The New York Times has an “article”:http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/17/technology/17place.html today on ThinkEquity Partners’, a boutique investment bank, launching of its ‘research’ “blog”:http://www.thinkequity.com/blog/. It seems likely that ThinkEquity pitched the Times on this story to get some PR — just another sign that blogging is the real deal.

bq.. Mr. Moe _(ThinkEquity’s co-founder)_ said he did not see an immediate way to make money from the blog, but viewed it as a way to generate ideas - the lifeblood of research and investment banking.

“Our mission is to identify and partner with the stars of tomorrow, today,” he said.

He said he got the idea from Tony Perkins, a founder and former editor of Red Herring magazine who has started AlwaysOn, which is using blogs to discuss business and technology issues.

p. Generically, blogging could be a way to make investment banking research more relevant especially after the recent stock market crash where it was found that many investment banking firms were guilty (hey, the top investment banking firms coughed up “$1.4 billion in fines”:http://www.stockbroker-fraud.com/settle.htm) of writing research statements solely to win investment banking business — just a slight conflict of interest.

I’ve read a little of the “ThinkEquity blog”:http://www.thinkequity.com/blog/, and it’s got some good stuff.