Sometimes, a picture is worth 10,979 words across 33 pages. This New York Times article on corporate prediction markets doesn’t mention our implementation at Google, but the accompanying graphic (below) represents what Justin Wolfers, Eric Zitzewitz and I did better than anything I’ve seen (including our own fairly cool graphic).
No company mentioned in the article (or anywhere else, to my knowledge) is actually doing what is depicted in the picture besides Google.
Notice that the manager of the market (above) can see much, much more than current prices and trading volume. He can see who bets how how and where they sit. He can compare how specific teams or social groups are betting and whether managers for a project are betting more optimistically than their employees.
And so on. The view is a lot more interesting when you’re looking at the market like this instead of like this.
Cross-posted from Bo Cowgill.com.
