Midas Oracle .ORG » compound charts

The InTrade .NET charting system is a great improvement for prediction market journalism.

Chris F. Masse — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 08:08:34 +0000

One word: FANTASTIC.

Much improved.

A prediction market blogger can hot-link to the advanced chart.
The advanced chart is the by-default chart —both prices and volumes are chartered. [Thin volumes don't appear, though.]
The advanced chart is of the right width —not too small, not too big.

What remains to be improved:

InTrade should publish chart widgets, so that the weblink to the prediction market webpage is automatically embedded in the chart.
InTrade should publish expired charts of the closed prediction markets. Discussions about accuracy should be supported visually.
InTrade should develop dynamic compound chart widgets with customizable news markers.

I hope we will get improvement on these fronts, soon.

What InTrade, TradeSports, BetFair, TradeFair, Betdaq, NewsFutures, Inkling Markets, Reality Markets, and HubDub, should implement real quick.

Chris F. Masse — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 13:48:40 +0000

Dynamic, compound chart widgets, with customizable news markers.

The Most Important Thing That David Yu And John Delaney Should Ask Their Team To Implement

Chris F. Masse — Mon, 26 May 2008 09:13:18 +0000

Dynamic, compound chart widgets with customizable news markers.

FINALLY, THE PREDICTION MARKETS ARRIVE IN GREAT BRITAIN.

Chris F. Masse — Wed, 21 May 2008 10:20:49 +0000

The image above is static —it’s a screen shot of the chart widget, not the chart widget itself. (I haven’t had access to their code, see, so I am not able to embed it here for you.) To view their updated widget, right-click on the image above, and open the link into a new browser tab.

First time I see a big UK newspaper associates “BetFair” with the term “prediction markets”.
Their explainer is quite acceptable.
That is a great step for BetFair. Congrats.
I’d explain things differently —and I dislike that they suggest that the prediction markets can greatly outperform the polls, described as not “accurate enough”. Pollsters do the best they can, it seems to me.
The output that BetFair hands out and the journalists seek are probabilities (expressed in percentages) —not those damn decimal/digital odds.
The chart widget they use is crappy. I already discussed it. It has usability problems with FireFox. It does not go into feeds. And it’s not readable enough. Look at the alternative, just below. (The only reason those idiots of journalists are using that crappy widget is that BetFair customized it for them, by putting their fucking newspaper trademark on top of the widget.)
Anyway, the dead-tree, print newspapers are dying, and the future belongs to blog networks.

The chart below is better… more readable… and it goes into feeds… – But those idiots at the Telegraph won’t show it to you because it is not pinned with the “Telegraph” trademark.

Please, BetFair, do give us the possibility to have a wider time period for the chart data.

The brand-new HubDub chart widgets —which InTrade, TradeSports, BetFair, TradeFair, Betdaq and NewsFutures could look into for ideas

Chris F. Masse — Tue, 20 May 2008 08:53:48 +0000

My questions got answered.

The little flaw in the “market widgets” has been corrected. (indeed, see below.)
The “news markers” will be reintroduced later. Great.
An example of a “prediction widget” is here.
Yes, the HubDub widgets go into feeds. Great.
Yes, the HubDub widgets are dynamic —they will update themselves each time a page loads.
Psstt… I bet people cannot spot the yellow line, below… A pity, that’s the line that gives the latest, most popular odds.

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what is this?

How much will Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull gross its opening weekend?

% chance over time

Under 70 Million $

70.01 – 90 Million $

90.01 – 110 Million $

110.01 – 130 Million $

130.01 Million $ or above

Get this widget

Can you get it right? Make your prediction…

Hubdub – The News Prediction Game

Testing the new HubDub chart widgets

Chris F. Masse — Mon, 19 May 2008 17:51:01 +0000

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what is this?

Who will the 2008 Democratic candidate for President be?

% chance over time

Barack Obama

Hillary Clinton

John Edwards

Someone else

Get this widget

Can you get it right? Make your prediction…

Hubdub – The News Prediction Game

-
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what is this?

Who will be the next President of the U.S.?

% chance over time

John McCain

Mike Huckabee

Ron Paul

Ralph Nader

Mike Bloomberg

Hillary Clinton

Barack Obama

Other

Get this widget

Can you get it right? Make your prediction…

Hubdub – The News Prediction Game

Nigel, it seems that there’s a text line generated, which comes before the chart… Bizarre.

Nigel, those are the market widgets, right? Any chance to have news markers?

I still need to discover the prediction widgets… Any hint? Thanks.

I hope those chart widgets will go thru the feed…

Are those charts dynamic? Will they update themselves, later on, Nigel?

Prediction Markets & Data Visualization

Chris F. Masse — Thu, 15 May 2008 12:01:18 +0000

Spot that that guy didn’t say, “I monitor a prediction market“. He said, “I monitor a chart“.

InTrade, TradeSports, BetFair, TradeFair, NewsFutures and HubDub have a huge work to do to improve their charts. In the future, they will output richer charts. Customizable, dynamic, compound charts, with news markers.

BetFair inaugurates a Politics zone (with compound charts) that nobody (but their so-called usability experts) will be able to see.

Chris F. Masse — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 21:50:48 +0000

The link to that Politics zone is well hidden deep into the BetFair system. Here’s the screen shot of a BetFair prediction market page.

The trader should first click on the “Rules” tab on a political market page (since the rules of an election market are obvious, it’s unlikely);
The trader who will not get that clicking on the blue image (wrongly titled, “Politics – Bet now”) will bring them to that Politics zone;
The link to the Politics zone, and the link to the BetFair blog, have nothing to do under the “Rules” label. Both links should be regrouped under an “Information” tab.

OK, let’s go now to that Politics zone.

The main political probabilistic predictions are regrouped on one page. Great.
There are compound charts, which we can republish on our prediction market blogs. Great.
On my screen, the probabilities are given in percentages. Great. (My browser is based on the US system. I wonder whether a British browser connecting from within the UK shows the “Odds” option, instead.)

Here’s a zoom on a chart:

“Next US President”, would be better.
Great colors.
Maybe a pale blue or green (as opposed to white), for the background, would have been cuter.
No historical charts. Spot that this chart starts on January 20, 2008, well after that that prediction market was created. No good.
No volumes. No good.
No way to get expired charts. No good.
No explainer on how to get dynamic charts. No good. (See appendix.)

The InTrade-TradeSports charts are much, much better. Go there, select a prediction market, click on “Advanced Charting”, and then play with the charts. You will see what I mean.

On that one, the Britons are way behind. I suspect that the BetFair usability employees don’t exchange views with the most advanced BetFair traders/bloggers. They view Hammersmith as a Kibbutz, maybe. Or maybe they indulge too much on James Bond movies and they think they all belong to the MI6. A usability expert who doesn’t survey advanced users is like a butcher without meat. Internet usability is more an approach than an expertise. It all starts with user surveys and eye-tracking research. I doubt they have great usability professionals who know how to reach out.

—

In the appendix of this post, I am pasting a hot-link to the chart above, just to see if the BetFair server accepts that. (I bet not. A pity. Dynamic charts would be great for bloggers.) Let’s see, just below. (If you see nothing just below, it means there’s no way to have constantly updated charts from BetFair.)

UPDATE: I saw the hot-linked chart… Great. I hope the image will not disappear once I have updated this post… (It happened to me when I tried to hot-link to the InTrade charts…)

UPDATE #2: Great. I have hot-linked to 3 of their compound charts on our “Predictions” page. I have, of course, provided deep links to the appropriate BetFair pages.