Category Archives: Journalism

The true numbers of the BetFair blog readership

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They do poorly, as of today. Not surprising, since their content is not interesting (to say the least, and to stay correct). The only traction in the feed readership stats (compiled by the Google Reader, the world&#8217-s most popular feed reader), right now, is the portion of the BetFair blog that is written by a female professional Poker player (&#8221-Annette 15&#8243-). She is sponsored by BetFair Poker.

BetFair blog

Read the previous blog posts by Chris. F. Masse:

  • WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg is my hero and so he should be yours.
  • InTrade-TradeSports has seen more than $50 million wagered on the U.S. presidential election.
  • Prediction markets on who is going to win an election are more accurate then the final Gallup poll.
  • LinkedIn will be data-mining its database of millions of users to find potential experts.
  • Britons can’t get enough of Yankee’s politics.
  • TURNING POINT: BARACK OBAMA EVENT DERIVATIVE NOW AHEAD FOR BOTH DEMOCRATIC NOMINATION AND NOVEMBER’S ELECTION.
  • Five reasons Hillary Clinton should be worried

Justin Wolfers on Rudy Giuliani = not convincing… yet

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Justin Wolfers investigated the Rudy Giuliani free-fall thru the prism of the InTrade prediction markets in the Wall Street Journal (PDF file).

All told, prediction market data tend to confirm that Mr. Giuliani&#8217-s recent decline is due to a poor campaign, rather than a poor strategy.

I have just read the 3-page New York Times story on Rudy Giuliani&#8217-s &#8220-dizzying free-fall&#8221- (who has not yet dropped out and endorsed John McCain, as I write this). And, as I understand the two NYT writers, they attribute his failure to both a strategic mistake and a poor campaign.

  1. &#8220-many advisers and political observers point to the hubris and strategic miscalculations that plagued his campaign.&#8221- &#8230- &#8220-a fateful decision&#8221- &#8230- &#8220-skipping the first four or five caucuses and primaries&#8221- &#8230-
  2. &#8220-he in fact competed hard in New Hampshire, to remarkably poor effect.&#8220-

As of today, I am not yet convinced that Justin Wolfers saw something in the prediction markets that the political analysts didn&#8217-t see in the polls and in the votes. Thus, I will find other Giuliani reports. I&#8217-ll see. What is needed is an independent judgment on this.

Read the previous blog posts by Chris. F. Masse:

  • Gary Flake to David Pennock: Come on board… or die.
  • Technology Futurism
  • Trade on BetFair-TradeFair as you would trade on TradeSports-InTrade, thanks to order-entry software BinarySoft.
  • Pervez Musharraf prediction markets –Eric Zitzewitz Edition
  • The Over-Round Explained
  • WHY THE PREDICTION MARKETS WILL LIKELY F**K UP SUPER TUESDAY 2008.
  • Still unconvinced by prediction market journalist Justin Wolfers

Heres an example of the total crap that the BetFair blog is publishing.

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Betting @ BetFair - Home

Betting @ BetFair - Sports

Betting @ BetFair - Specials

Betting @ BetFair - Poker

Betting @ BetFair - Casino

BetFair blog:

Pamela Anderson&#8217-s Poker Guru

PAMELA Anderson says she is &#8220-done with the marriage thing&#8221-.

Pammy is divorcing her third husband. The marriage lasted four months. Says Pammy: &#8220-My mom wishes I was born gay&#8221-. She adds: &#8220-I am in the market for a good divorce attorney.&#8221- And, who knows, maybe the attorney is the market for a wife. Of course, before her next marriage, Pammy has to complete her divorce from the man we call [?] Rick Salomon and Metro newspaper calls a &#8220-poker guru&#8221-. A guru is a recognized leader in a field, an acknowledged and influential advocate of a movement or idea. Rick Salomon is the man best known for appearing as &#8220-him&#8221- in the first Paris Hilton sex tape. He is not a poker guru. He is just someone who plays poker, sometimes&#8230-

Don&#8217-t be a Rick, play online&#8230- [link to the BetFair Poker site]

The posting is anonymous, as always, on that crappy blog.

No external link to the original news source &#8212-of course.

Pointless content, as usual. Why thinking before writing, when a vomit can do the trick?

As for rhetoric quality, my 6-year-old nephew could do better, if encouraged by a Hershey kiss.

Is there any adult in Hammersmith monitoring what the kids are doing on their computers?

Is professor Leighton Vaughan-Williams wise to write for that crappy blog? Justin Wolfers&#8217- association with the Wall Street Journal seems more adequate for a university professor.

