You can read it here.

In short, interesting, in an odd sort of way, yet worth the read.

~alex

UsableMarkets

~alex (usablemarkets.com)

You can jot down your thoughts on the Usable Markets blog…

~alex

Thanks to a friend.

~alex

Back in April I started talking about how Prediction Markets will be part of many news organizations’ “citizen-generated” content strategy going forward.

To quote myself (which seems kind of a rude thing to do, doesn’t it …?):

It seems as if no self-respecting news organization can ignore the Web 2.0 movement these days. Many now have some sort of “wisdom of the crowds” style content, in addition to RSS feeds, blogs, and so on.

Midas Oracle has covered some of the new relationships that are developing. I recently talked about MarketWatch.

Expect more to happen … and perhaps quickly, too.

That was nine months ago. Since then we’ve seen the WSJ, the FT, Reuters, CNN, and others (perhaps everyone can think of a couple or three) begin to dabble in or seriously consider prediction markets. With Inkling and InTrade in the white label prediction market business, the barriers to setting one up are obviously low enough that a certain amount of me-too-ism can easily prevail.

But there is a risk, and those of us who care about the success of the prediction market industry shouldn’t get too excited about these developments just yet.

First, it remains to be see whether these new prediction markets can attract significant numbers of users. The prediction market industry is already saturated with prediction markets and games. So, despite their powerful brands, I’m not confident that the FT or the WSJ can attract large followings (although I’d be happy to be wrong about that).

Ah ha, you may say, we don’t need a lot of users to generate accurate predictions. The MSR, and automated market makers will help solve the problem. But the problem is not one of generating accurate predictions, but about generating page views. Newspapers (even online) are advertising driven. If you can’t generate sufficient page views, and you’re paying too much to manage the prediction market on your site, then it’s vulnerable to being cut. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if once this US election cycle is over that some of these markets fall away.

And, if the news organizations are really interested in the predictions for predictions sake, they can always simply use someone else’s.

As always, thanks for listening.
~alex (UsableMarkets)

Help him out here. Improve on my meager comment.

~alex

www.usableMarkets.com

There were three items:

1. Contract Content which discusses “whether having related content and links appear alongside a contract make any difference as to how well informed the traders are when trading that contract … and therefore, does it have any impact on the price of that contract?”

2. Losing the Market in Prediction Markets talks about the recognition that the desire for simpler trading interfaces in the prediction market community is finally leading to real results, as an abundance of sites, if not every PM site, looks to make predicting easier to do, and understand.

3. Shapers and Voters reflects on a slide about trader distribution in Jed Christiansen’s presentation.

I hope you enjoy.
~alex

The relevant bit:

Sample sessions and topics for Money:Tech include:

• Prediction markets work better than that other market
• Prediction markets are finally coming of age, becoming spooking-effective at predicting everything from movements in financial markets to American Idol winners. They are poised to go mainstream, and here’s how.

In a brief email exchange with Paul Kedrosky, he said that he was struggling to find good content for a session like this.

Any thoughts or suggestions for him?

~alex

This is probably one of those questions that only geeks and PM aficionados are interested in … and fitting that description I took my own shot at answering the question.

My own view, fully expressed over at Usable Markets, is that no true shorting, as I understand the word, takes place in the world of prediction markets, although shorting at the conceptual level (as in, I want to bet against X), certainly does.

But maybe I’m wrong.

Also, if you’re going to Consensus Point’s upcoming NYC PM conference, in NYC, I’ll be there moderating a conversation on the experiences people have had implementing a prediction market at their company. Please stop by.

~alex