Today’s edition of the Wall Street Journal has an article analyzing the recent surge in popularity of “social personal finance” websites. Jane from the WSJ writes:

… amid the rising popularity of social-networking services such as Facebook and MySpace, a crop of new personal-finance Web sites is letting users post their private personal-finance details and share advice with each other on tracking their spending and making better investment decisions.

Jane spoke to Mike Zazon, one of our users from Ohio, who used spreadsheets before switching to Buxfer. He says:

Buxfer takes away the awkwardness of going to collect (debts) later

Right on, Mike! Friends need to be as comfortable with sharing money as they are with sharing photos, and that’s what Buxfer is all about.

The innovation happening in the personal finance space is very exciting indeed. What’s better is that users are willing to change their traditional behavior patterns and try out new things which help them simplify their financial lives. Social personal finance is definitely here to stay. Intuit and Microsoft, WATCH OUT!!

The latest issue of Online Banking Report has named Buxfer as “Best of the Web” amongst social personal finance sites.

Buxfer (is) named OBR Best of the Web in the report for several pioneering features, including login via third-party APIs, transaction input via email, file appending, Google gadget, and budget alerts

All of our features originate from a simple idea: how can we make it really easy for users to manage their finances? And that’s how we will continue to operate in the future, so many more cool and useful features should be coming your way soon!

Jim Bruene (of onlinebankingreport.com and Netbanker.com) has reviewed Buxfer on NetBanker.com. The review highlights Buxfer’s “impressive features that no bank or credit union has offered to date.” Read the complete review replete with screenshots here. Thanks for the review, Jim!
The review goes on to say:

When logging in through a third-party service, users are not required to provide ANY personal info, i.e. there is NO registration process, an amazing experience.

Indeed, we want our users to begin using our site right away, and not worry about annoying things like registration. That is why we have taken so much effort to allow all major third-party logins. We are quite pleased to see that Jim, an expert on online banking, loves this feature! In general, we don’t want to collect any personal information from our users, unless absolutely necessary.

Why are we obsessed with shared expense tracking? As Jim surmises, it’s because of our student backgrounds. We understand the severe pain in tracking IOUs on disappearing bits of paper and on cumbersome spreadsheets. But Buxfer does more than just tracking these debts. Buxfer’s notion of groups enables automatic cancellation of debts among members which significantly reduces the need to perform actual money transfers. Learn more about groups

Finally, we are working with financial institutions to make sure Buxfer integrates seamlessly with banks and credit cards. We want our users to do ZERO work and get automatically categorized transactions while they are sipping coffee :) Stay tuned!

Today Associated Press (AP), the world’s oldest and largest newsgathering organization which supplies news to thousands of daily newspaper, radio, television, and online customers, carried an article on how Buxfer “could make post-meal haggling a thing of the past.” The article describes how Buxfer enables tracking of collective expenses over longer periods of time.

For example, one person in a group of housemates could pay for dinner and a movie for everyone, earning credits in his Buxfer group and therefore paying less than his friends on the next month’s utility bills.

It also stresses how Buxfer “groups” reduce exchanges of money because each member of the group pays sometime, and effectively after a few transactions, it all cancels out. Some of the online articles using AP’s Buxfer coverage:

• Centre Daily Times, PA
• phillyBurbs.com, PA
• WPXI.com, PA
• NEPA News, PA
• The News Journal, DE
• Wilkes Barre Times-Leader, PA

We are very excited to be covered by AP. Thanks to AP and all the above news sources for spreading the word about Buxfer. We hope you, our users, will continue to write to us while we work behind the scenes to add more features and make the site even more usable!

Happy Buxfering!

Today’s Post-Gazette is carrying an article on how Buxfer “tackles the delicate art of tracking small debts.” The article stresses how small debts, which are often overlooked, can cause financial strain, and how Buxfer simplifies the management of debts.

Excerpts from the article:

“Experts on personal finance say incidental spending, though often overlooked, can be a significant contributor to financial strain. How those seemingly small expenses add up is clear from a national survey this fall of full-time undergraduates at four-year colleges.

Students reported spending $751 a year just to eat out, according to the survey by Student Monitor, a market research firm in Ridgewood, N.J. Expenditures for movies, concerts and other entertainment reached $571 a year, the survey found.”

– Bill Schackner, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“I have to admit, there’s something cool about it. It’s a boon for disorganized people. I happen to be one of those people. My life consists of little pieces of paper lying around the house.”

– Professor Michael Shamos, CMU

Read the full article.

The latest issue of Tartan (a CMU student newspaper) has an article about how Buxfer has made life easier for students at Carnegie Mellon. Check out the full article.

UPDATE: Carnegie Mellon University has also posted a press release about Buxfer on its news website.

Buxfer was recently featured on two blogs: internetinindia and WATblog. Internetinindia had a comprehensive review of Buxfer, and WATblog included Buxfer in their list of Web 2.0 sites. Both reviews loved Buxfer’s user-friendly and intuitive interface. Thank you folks! Usability is our first and foremost goal. Do let us know if we sway away from this track!

If you have covered Buxfer in your blogs, please inform us so that we can link back to your page.