Yea, I added that disclaimer since it seems like you always hear that when you're receiving investment advice lol. Think I'm covered since I'm not in the business of giving advice...heh.

But basically BitShares is a more polished version of Ethereum, but with a focus on the decentralized exchange and assets you can hold that are pegged to their value in the real world (such as BitUSD, BitGold, etc). (To my knowledge) any developer can't just plug into BTS though like they can Ethereum; there's a bit more work involved. But anyone can issue their own user-issued assets (UIAs) on BitShares that can be traded on the DEX and used to power their blockchain applications.