Brighton company ShareCrazy has launched an upgraded version of its web site for private investors.

Hosted by wacky cartoon character Joe Public, the site still has a simplistic and fun approach to shares and investments but with additions, including an easy to use Quote Centre for stock prices, AFX news releases and charts.

Along with UK stock prices, quotes are available on nine other markets around the globe.

ShareCrazy's resident author and shares guru Malcolm Stacey continues with his daily column Joe Public's Thought For The Day, and this is now joined by Joe's Paper Round, a daily look at stocks news and views from the papers.

Alan Green, director of Sharecrazy.com said: "It was vital that for simplicity and ease of use, the factors that made the first site so successful were retained.

"However, we were acutely aware we needed to offer our existing members a stock-quote system and also to increase site content to broaden our appeal to new members."