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The fact that Emile Servan-Schreiber (usually, a smart man) treats the 2008 US presidential elections, as seen thru the lens of the NewsFutures prediction markets, so lightly, making it a race of spermatozoids swimming their way to the Oval Room, shows you that the prediction market luminaries are incapable of giving you any clear and convincing demonstration that their prediction markets has had a social utility during the 2008 race for the White House.
The fact that Emile Servan-Schreiber (usually, a smart man) treats the 2008 US presidential elections, as seen thru the lens of the NewsFutures prediction markets, so lightly, making it a race of spermatozoids swimming their way to the Oval Room, shows you that the prediction market luminaries are incapable of giving you any clear and convincing demonstration that their prediction markets has had a social utility during the 2008 race for the White House.
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Social utility is just so yesterday. What about poetry?
Seriously, the general point I’m trying to make with PM movies is that when displaying PM data we should try to be a little more creative. An increasing number of the people who consume PM data are not traders but just observers (which, by the way, proves utility beyond mere financial gain). A price chart talks to traders but leaves most observers cold, especially when used to recap of past trading. They are terribly static and they convey very little emotion: None of the thrill of uncertainty and suspense that traders faced is conveyed at a gut level. Thus, in order to increase the appeal of prediction market data beyond traders and financially-sophisticated observers – one goal of PM journalism - it is important to think creatively beyond the price chart.
I like your effort with the “prediction market movies”. I didn’t aim at those. I aimed at the absence of post-mortem analysis from luminaries like you about how the prediction markets were useful to society at a time Nate Silver was. In other words, if InTrade, BetFair, NewsFutures and HubDub all suck up to the poll aggregators (like Electoral-Vote.com or Nate Silver), then… “prediction markets, what the fuck?”.
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(I have of course my little idea.)
I thought the movie was hilarious: nice work Emile et al.
I don’t expect any serious scientific study to emerge within days of an event. It’s hard even to imagine what can be said about a single event.
- What is needed is not comedy, but a convincing argument for those who wonder what those prediction markets are useful for.
- I like his prediction market movies.
- As for the lack of serious scientific studies, that’s why we need an Institute, mister Pennock.
Candidates race for the Oval Office … oh, wait, sorry, that’s *Ovum* Office