The first version of the latest newsletter issue (Here comes Santa!) was first published 19 hours ago, on Sunday. I’ve just received an e-mail alert this Monday, at mid-day EST —with the date stamp on the blog post being updated.
Bizarre.
HedgeStreet, if you want to be taken seriously as a blogger, do it in a professional way, with compelling content and a good understanding of the technicalities.
Speaking of content, why don’t you offer any external links? I take it as a symptom of a misunderstanding of what the Web is —the Web is… just that… a web of interconnected sites. If HedgeStreet is truly a Web-based, retail, prediction exchange, it should have a clever internet marketing approach.
Please, HedgeStreet, don’t be as dumb as Numeria —which is a failure in the coming.
Chris, On what basis are you declaring Numeria to be a failure??
It is an interesting idea, although in this case their access to experts might be more important than their aggregation method. Their aggregation method is somewhat unique in that later rounds are intended to encourage consensus, whereas herding is anathema to most prediction mechanisms that we talk about.
It sounds more like Delphi actually. Multi-round mechanisms should be more vulnerable to gravitating towards extremes as analysts might reinforce each other’s biases.
The Numeria CEO does not have any marketing skills, in my view.
Reading your comment, it is clear that they have nothing to do in the field of prediction markets —and that was my sentiment from day one. I leave it there.
Hmm, so is HP currently in the field of prediction markets? BRAIN aggregates, scores and rewards — although HP tries not to use the word “market”. Numeria’s process probably has the same steps.
Also, for Numeria’s sort of business, I wouldn’t take an insufficiently developed blog to be indicative of much at all at this stage.
1. BRAIN is not prediction markets, of course. But if they predict better than prediction markets, they are interesting.
2. I looked at the blog, the site, and the personality of its founder… and the guy and his project do not have any marking of future success. Completely dull. Stronger competitors with better marketing skills will come later, if the idea is validated.
Leslie Fine of HP preferred to variously call BRAIN a “mechanism”, “betting game” and an “information gathering tool”, but that is functionally irrelevant — for example, to a competing vendor that would fall under your category of prediction markets.
If there’s no trading, how can you call BRAIN a prediction market mechanism?
Well if that ontological question bothers you for whatever reason, you can just say that BRAIN is a consulting market, where employees sell information in the form of a prediction to the firm.. or theoretically a more general combination of buyers and sellers in this sense.
BRAIN = a forecasting mechanism
“BRAIN is a consulting market, where employees sell information in the form of a prediction to the firm []”
Interesting. I need to mind this.