Most of your frequent readers know that we’re in the middle of development for FirstradeNEXT, and the mobile offering that will come with it. If you peek a little bit further down our roadmap, and in fact the roadmap of everyone in the financial industry, there’s a little change called OSI that is looming in February.

Okay, it’s not really little. In fact this is going to change how investors deal with options trading on a daily basis. Currently, options symbols are somewhat cryptic, one cannot know the strike price and expiration date just by looking at symbols. With the new setup, all the options will be descriptive, VERY descriptive. Option symbols are going from the current 3-5 character setup to 21 charaters!

We’ll provide more details regarding OSI and how Firstrade plans to adapt to the new standard. In the meantime, please take a look at details of this change by visiting http://www.optionsclearing.com/initiatives/symbology/

In the past few weeks, we’ve gotten quite a few requests for iPhone Applications on our forums, blogs, and Facebook group. Looking around, it seems that iPhones are everywhere, every block, every other person.

Back when the iPhone was released, now over 2 years ago, those with iPhones were part of the unique, or shall I say “cool” crowd. The same could be said 5 years ago in US colleges, when those who owned laptops with the glowing Apple logo really stood out. Nowadays, in some colleges, those without a Macbook are actually the minority.

Today, over half of the IT team at Firstrade has iPhones of various incarnation. I still remember launch day 2007 when everyone looked in awe and envy when a college camped out successfully and brought it in.

My goal today, however, is not to praise the iPhone. Instead I want to talk about what the iPhone did for the mobile space. By making data-driven services easy and accessible to the everyday folks, cellular phones have moved beyond calls and texting. Cell phones today are expected to check email, get maps, find reviews, etc. Believe it or not the technology has been around for over 10 years, but Apple made it easy, just as it did the personal computer back in the 80s.

This brings us to our new mobile trading platform. While the Apple smart phone is the dominant smart phone in the US today, in many other countries Microsoft and Nokia’s Symbian-based devices still have a large group of loyal users. At Firstrade, we want to make sure that every smart phone platform, and every data-capable cell phone can enjoy the benefits of trading online, with a fast and intuitive interface. In the next few weeks we’ll be releasing the Firstrade Mobility website, and I think everyone’ll be quite happy with it.

Next step, apps. That’s another post for another day.

I was reading WebWorkerDaily on how to make commutes more productive, and while I don’t fully agree with the writer on jam-packing your commute time with work prep, I realized how much the “morning commute” has changed since the arrival of smart phones.

For decades, the morning commute was a time to read the newspaper and get a head start on knowing what’s going on in the world. Nowadays, all the information dispatched to your mobile phone is personalized, customized content. With it, you can get a head-start on not just the day’s current events, but also your own tasks and duties.

That got me thinking. What more can we achieve during the morning drive outside of email, twitter and facebook? As Firstrade continues to improve its personalized site and services, how we position future mobile applications so that it improves the user’s productivity will be very important.

If you drive, please stick to the radio.

To all of my loyal newsletter readers, I just noticed yesterday that because of the intense development of FirstradeNEXT (which is a codename, btw), I completely forgot to send out the September issue of the newsletter.

To make it up to you guys, the October newsletter will be packed with more exciting tidbits about the upcoming beta. We are closely monitoring the blogs, Twitter and Facebook for your feedback, and you will not be disappointed when we launch this

Remember the days of Internet Explorer 5 vs Netscape? What about the days when you actually had to buy browsers at your local computer store? (if you don’t use AOL like everyone else). Browser compatibility wasn’t really a big deal back in the day, websites for the most part displayed text and graphics with little dynamic interaction.

Nowadays, browsers are packed with technology: Javascript, CSS, Jquery, Ajax, Flash support, etc just to name a few. These are no longer used simply to display static information, but also to take input dynamically, and are packed with animations. While there is a global standard W3C on how browsers should be designed, big names (ahem…. Microsoft) frequently deviate from the “standard”. The result is that websites frequently look different on various browsers, and (gasp!) sometimes function differently on different browsers.

As much as I hope everyone in the world uses a standard browser, the reality is that most people use IE, some use Firefox. A chunk of development time is dedicated to testing browser compatibility. As we pack in more dynamic tools and features into FirstradeNEXT, making it work on IE6 has become difficult. Watching how the tech guys at Firstrade get it to work on IE6 is like magic.

Facebook simply gives the user an error warning if it detects IE6, we don’t have that luxury. As we prepare to launch FirstradeNEXT, if you’re an Internet Explorer 6 user, I urge you to update to IE8 or Firefox for better online security. If you really want to stick with IE6, we’ll make it work .

As we continue to finish up the site we want to know if there’s anything we can do to help our customers have a fufilling experience. We want to know what features you guys would like in the new Firstrade site. Check out FirstradeNEXT on twitter and facebook. See our little thumbnail previews to the new site and comment on them. Want to suggest a feature? Get on facebook, twitter or our blog and leave a comment. We hope to incorporate your ideas into our new site.

It’s official. Sony’s coming out with a slimmer PS3. Coming out September 1st, the new slim PS3 is 33% smaller, it’s lighter and has a hard drive upgrade from 80GB to 120GB. It also has a price reduction from $399 to $299. All these summed up makes the PS3 have the potential to boost up its sales and compete with the Xbox 360 and Wii in the fall. In my personal opinion, a $299 PS3 is a steal. Having used the Xbox 360 and the Wii, the PS3 in comparison of processing power and visual power is top notch. Not only does the bluray discs allow people to watch HD movies, but it allows game producers to bulk up their games with better graphics and extras. All of that and with a power adapter built into the PS3 (unlike the xbox’s behemoth power block) plus free online gaming and a good selection of games releasing comprable to the Xbox 360, it looks like Sony’s getting its formula down for the fall to take the console lead. Take a look at the comparison here.

Here at the blog we like to mix it up, a little funny, a little news, a bit of commentary and information on about our site. But you see the brand new FirstradeNEXT button right below subscribe to us? If you’re looking for nothing but firstrade updates and want a chance to try out the new trading system before anyone else? Become a fan! Right now we have a couple of small snapshots of our sleek upcoming site and we’ll continue to update you on the latest and greatest things coming to Firstrade on FirstradeNEXT. So become a fan! and while your at it, let your friends know too

San Leandro police in California pulled over a man who seemed to have a lot of 37″ lcd tv for sale. Instead they found out out it was a bunch of glass oven doors cleverly disguised as TVs with stickers. He happened to sell it in the parking lot of Walmart for a low price of $100. He also said he got the TVs at a flea market for $60. I don’t know what the guy was thinking, but a 37″ TV for $100 is already crazy, on top of getting it at flea markets for $60? Talk about lying to the law. Read more about it here.  Check out the picture below.That tin-foil gives that new TV that nice new chrome look. But it’s about three stickers too many. Wait, are there even 37″ TVs being sold for $1949.99 anymore? Rediculous.

Here at Firstrade we’ve been working hard to create a brand-new, more user-friendly site, with a new sleek look and a web 2.0 feel. Along with it, easier access to options, better access to Customer Service, more information in Research & Tools and all the while keeping our best material from before such as X-Stream. Most of it’s done and we’ve been putting the finishing touches on it. Meanwhile, we’ve been offering our frequent customers a sneak peak at the new site and we’re planning to handout more beta accounts soon. The initial reviews have been great and the users have been pleased with it. Want to learn more about the new site? Stay tuned as we slowly unravel more of what’s to come of the new Firstrade.