Author Profile&nbsp-Editor and Publisher of Midas Oracle .ORG .NET .COM &#8212- Chris Masse&#8217-s mugshot &#8212- Contact Chris Masse &#8212- Chris Masse&#8217-s LinkedIn profile &#8212- Chris Masse&#8217-s FaceBook profile &#8212- Chris Masse&#8217-s Google profile &#8212- Sophia-Antipolis, France, E.U. Read more from this author&#8230-

Read the previous blog posts by Chris. F. Masse:

  • A case of advertisement mistaken for content
  • Michael Shermer’s The Mind of The Market
  • A prediction market panel… where only 2 out of 5 are truly prediction market experts. What a nuclear joke. This poor line-up is the reflection of the poor state of the prediction market industry in the US… and the inherent mediocrity of the conference business.
  • VentureBeat makes it like established veterans NewsFutures, Consensus Point and Inkling Markets are contemporary of just-out-of-the-egg Xpree.
  • 13 lines for Justin Wolfers, but only 2 lines and one word for Eric Zitzewitz — Mat Fogarty, what were you thinking of?
  • Ducted Wind Turbines (DFWT)
  • The Betting King — The ATP Tour was his NASDAQ.

No blog reaction about Justin Wolfers prediction market piece in the WSJ.

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Yet.

That&#8217-s key to see whether his flavor of prediction market journalism (heavily based on a single technique called prediction market event study) can take off. As I said in yesterday&#8217-s blog post, even though his work is interesting, he is up against formidable competitors. Political analysts like Lawrence O&#8217-Donnell, Eleanor Clift, Mort Zuckerman, Pat Buchanan, Radley Blako, etc. &#8211-to name a few pundits (left and right)&#8211- produce riveting content. Can Justin Wolfers, as a political analyst using a prediction market analysis tool, break through this competitive pack? As of today, Justin Wolfers&#8217- journalistic work is artificially subsidized (so to speak), because the WSJ wants to launch and establish a play-money prediction sub-exchange. A step in the forward direction would be to see the big political blogs like InstaPundit or DailyKos stealing Justin Wolfers&#8217- method, and boosting their pageviews thanks to that. We will see. I&#8217-m not holding my breath.

The criteria that I would use to assess prediction market journalism are professional credibility, webpage popularity, the quantity and quality of the blog reactions, the amount of visitors sent to the discussed prediction market(s), and the number of journalists who ultimately embrace this method. See another criterion?

Read the previous blog posts by Chris. F. Masse:

  • Barack Obama’s victory in South Carolina won’t stop the Clintons.
  • eTech 2008 — Google’s enterprise prediction markets
  • Predictocracy = Market Mechanisms for Public and Private Decision Making
  • Prediction Market Management — Foresight Exchange vs. Inkling Markets & HubDub
  • Why you should launch your brand-new prediction exchange at a conference
  • Why Indian Software Outsourcing Companies are Outsourcing to China
  • Midas Oracle is the only popular, independent, exhaustive, multi-author, multi-exchange, Web-based resource on prediction markets.

Producing a CNBC show = just like making sausages

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Robert Scobble:

Last week I was on CNBC twice. Once on “Fast Money” and once on Donny Deutsch’s “The Big Idea.”

The Fast Money segment has been torn apart on the Internet but Roger Ehrenberg of the Information Arbitrage blog had the most intelligent analysis of it.

Here’s the key piece of the Donny Deutsch show, where we had a bunch of bloggers on the Microsoft Blogger Bus asking questions of Bug Labs’ CEO Peter Semmelhack. Bug Labs went onto win CNET’s “Best of CES” award for the emerging tech category.

Some things that are worth underlying about the difference between my video show and CNBC.

1. Expense. CNBC had dozens of people involved in the show, a huge booth, really expensive cameras, satellite time, etc. My show? Get a Nokia phone and go for it.
2. Makeup. Yeah, I wore it. There’s a video out there on the Internet somewhere. I’m not sure why Valleywag hasn’t found it yet.
3. You don’t get to say whatever you want. Donny’s show was tape delayed. If you try doing something wacky, they’ll just cut you out. But even if they keep you on, they have a director who is telling you what they want. She preps you for each segment, giving you “talking points.” If you don’t agree with those talking points you have to negotiate to have them changed. But if they don’t like your talking points they just won’t go with you. Second, she has a big sign and if she thinks you should make a point she makes it clear.
4. These shows are NOT about getting deep, or really getting a good understanding of CES. They were ALL about being entertaining! Hey, who knew? (I tried to pull a bunch of gadgets out and they said “we don’t care about the gadgets.”)
5. They filmed Bug Labs’ CEO for 10 hours for a two-minute segment. Now do you understand why so many CEOs let me come over and film them? I never take more than an hour with an executive, so it’s always easy to get onto someone’s schedule.
6. My show has very little editing, so it’s pretty rare that the context gets lost on an answer. On TV, though, things get cut up, sliced and diced, all for entertainment effect, not necessarily to tell the best story.

Watching CNBC = a waste of time.

Presenting on CNBC = a waste of time.

