It used to be pretty good for getting a macro-view of current economic trends. Now it, well, sucks. Did they get new management? Did they ruin it on purpose? Or is this one of those random things that just can't be rationally explained? Hmm.... "In 2014, Jeremy Olshan, a veteran of the New York Post, took over as editor." (from Wikipedia) I guess that explains it. But why? Why did they allow him to ruin what was a pretty descent website?
Everything constantly changes. and most people, are averse to change...or it takes some time getting use to. I liked MarketWatch before they recently updated it to be more tablet/touch-friendly use. User profiles and avatars existed too back then, not anymore. As for macro viewpoint content...I wouldn't put too much emphasis on those so-called professional opinions. They get paid to spit out content on a daily basis -- they could care less if their analysis or predictions are shit. I miss the quarterly Fantasy Earnings games that MarketWatch officially hosted and heavily promoted back then...it was fun -- alot of people joined, the forum conversations were active, and even some of MarketWatch's writers joined in the game. now, it's a ghost town/wasteland.
Under the guidance of Jeremy Olshan(quasi communist), Marketwatch has become a Liberal propaganda fanzine. Just read any of the sites stories on a daily basis- global warming, pro socialist viewpoints, Trump bashing(MW writers kept telling us not to vote for Trump), pro mass immigration policies etc, etc. MW is clearly not a finance site anymore.
When marketwatch and similar sites first started, they needed some serious software to create the kind of sites that could accommodate many writers, scale to high traffic loads, and provide all the necessary stats and metrics. I remember looking into one of the more popular programs 15 years ago called Vignette. You could easily spend six figures on it just getting your operation set up. And then there were ongoing licensing costs and all kinds of separate modules you could bolt on for even more money. So the barrier to entry was high and only the biggest existing players in the news space could afford to operate like that. But then out of nowhere Wordpress comes along and allows literally anybody to start publishing and get into the news business basically for free. So the barrier to entry became nothing, and the competition in the news space increased exponentially. So now what you see is MarketWatch and some of the other older sites becoming more and more sensational to get eyeballs because the real elephant in the room is that their profits have basically collapsed. There's just no way that a substantial news room can generate loads of original articles and stories everyday and have those operations supported by Google ads. So then they start going down the road of trying to get more revenue by implementing the clickbait crap from third parties like Taboola, and that type of advertising is the bottom of the advertising barrel in my opinion. You've seen those ads plenty of times on news sites. They are always the ones at the bottom that are shown in groups of 3 to 6, with titles like "Celebs you didn't know passed away. #17 is shocking." or "Forget the iPhone 6. Here's Apple's next device." So basically the state of the news business is terrible. Anybody can do it and there's no money in it, which leaves sites like MarketWatch and the hundreds of me-too sites in quite the predicament.
Exactly. I believe news business is up to meet the same fate as their predecessors magazines - some of major ones are still around, however within new environment they're obviously less profitable and somewhat marginal, if you wish. I wonder what new ways to get information will emerge from this situation!
Forget marketwatch.com. Use bloomberg.com . I use it with chrome, uBlock Origin AdBlocker. Make sure you enable Anti-Adblock killer by Reek in uBlock Origin. Options > 3rd-party filters
I used to like Bloomberg, but unfortunately they're going down the same route as some of the other sites. They are so desperate to shove ads down your throat that it's made the site completely unusable, so I can see why you'd need to use an ad blocker. The auto-loading video that chases you around the screen is just the most annoying thing I have encountered in quite a while. 30 seconds on Bloomberg and I can hear my laptop fan starting to spin up and my CPU going through the roof. It's so ridiculous. And don't even get me started on Forbes. Truly one of the most annoying sites out there.
Hi @Baron I hear you. Fortunately, there is a fix for everything. Using chrome: install & use uBlock Origin AdBlocker extension. Configure as I said. In Chrome settings, search for content (top right). Under Privacy, click "Content settings...". Go down to Plugins. Make sure "Detect and run important plugin content" is selected. Then click "Manage exceptions...". Fill it out. My list is as follows: Enjoy! Every site you add to this list will stop auto playing videos. But you can right click and "run plugin" if you are really interested in the video