After a three years of operation and the acquisition of a competing product, Quicken Online will be completely replaced by Mint.com on August 29, 2010. Both Quicken Online and Mint.com have served the same purpose. These website applications help people save more money by tracking their financial accounts and offering suggestions for improvements.
At the time of the acquisition, Intuit maintained both services would co-exist peacefully under the company’s banner, but that never made much sense. I expected the two services would be merged at some point. In November last year, Intuit announced that Quicken Online users would be migrated to Mint.com within six to nine months.
That brings us today.
Although users expected a seamless migration, there is no graceful way for Quicken Online users to convert financial data to Mint.com. For most people with a typical amount of financial accounts (a couple of bank accounts, a couple of credit cards, perhaps a loan), setting up an account on Mint.com is fairly simple. Setting up my Mint.com was a chore for me considering the dozens of financial accounts I have, and I still don’t have all my accounts listed.
Our Mint.com review from September 2007 is still accurate, and since the launch the service has added some interesting features such as goal tracking, discussed on a recent Consumerism Commentary Podcast.
I prefer to avoid web-based financial tracking applications. I may be in the minority, but I prefer the desktop version of Quicken. I’m not interested in using software to track saving goals; I want to know at a glance what bills I need to pay, how much income I’m expecting by the end of each month, and how my investments are performing.
Mint.com has recently introduced a new annoying feature. It’s no surprise that the services recommended when you log onto Mint.com are influenced by companies that pay advertising or marketing fees to the service. Now, in addition to my weekly financial summaries and low balance warnings, Mint.com has started emailing advertisements.
For customers of Mint.com, the problem of unsolicited advertisement that did not require an opt-in decision is relatively easily solved by opting out. Users can edit their email settings by clicking on the “Your Profile” link and activating the “Email & Alerts” page. Deselect the Auto Insurance Spending, Life Insurance, Credit Score, and 401k Notifications options.
Users converting from Quicken Online should consider this an important step in setting up a new Mint.com account.
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