Viva office-made videos and YouTube.

Viva video blogging.

Read the previous blog posts by Chris. F. Masse:

  • We regret to inform you of the passing of BettingMarket.com.
  • Niall O’Connor, the one-data-point analyst
  • The best headline of the day –post Michigan
  • Enterprise prediction markets will be the next big thing when… hierarchies are flat.
  • Prediction Markets vs. Bookmakers — The Ultimate Argument
  • The Michigan primary as seen thru the prism of the InTrade prediction markets
  • BitGravity = video distribution network

Columbia Journalism Review not much convinced by Wall Street Journals Justin Wolfers

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No GravatarTo say the least.

[&#8230-] Unfortunately, by the eve of the New Hampshire primary, Wolfers was back in the Journal, writing this time that the newspaper’s own prediction market, WSJ Political Marketplace, run by Intrade, was showing that New Hampshire might be the “death knell” for Clinton and a couple other candidates. After a bet like that, in Vegas they’d say, &#8220-craps.&#8221- 

Humm&#8230- I don&#8217-t like this CJR piece, but it shows that many in the non-business press are skeptical of prediction markets.

Read the previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

  • I get a kick each morning out of spying on the rich, famous, and powerful people updating their LinkedIn profile and connections. (Go to “InBox”, and click on “Network Updates”.)
  • ??? BetFair bet-matching logic ???
  • Eliot Spitzer has simply demonstrated once again that those who rise to the top of organizations are very often the most demented, conflicted individuals in any group.
  • Business Risks & Prediction Markets
  • Brand-new BetFair bet-matching logic proves to be very controversial with some event derivative traders.
  • Jimmy Wales accused of editing Wikipedia for donations.
  • What the prediction market experts said on Predictify

How to assess Justin Wolfers writings for the WSJ, the BetFair blog, the InTrade bulletin, and Midas Oracle

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No GravatarRobert Scobble (who got heat from the rest of the Blogosphere for that):

  1. Are you getting content that no one else is? [&#8230-]
  2. Does that content cause conversations to happen? [&#8230-]
  3. Does that content get noticed in the niche you’re covering? [&#8230-]
  4. Even more importantly, does it get the most credible and authoritative to link to you? [&#8230-]
  5. [I]t’s not the size of your audience that matters. It’s WHO is in the audience that matters. [&#8230-]
  6. [H]ow can I take my art further? [&#8230-]

I&#8217-d say this:

  • Quality Content + Quality Marketing = Quality Audience

Previously: The official BetFair blog is such a piece of crap that one of its writers is rebelling publicly against it. + Justin Wolfers in the Wall Street Journal.

Read the previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

  • Many people twitter on prediction markets.
  • Folks, when you have something important to say, write up a full post, not a comment.
  • Prediction Market Journalism
  • TechCrunch is 221 times bigger than Midas Oracle.
  • Earthquake measuring 9.0 or more on Richter scale to occur anywhere on or before December 31, 2008
  • Why Midas Oracle (and not TV news shows or print newspapers) will dominate the future.
  • The Six Degrees Of Separation

Justin Wolfers guest-blogging week at Marginal Revolution is over.

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No GravatarJusitn Wolfers:

I&#8217-ve been amazed by how much work blogging can be. More than anything else, this past week has simply increased my admiration for the work that Alex [Tabarrok] and Tyler [Cowen] put into this site and our community.

Yes, blogging is hard and difficult. But Justin Wolfers has experienced only one third of the whole experience &#8212-writing. The two other parts are: finessing the parameters of your blogging software, and marketing your blog, posts and pages. In my experience, the last thing is the most difficult &#8212-you have to get inbound links from big bloggers, otherwise nobody reads you and the search engines don&#8217-t compute you. Your blog will only matter in your industry if you excel at each of these three tasks. (And if what you run is a group blog, then there is a fourth task, which is inciting other people to write for your group blog for free. :-D )

So, how did you like Justin Wolfers&#8217- guest-blogging week at Marginal Revolution?

Great. Smart guy. Very open to others. Very willing to let the readers discover plenty of external resources (including, two times, a weird stuff called Midas Oracle :-D ). His blogging style resembles much David Pennock&#8217-s one. That is, a smooth mix of home-made essays and news aggregation items. Very different than Robin Hanson&#8217-s blogging. (Robin Hanson is on a quest to show off that he is the world&#8217-s most intelligent human being, which is boring most of the times, but can output highly valuable fruits, occasionally.)

Read the previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

  • Bzzzzzzzzz…
  • Bzzzzzzzzz…
  • “No offense, but I think Radley Balko is the most valuable blogger in America right now.”
  • Are you a better predictor than John McCain?
  • What does climate scientist James Annan think of InTrade’s global warming prediction markets?
  • Inkling Markets, one year later
  • One trader’s view on BetFair’s new bet-matching logic