Tired of dealing with 15- or 20-minute delayed stock quotes on the internet? Now you won't have to. The Associated Press reports that CNBC, Google, The Wall Street Journal Digital Network, and Xignite are teaming up with the NASDAQ OMX Group to offer free real-time stock quotes, without a subscription.

This isn't that exciting: most retail investors are already to get free real-time quotes through the websites of the brokerages they use -- Fidelity, Schwab, E*Trade, Ameritrade, ScottTrade and every other broker I can think of already offers this service.

The question is whether investors should be excited and, I believe, the answer is a resounding no. Warren Buffett has said that investors should only buy stocks they would be comfortable owning if the market closed for 10 years. Online trading has led to many investors checking their stocks hourly, turning it into a video game atmosphere of overtrading, speculative buying, and panic selling. I cringe when I think about how much money retail investors have lost because of "free real-time stock quotes!"

Rarely does any new online toy launch with features that seem better from those that were advertised in the mockups. But somehow, this next-generation dynamic quotes and company research site launched today by our parent, AOL Money & Finance, still blows me away. I've watched demos and made notes on large-format printouts of how it could be; I've listened to calls in which developers enumerated its benefits. I'm still giddy like a kid Christmas afternoon trying out her new toys, such as:

• Interactive charting. Sure, that could mean anything, but this is truly great. Hover your mouse over the chart to see the high, low, open, close and volume from the day in question, or see where earnings and dividends were announced. Compare with a competitor at the click of a mouse; add in any symbol to compare quickly (I wanted to compare two of my portfolio holdings, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ: SBUX)). Clicking through to see seasonal performance shows trends (Apple often spikes at the end of November as investors anticipate holiday sales of gadgets and Macbooks and such).