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Facebook, MySpace, and other social networking sites can be fun and useful - many of them are quite valuable, as well - but they generally lack credibility in the “real world.” Name recognition won’t be a problem for an upcoming contender, however: Reuters has said that it will “launch a version of MySpace for the financial services community.”

When Reuters’s CEO, Tom Glocer, discussed the project, he seemed more than a touch grumpy. Still, it sounds like Reuters is trying to build a site that will suit its target audience.

First, Glocer tried hard to differentiate his company’s product from more youth-oriented social networks. “It won’t have the latest hot videos and the ‘why I am into Metallica and the Arctic Monkeys’ blogs,” Glocer promised.  “Instead we are going to give our financial services users the ability to post their research or if they are traders, their trading models.”

And users-to-be can rest assured that the CEO will try to keep out the riffraff.  Actually, Glocer may keep out a lot of people, as the site will (initially, at least) only allow in Reuters subscribers.  “People don’t want to have 100 friend requests from teenage girls in Florida if they are trading the credit derivatives market, but they probably are interested in being able to share research,” Glocer explained, as quoted by the Guardian Unlimited.

The social networking site should launch, and research-sharing should commence, “later in the year,” according to the irritable Reuters exec.  There was no official word about whether or not users will receive complimentary Oscar the Grouch dolls.

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