In a move that no doubt woke up more than a few CEO's this morning, Google took yet another unprecedented step early this morning.Google Finance is now delivering free real-time streaming stock quotes to all, for free.
Typically, in the past, if you wanted real-time Internet quotes, you needed to have a brokerage account that offered them, or you paid for the service. Stock quotes were readily available on hundreds of websites but they were delayed by 15 minutes.
This is a huge move by Google, and the reaction by the financial community websites will be very interesting to watch as the day unfolds.
Update: The announcement has now been posted to the Official Google Blog and can be found here.
Update 2: The real-time stock quotes are being provided by the NASDAQ stock exchange only (so far) and are also available on CNBC and The Wall St Journal Online .
Correction: Yahoo Finance receives their quotes from BATS, and is not part of this pilot program.