The financial service site operated by Google actually got two dates, allowing visitors to customize the range of activity they see with a stock.

Last week’s letter war between Carl Icahn and Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock was just a preview of what’s to come. Ichan and company have challenged Yahoo’s employee retention plan (Icahn calls it a severance plan) in a Delaware court. Slated to go to trial in July, the legal matter will be settled in advance of the annual shareholders meeting on August 1.

Real-time NASDAQ quotes, long the province of online brokerages as a perk for their clients, come to Google Finance as a new, free feature.

We haven’t yet been promised an update, much less a timeline or any specifics relating to its release.  Still, users of Google Finance have been asked to fill out a rather long survey, and it looks like this is a chance for people to influence the service’s future.

When it comes to money, Brits probably don’t need as much help as Americans; all other issues aside, it’s our economy, more than theirs, that’s heading into a recession.  Still, we think Google’s made a good move by introducing Google Finance UK.

Overcoming the inertia that keeps people going to other financial sites confronts Chris Jolley, group manager at Microsoft’s Financial Products Group, every day. He believe MSN Money deserves a look.

Recently I had a chance to post at WPW some reputation management help for Rebecca Kelly from SEOmoz.org. Here is the thread from WPW:

Reputation Management Advice

Yahoo wants to beef up its leading Finance site with videos, and will add CNBC content to the mix.

AOL will go head to head with Yahoo Finance as well as competition from Google and Microsoft, with all of these big Internet players looking for valuable financial news readers.

Google Finance recently gained the ability to share real-time stock quotes from China, and it’s rather proud of this fact.  Also, in the event you’re wondering why we don’t get real-time quotes from within the U.S., Google says it’s all the SEC’s fault.

Google’s allowed many of its products and services to grow old and moldy, and one of the most high-profile examples of this is Google Finance.  In theory, the site wouldn’t just appeal to some small niche group, but nonetheless, Google Finance isn’t really going anywhere.

Google Finance Canada is coming!  Actually, an announcement may have stated that it was already here, but the Official Google Blog has been updated to say, “Oops.  We hit the button too soon.  Watch for news about Google Finance in Canada next Tuesday.”

The after hours price for shares of GOOG as seen on both Yahoo Finance and Google Finance plummeted to $12 for a few brief minutes at around 6:14 pm EDT.

The Google Finance group plans to take an active role in answering questions on its blog, but only for a couple of days.

The Federal Trade Commission would like to scuttle the proposed takeover of Wild Oats Markets by Whole Foods, and will point to anonymous Yahoo Finance forum posts by Whole Foods’ CEO as a reason to do so.

Financial expert, best-selling author and columnist Suze Orman spoke at eBay Live today, outlining a hit-list of personal finance tips. Orman’s advice centers on credit scores, retirement accounts, investments, real estate, life insurance, and wills.

Suze Orman At eBay Live!

Apple announced third-party apps for the iPhone. Sounds a LOT like Adobe’s new AIR. Delivers HTML and JavaScript apps down to the phone via Safari. What’s interesting is what Steve Jobs left out.

No Java. So, can’t run Kyte.tv’s application. Can’t run the Google Maps application I’m using on my Nokia. Can’t run something cool coming soon from eBay that I’m testing out. Can’t run Radar.net. Etc. Etc.

Some new features arrived in Google’s Finance site, with the big addition being content from events like earnings announcements and analyst calls.

In Seeking Alpha’s ongoing Q&A with the Google Finance product manager, my question was:

Google Finance is one of the rather rare Google apps which makes use of Flash. I’m curious, at Google what considerations go into deciding whether to go for Flash or DHTML/ Ajax/ browser vector languages like SVG?

One of the most precious commodities in the world is real estate. Everyone is looking for their own little piece of the world to settle and call their own. Home ownership is a goal shared by so many that it seems appropriate that companies like Google and Yahoo would go to such lengths to cater to real estate searchers.

Though Yahoo Finance has earned its place as the top online financial site, Google’s version has several positives going for it that may be overlooked.