Google has taken another step towards becoming a portal by launching their "Google Finance" service.

The AJAXified Finance system by Google is something I personally will use instead of good old Yahoo! finance. It's faster in terms of changing the timeframe, a lot easier to read, and provides more relavant news. The management section is pretty cool too. It shows a short summary if you move your mouse over the name of the executives and shows their photo, if available (See GOOG). Besides, it doesn't have any banner ads - for now.

The features I liked were the "blog posts" section, "related companies" section and the fact that you only need to type in the name of the company in the search box as opposed to its ticker symbol. Even better, just type in "netscape" and it will automatically bring up TWX (Time Warner, Inc.), AOL's parent company.