped-up companies on the web when the peer-to-peer streaming video service was still in stealth mode in 2006; and beta invites were rare and coveted. However, once users actually got a look at Joost, disillusion quickly set in. Joost's video quality was very high and it had signed up a wide range of content producers, but its downfall was its reliance on a desktop client. Users were already switching to viewing video on the web and having to start up a client just to watch video was simply too inconvenient.

RWW Predictions: Funding for Yammer

This week's prediction question focused on the winner of the TechCrunch50 event: Yammer. Yammer is a communications product that duplicates the functionality of Twitter, but with an enterprise twist. We certainly have our doubts about Yammer as an enterprise tool. However, we wanted to know your prediction for the financial future of Yammer. Will Yammer raise a round of funding in 2008 or 2009. If so, how much will they take? As at time of writing, here were the results:

SEE MORE WEB PRODUCTS COVERAGE IN OUR PRODUCTS CATEGORY

Web Trends

Are You a Super Influencer?

A new report from Universal McCann discusses the rise of "a new breed of super influencers" that has been created by "the tools of the social media revolution." Before we all don our superhero capes, let's look more closely at the findings of the report.

Entitled When did we start trusting strangers? How the internet turned us all into influencers, the premise is that influence was moved beyond "professional and top down" (mainstream media) and into Web-enabled peer to peer influence. But despite McCann calling this a "democratisation of influence", all influencers are not equal. There are "super influencers" who are "extremely heavy users of social media, particularly in terms of content creation." Are you one of these people? Let's check out what the characteristics are...

Seven Social Media Consultants That Deliver Tangible Value

Is social media nothing but snake oil? Sometimes it can seem that way. As economies shift and trends emerge, would-be experts start popping up like weeds. Really good social media experts are a treasure - and they're not always easy to find.

In this post we highlight seven social media consultants that consistently bring tangible value to the table. These folks aren't full of hot air - they use their blogs to offer clear examples, links, tutorials and other resources you can put to use. If the goods you can see for free are so solid, that's all the more reason to investigate paying for these peoples' services. We hope this list will help you get smarter and maybe save a whole lot of money and anguish.

Tim Berners Lee Launches World Wide Web Foundation - Will it Be Effective?

Tim Berners Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, announced this week the formation of a new organization dedicated to studying how the web works and expanding access to the billions of people who can't get online today. The World Wide Web Foundation kicked off with $5 million in support from media funders the Knight Foundation.

Can yet another organization really make a difference? Some observers seem to be suffering from Organization Fatigue, but we're interested to see what Berners Lee can do. A group dedicated to deep study of the web and the obstacles to its growth sounds like a great idea to us. Not everyone agrees.

How Decoupled is The Innovation Economy From Rest of The Economy?

What a week of market mayhem! How odd having that as the backdrop to the Web 2.0 Expo in New York. We have been sounding alerts about the economic backdrop to our world of innovation for nearly a year. Back in February we wrote that this is not our bubble. Since then, the news from the economy has gotten worse and nobody is suggesting it will get better any time soon. Reading the papers is pretty grim (unless you stick to Sports or Arts). Yet we contend that it is not grim in the 'innovation economy'. Here's why...

SEE MORE WEB TRENDS COVERAGE IN OUR TRENDS CATEGORY

RWW Enterprise Channel

Report: Nearly 70% of Businesses Allow Social Media Usage

A new report about Enterprise adoption of Web 2.0 technologies, by Awareness, Inc., shows that employers are increasingly allowing staff to use social media applications in working hours. Awareness puts the figure at 69 percent of businesses in 2008, up from 37 percent last year.

It's the latest in a string of reports this year - from Awareness, Forrester and others - which provide data about the growth of web 2.0 in the enterprise. It'll be a $4.6 Billion industry by 2013, according to Forrester. See more of Awareness' findings in this post.

Email us if you're interested in writing for ReadWriteWeb's Enterprise Channel.

