Incite the free-market thinkers into *practicing* prediction markets.

Which objective(s) should have the highest priority? 23 Responses

- Generate revenues and profits for Midas Oracle. 4 / 23
- Make Jason Ruspini quit whining about the fact that he blogs on Midas Oracle for free. 1 / 23
- Incite the free-market thinkers into *practicing* prediction markets. 4 / 23
- DIY prediction markets 2 / 23
- The “X Groups” (the relationships between media/blogs and the prediction markets) 1 / 23
- No Response Recorded 11 / 23

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CHRIS MASSE’S “REMARKS” (as Bo Cowgill says)

#1. Surveying the Midas Oracle readers is a cheap way to induce some kind of participation. I’ll do that more often. (I also said that I should do more e-mail interviews. I will do. I have a long to-do list, please be patient.)

#2. The survey above was half serious and half tongue-in-cheek (as that wet blanket of Bo Cowgill quickly “remarked”). I will do more on the same topic, or on related topics. My readers are invited to submit survey suggestions, too.

#3. “No Response Recorded.”: A high number of respondents either encountered a problem (maybe they answered the survey within their feed reader, and the responses were messed up, dunno) or they wanted to vote for “Dunno, Have No Answer, Your Survey Stinks”. (I should have minded a “No Opinion” answer option, maybe.) That’s OK. That’s internet democracy at works.

#4. “Jason Ruspini whining”: Actually, he “remarked” that finance experts who blog on prediction markets teach for free the corporate users of this forecasting tool. Jason Ruspini‘s point, if I understood well, is that organizations could write up their own software for prediction markets and avoid paying any external consultants. I think I disagree. Every Bo Cowgill needs a Hal Varian.

#5. “Imagination-based prediction markets (the ‘X Universes’)”: NOBODY VOTED FOR THIS. Well, it may be not a “priority” (important + urgent), but it’s important, long term. Look at the industry right now. 100% of the prediction markets are reality-based prediction markets, that is, whose expiry are based on news events (winner of a game, an election, etc.). The prediction exchanges (betting exchanges) are missing the other half of the market: event derivatives whose expiry is based on… fiction events (whether Harry Potter will die at the end, whether the Star Wars kid will fall to the dark side of the Force, etc.). You will tell me that, since the outcome is known by the universe creator, secrecy is needed. Yeah, that’s what the “entertainment industry” is based on, see: make-believe stuff + plot outcome secrecy. What we need for the X Universes to take off are prediction exchanges and universe creators working in symbiosis. More on this in the coming weeks, months, years and decades on Midas Oracle. Stay tuned. (Psstt… Don’t expect our good friends the scholars to foresee the future of the prediction market industry during their little surprise party at San Diego, next June. They are only interested in the past.)

#6. “DIY prediction markets“: I was first bearish on this, and now I’m bullish. If you think of it, the idea is to ease (via web services) the outsourcing of the creation and management of some event derivatives to either the Joe Six-Packs or the media/blog organizations.

#7. “The ‘X Groups’ (the relationship between media/blogs and the prediction markets)“: I’m not really convinced by the associations I’ve seen so far. But that’s not the point. If many more people propose event derivatives, then of course they will market their own event derivatives, and thus popularize the whole field of prediction markets. The long-term hope is that we see many more people trading socially relevant event derivatives. That’s the marketing part of the X Groups. But there’s a much, much more interesting aspect. Imagine a group of bloggers managing together an event derivative whose expiry will be based on… their collective judgment on an issue (e.g., their opinion on whether George W. Bush was true to the conservative movement). During the course of this prediction market, the traders reading the different blogs will be able to see how the bloggers are going to vote at the end, and whether their early opinions vary. See, DIY + X Groups = a brand-new kind of prediction market, whose expiry can be based on the opinions of the sub-exchange managers, as opposed to external facts. (Well, the aggregation of all the bloggers’ opinions becomes a de facto fact. ) One idea among thousands.

#8. “Incite the free-market thinkers into *practicing* prediction markets.“: The basic idea is simple. There are dozens of thousands of free-market, free-trade thinkers, out there, in institutions like universities, think tanks, consulting firms, and media/blog organizations. Here’s what to tell them: “You, guys/gals, will convey your free-market message better if you get your people into practicing socially relevant prediction markets, because that’s free markets at works.” Getting many free-market think tanks on this would solve two problems: number one, the socially relevant prediction markets are thinly traded (the think tanks would bring in traders), and, number two, the socially relevant prediction markets are unprofitable (the think tanks would subsidy the co-organization of these markets). Easy to say, difficult to do, of course.

#9. “Generate revenues and profits for Midas Oracle.“: I just found out about the Rolex Awards. Interesting. Any other prizes you can think of? Any other sources of cash you would think of, folks?

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For your information, I’m in the process of installing Word Press on Midas Oracle .NET and Midas Oracle .COM. I don’t know exactly what I’ll do. I have one idea: setting up a constantly updated wiki-like resource on prediction markets. See, WordPress is actually a “content management system” and, besides “blog posts”, you can organize your content as “pages”. Does this fly in your book, folks? Another idea would be to set up a comparator of market-generated probabilities. If you have other crazy ideas, feel free to submit them. (They can’t be crazier than the ideas I have developed just above. )

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