Using Twitter to Make Smarter Money Moves

In case you hadn't noticed, Twitter is everywhere these days. The social-networking phenomenon has attracted endless amounts of publicity, with celebrities ranging from Oprah to Ashton Kutcher now beaming out the ultra-short updates known as tweets.

But can Twitter help you invest? Increasingly, financial types from economists to actual traders are blasting out their thoughts on Twitter (always in 140 characters or less, of course). There are also free sites like StockTwits.com that compile Twitter postings on financial news, individual companies and broader market issues. Some of the updates are compelling -- but as with so many other forms of digital communication, there's a lot of dross out there, too.

So SmartMoney went in search of financial tweeters worth following. To narrow down our list, we talked to avid users of Twitter, scoured university economics departments to find out who's tweeting -- and of course, spent hours reading money-related tweets...

Smart Money: Using Twitter to Make Smarter Money Moves