SEE MORE ENTERPRISE COVERAGE IN OUR ENTERPRISE CHANNEL

That's a wrap for another week! Enjoy your weekend everyone.

These sites aren't just simplified versions of our former desktop apps, either. Instead, they offer a number of features that take advantage of their "always on" status. Forget downloading updates and typing in your transactions line-by-line, these new banking 2.0 sites can offer you better insight into your financial situation with no additional effort on your part beyond just logging in.

Mint

Mint.com may be the most popular of the online banking apps today...or perhaps it's just the most hyped. The site currently claims to serve nearly 400,000 users, manages over $12 billion in transactions, and has saved $100 million+ for its users. On Mint.com, you can manage your bank account, credit card accounts, loans, brokerage and investment accounts, and more. The site also provides guides that can help you make big financial decisions like buying a new car or home. The feature which makes Mint unique is their ability to scan through your bank account and credit card transactions in order to help you find savings. They do this by matching you up with offers for new credit cards with lower rates or by negotiating a lower rate with your current company.

Wesabe

Wesabe takes what's normally a private activity - financial management - and makes it social. Like other online banking apps, Wesabe lets you see all your bank accounts and credit cards in one place. You can categorize your transactions and see spending and earning summaries. Where Wesabe is different is that it takes your data, anonymizes it, and shares it with the Wesabe community. That aggregate data is then analyzed for patterns and those results are shared with everyone. For example, Wesabe can show the cost of an average transaction at a particular merchant.

Geezeo

Geezeo is very much like Mint.com in that it offers a centralized site to access all your financial accounts including banking, credit cards, loans, etc. Where they are a bit different is in their community aspect. Instead of anonymized data, they offer community-focused areas like Groups and Goals where you can socialize and learn from others who have the same financial concerns that you do. Geezeo also stands out for letting you upload your own bank account data, if you so desire, instead of having to set up accounts to upload into Geezeo automatically. Transactions can also be manually entered. Geezeo offers a mobile app too, that lets you check your balances and available credit from your mobile phone.

Expensr

Expensr is an online personal finance application which was recently acquired by recommendation engine Strands. The site is now being integrated with Strands' recommendation technology to produce a new product, moneyStrands, which analyzes your financial history in order to recommend products and services you may find appealing. The site lets you import your bank account files into their system using a secure uploader. The app will then auto-categorize your transactions. You're presented with a variety of pie graphs and bar graphs that break down your spending to show you where your money is going. You can compare yourself to your peers by tagging yourself with keywords like "young professional" or "college student" and then look at your spending habits versus the average from that particular group. Expensr also offers budgeting tools which can help you plan for the future.

moneyStrands

After acquiring Expensr, Strands has been working to combine its technology with their own recommendation engine. The end result is moneyStrands, still in private beta. Ultimately, the site will offer you a way to aggregate your financial information in one place and see instant snapshots of your finances. Recommendation technologies will present you with services you may be interested in and you can anonymously compare your habits with others. At the moment, Expensr and moneyStrands appear as separate web sites, but perhaps they will become more integrated in the future.

Xero

Where Mint.com may appeal to former Quicken users, Xero.com appeals to former Quickbooks users. This kiwi startup offers daily bank reconciliation as well as invoicing, reporting, A/R, A/P, expense claims, and other bookkeeping tasks. For those considering the switch, a handy page on the Xero web site lets you show your accountant exactly what Xero can and cannot do so that you can analyze whether or not their service is right for you.

Rudder

Rudder made their official debut at the recent DEMO conference in San Diego. Unlike the other apps reviewed here, Rudder focuses on bills more than banking. With Rudder, you can determine how much money you have available to spend while still paying all your bills. The app aggregates your banking and credit card accounts, but the focus here is not on what's taken place in the past (historical trends, spending habits, etc.). Instead, Rudder focuses on the future by letting you know what's left in your account for spending and saving. The best feature about Rudder, though, is that it doesn't force you to log into their site to get this information. The app delivers balances, transactions, and upcoming bills directly to your email inbox.

