We continue to hear a lot about services that aim to provide custom market indicators based on Twitter and other social media feeds.

We’ve noted the efforts of Derwent Capital and others who are moving in this direction. Just recently, San Francisco-based Topsy Labs announced it will launch a Twitter-based sentiment analysis tool, touting that its approach has proven effective in two cases, one involving Apple stock, the other involving the Netflix stock. In both cases, the sentiment analysis tool correctly delivered signals that were contrary to the conventional analyst wisdom.

The social media sentiment idea continues to pique interest, but few professionals are true believers as of now. While we’re seeing a lot of machine-readable news services rise up, few are convinced that Twitter feeds will be much more than an adjunct measure, one that will likely not be accorded great weight.

At a recent high-frequency trading conference, hardly any of the participants admitted to using social networks seriously to inform investment decisions and portfolio positioning, according to CNBC. One professional was quoted saying that,  “Trading on tweets, I don’t have time for it, there seems to be so much [expletive] on the Internet.”

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