As the headline “the first stock exchange on headline news” suggests, Trendio.com is a speculative stock market game, where instead of the expected investing into companies, the twist is that the stocks are ‘words in the media’, meaning people can ‘invest’ in what makes the news on a daily basis. At first glance, the homepage is very professional-looking (given the bright colors are a part of their appeal) with links to news in sports, politics, business, technology, entertainment and current events. The stock graph of the most current news is what you notice first and to its right, a list of words. As of February 19^th, 2007 10:32 AM U.S. Pacific Time, the current stock graph was the Chelsea soccer team, while the list of highest selling words were from ‘Mark Martin’, ‘Kevin Harvick’, ‘Gun Laws’, ‘ConAgra Foods’, ‘Tatiana Golovin’, ‘Lindsey Graham’ to ‘Adam Sandler’. It’s safe to assume that there’s somewhat of a randomness to these stocks, which can presumedly be compared to unanticipation of actual stock markets.

A browse of more specific topics takes you to the respective current stock graph of the topic (Politics: ‘John Howard’; Entertainment: ‘Pop’). Seeing how this game can be played by just about anyone with an affinity towards gambling, stocks, or the like, the ‘Entertainment’ section is probably what most people will have most fun playing around with, while the ‘Business’ section is obviously for the knowledgeable . Just like real stock markets, stock quotes can and do change in a matter of seconds. What was the most traded stock in ‘Entertainment’ a second ago; i.e. ‘Britney Spears’, is now ‘Condoleeza Rice’ and ‘Eric Cantor’.

The brainchild of 21-year-old French-Swedish Jens Agersberg, Trendio.com – not even a year old (created circa March 2006) – has already made a splash in the U.S.. Likely due to its English- and French-translated versions – and more recently, Trendio.com is ‘stocking’ up in members (pun intended) with more than 30,000 members. While some stock market savviness is a plus, a lot isn’t required and ‘investing’ in a stock at Trendio.com is easy to get into. The ‘Forum’ section is available to those who need some help getting started, which also offers some strategies. Along with the beauty of other ‘fake-money’ games, from Monopoly to online Poker, Trendio.com’s currency can be spent without any real loss or relation to real currency. But those who have the knowledge, commitment, and time have earned themselves millions in ‘Trendillions’.

Filed under: Reviews, Web 2.0