Green Sherpa

Another app which debuted at DEMO was Green Sherpa. At first glance, the app appears to be very much like its competitors with bank account aggregation, reconciliation, and budgeting tools. However, Green Sherpa offers a combination of features which appeal to those who are making the transition from desktop apps. The app lets you input transactions manually and offers a more advanced cash flow projection than Mint.com does. However, the app's most unique feature is its sharing aspect. You can choose to give other people (like a family member or accountant) access to your data. While that makes Green Sherpa stand out, they've entered a crowded space where competitors already have solid leads, so it may not be enough to win people over.

Buxfer

Buxfer is another app offering a home to all your accounts. It will auto-download your data, categorize your transactions, and help you budget. Buxfer addresses the privacy concerns that many have with banking 2.0 sites by integrating with Google Gears. The app uses Google Gears to store your account login information on your own computer, only syncing back the data collected, not your private credentials. They also offer a groups feature which will appeal those sharing expenses with others, like roommates, for example. You can use Buxfer to track and settle IOUs with others through the site. This makes the app more appealing to a younger crowd, as does its mobile integration. You can access Buxfer via SMS, Twitter, email, on on the mobile web.

Shryk

Shryk is a company which just launched at the TechCrunch50 conference. Their two-pronged approach is designed to help kids achieve financial literacy. The first part of that approach is a service called iThryv which teaches kids about earning, saving, and managing money. This product is sold through banks and credit unions and is also available free to educational institutions. The second part of the Shyrnk platform is WeProsper.org. This is an online community where teachers, schools, and financial institutions can come together and develop new tools and methods to promote financial literacy.

Security Concerns?

For obvious reasons, some people will find the thought of banking in the cloud frightening. This is, after all, data that requires a high level of security. However, with banks themselves offering online services and bill pay, people are beginning to see that "online" doesn't necessarily mean "insecure." In fact, having your banking data stored on servers run by a business may actually be more secure than having a Quicken file saved on your laptop, a device which could be easily lost or stolen. Also, because home users don't tend to back up their data as often as they should, a hard drive crash could mean a complete loss.

Challenges

Although there are a number of sites to choose from in this competitive space, there are still some challenges to overcome. For one, because almost all these companies are U.S.-based, the banks they support are U.S.-based as well. This leaves potential international customers without a way to participate. Some of the companies state in their F.A.Q.'s that they plan to add support for more banks worldwide in the future, but that's only likely to occur if the company can first gain a foothold here in the U.S.

Another issue with these sites is that there is almost no support for small community banks and credit unions. Unless the site allows you to import your transactions manually (which somewhat defeats the purpose), you're out of luck. Why is that almost all major banks are available yet so few of the smaller banks are? This is the type of service that could help keep smaller banks more competitive with their big bank counterparts, so you would think some of them would be interested. Is the burden on the banking 2.0 sites to help smaller banks get online or is it up to those institutions themselves? Perhaps the banking 2.0 sites need to be working a way to automate the import of transactions from any bank, regardless of whether or not the institution itself supports the site. The first company to come up with a solution like that could really set themselves apart from the rest of the pack and gain a whole new set of customers in the process.

Conclusion

Banking 2.0 is still very much an emerging technology trend. Yet with the young generation of digital natives now entering the workforce and starting their careers, you can be sure that they will have an impact on this space. They will expect their banks to support not only online banking but also other online money management tools such as these. This is not a generation that's known for their brand loyalty, so you can bet that they will be all too happy to change banks if they decide they want to use one of these services and their bank isn't supported.

Banking 2.0 represents only one aspect of the growing trend that is cloud computing. Just as other desktop software is being threatened by new online apps, desktop financial management software is threatened as well. These banking sites go up against expensive and unwieldy desktop software while offering their services for free and finding you savings. In our current economy, that activity gives banking 2.0 the potential to go mainstream fast.