Yahoo! News ditch the political prediction markets.
Chris F. Masse January 19th, 2008
The Yahoo! News US Political Dashboard was over-sold to us. We thought that Yahoo! News would promote the prediction markets. They did that for a very short period of time, but then they quickly back-pedaled, for some unknown reason. The fact is that the InTrade probabilities don’t appear anymore on the frontpage of the Yahoo! News US Political Dashboard. Only three data sources remain visible:
- Numbers of delegates;
- RCP-averaged poll numbers;
- Yahoo! Buzz numbers.
The prediction markets have disappeared from the main view. Vanished.
Here are the 2 screen shots —last year, and now.
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At inception, in December 2007 (spot the prediction markets, in the 3rd column):
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Today’s Yahoo!’s dashboard (where to access the InTrade probabilities, one should click on one or both of the two tiny horizontal sliders –which nobody will do):
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The intrade prices are still there — you just need to click the right scroll arrow.
The InTrade prices are now hidden. Nobody will click on the tiny arrows. They are barely noticeable.
Looking at the Yahoo! News Dashboard, the newbie can’t know that there are prediction market probabilities hidden behind. You know that coz you designed this stuff. They don’t know. Nothing indicates to the newbies that there are prediction markets hidden behind.
[...] Readers will be happy to see more thorough and prominent integration of prediction market prices compared to the primary election dashboard. Is that good enough to quiet Chris’s whining? [...]