AAII’s Best of the Net: 2012 Guide to the Top Investment Websites, 16th Edition

Our simple measure for evaluating websites is: Does it provide value? With the ongoing proliferation of smartphones, tablet computers and social networking, good content still matters more than anything else. All the sparkle and flash in the world is not worth much if what you really need is useful information.

In putting together our 16th annual Best of the Net guide, we sought out websites to help you invest better. We wanted websites that are easy to navigate, provide accurate information and are focused on conveying good content. In most cases, the websites we have featured in past years made the cut again this year. This was not universally the case, however, as we replaced some of the websites we previously featured with new ones. For every category, we looked at many websites to ensure we included only the best ones.

Many websites automatically adapt to the device you are accessing it on, whether it is a PC, an iPad or a smartphone. Some websites also offer apps for Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android operating systems. But the quality of these apps varies widely. For instance, The Wall Street Journal iPad app gives you access to the entire newspaper, while Yahoo! Finance’s iPad app merely gives you quotes and news. Some apps are worth downloading, however, and we’ve expanded our coverage of apps in this year’s guide. (See CI in the Journal in this issue.)

We also list the Internet resources we personally use. Throughout the guide you will see boxes that list the favorite websites of AAII staff, along with site addresses and a brief explanation of why we like them. These are not all “Best of the Web” resources, but they are ones we personally like.

You can find information about Twitter as well. The social networking service continues to evolve and there is much useful information for investors. Rather than suggesting Twitter streams of individual personalities, we direct you to those that provide updated news and financial information.

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