Prediction markets, search engines, and social networking: a triangular marriage made in heaven.

Midas Oracle is a group blog devoted on all the dimensions of all the prediction markets. The marketing dimension is important. Since the Iowa Electronic Markets, the Foresight Exchange, the Hollywood Stock Exchange, BetFair, NewsFutures and TradeSports (which later spinned off InTrade) were created in the nineties or in the very beginning of this decade, two important things happened in the marketing planet:

1. People now “google” about anything and expect “free” information.
2. People now make “friends” (acquaintances, actually) on the Web, and “share” tidbits with one another.

Both the prediction exchanges and the prediction market blogs should take these 2 trends into account.

InTrade .NET is an attempt at milking out these ideas —right out of HubDub’s textbook.

(I am aware of many other prediction market firms that have already implemented some of these functions. I am not authorized to blog about it.)