clipped from www.usnews.com

Today’s young professionals prefer PCs to paper, but they haven’t taken to desktop checkbook programs. So new sites are targeting them with personal-finance services on the Web.

Including Mint.com, Wesabe.com, and Geezeo.com, the sites combine convenience and community. They make it easy for users to track their cash and spending and to get advice from others in similar circumstances. They’re about to be joined by heavyweight Quicken, which is launching its own online service on January 8.

I have worked with Quicken as well as upstarts Mint, Geezeo and Wesabe; it’s my opinion that Quicken, although popular, is a clunky application. It  doesn’t seem to be that user-friendly considering it is for personal finance. So I am very interested in reading the reviews when the online site starts next week, but why are they charging $3/month whereas their competitors are free services? If the goal is to appeal to the young and online-savvy professionals, then it is a mistake to charge a fee unless Quicken can really provide extra value or if the fee goes toward free TurboTax filing which would be a good thing.