Earlier today, I ran across a new social media website called Tip’d, which specializes in financial news, ideas, and tips. It’s a bit like Digg, but with a much narrower focus. In case you’re not familiar with this sort of thing, people can submit links for other users to vote on. If it receives enough votes, it makes it to the front page for all to see.

To be completely honest, my first reaction upon seeing this site was to ask “why bother?” For those that aren’t aware, this sort of thing has been attempted numerous times in the past, and they’ve died out pretty much every time. Moreover, Digg has a Business & Finance category, so why do we need a dedicated financial site? Now that I’ve had a chance to poke around, however, I’m a believer.

The big advantage of a more focused site is that there is far more granularity. Rather than lumping everything into a single financial category, Tip’d has ten different categories with more being planned before their official launch next month. In addition, this site has the backing of some fairly well-known internet personalities. Hopefully they’ll be able to pull it off.

Of course, there will be some challenges in making this work. First and foremost, they need to build a large and active user base. Without lots of people submitting stories and even more voting on them, the site just won’t be that useful. I’m also curious to see how they’ll deal with the deluge of “get rich quick” and “make money online” spam that they’ll inevitably receive.

Anyway, if you’re interested in financial news, you should definitely check it out. If you decide to register an account, be sure to add me as a friend.

Hat tip to Jim for pointing this out.