No more Inkling Markets chart widgets on Midas Oracle until:

1. this problem is solved;
2. their chart widgets go into feeds.

Nathan Kontny, hurry up to fix that —the great Chris Masse is waiting.

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Regrettably, I never quoted Inkling during the last 2008 US presidential elections for that reason —and because I am not sure about the reputation of the people who expire contracts.

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Technical Note: The stuff above is a screen shot from my “predictions” webpage.

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My previous post on the charting systems of the prediction exchanges —and BetFair in particular

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I do recommend that my fellow bloggers boycott BetFair Predicts for these 3 important reasons:

1. The background of the BetFair Predicts charts is colored in black —which is the color associated with death. Their background should be white or gray. Putting many dark black images in a post will attract the black eye to your blog. Don’t do it.
2. The BetFair Predicts chart widgets use a web technology incompatible with the (Web-based or PC-based) feed readers, as you can see below. Their chart widgets should be able to be displayed within feed readers (like Google Reader). Don’t embed the BetFair Predicts chart widgets in your posts, as your readers who use feed readers won’t see them, and blame you, the blogger, for being so technically clueless. Instead, do hot-link to the prediction market charts web-hosted by the main BetFair prediction exchange; they do work perfectly well when displayed within feed readers.
3. BetFair Predicts does want you to link to them, but BetFair Predicts is a sub-website that does not link to the outside. Their writers borrow [*] information from news websites, and do repackage this info without giving credits or linking to interesting external resources. For instance, in the case below, a good link could have been made in direction of Nate Silver‘s post at NewsWeek, which I linked to this morning —and which is much better informed than the poorly parroted stuff you see below.

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Boycotting BetFair Predicts is, alas, the only way to get heard. It is regrettable that the BetFair Predicts people have not engaged in a fruitful and cordial dialogue with the prediction market bloggers. The 3 pointers would have been told to them very early in their project, and I wouldn’t have had to publish a (regrettably) negative post today.

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As you see, the blog readers using a (PC-based) feed reader are not able to see the latest BetFair Predicts charts (you would get the same view with Google Reader, or any other Web-based feed reader):

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- I hope that the good people in HammerSmith will react to this post, and make the necessary changes AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

- I hope that, in the future, things will be better, and that I will enjoy embedding the BetFair Predicts chart widgets and linking to their posts.

- I respect the BetFair people, but the truth should be said: BetFair Predicts is, at this early stage, a bad product.

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[*] I changed the verb, which was indeed too strong in my original version. (Sorry for my wrong choice of vocabulary.) I meant (as it is well explained above) that they should link out to the news media where they take their primary information (CNN, NYT, BBC, The Times, etc.).

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- Dynamic charts are the way to go because the search engines send web visitors to the old blog posts. When the chart on the post is hot-linked from the prediction exchange, that chart updates itself —and the web visitor sees an up-to-date chart.

- The problem is that the prediction exchanges will cease maintaining any chart after contract expiry. Hence, the web visitors downloading an old blog post will spot an error message instead of the chart. BIG PROBLEM, because the web visitors will blame the blogger, not the prediction exchange.

- Maybe the solution is to publish dynamic charts… and to have an appendix at the end of the blog post, stuffing some static charts, explaining the readers that those static charts are here for the historians.

- What do you think? —(You, the blog readers.)

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BetFair Predicts is a blog that aims at the Americans. In my view, it’s a big failure (once again).

1. BetFair listened to some snake-oil “social media” consultant. As an experienced and successful webmaster, I can tell you there are many flaws in their whole project and in its execution.
2. BetFair has hired some second-tier writers for the content —it is not worth the read.

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Technically, here’s one instance (in a long list) that shows you that they are completely incompetent.

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Here’s what you might have seen from them this morning —the screen shot is from within Google Reader, the most popular feed reader:

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Now, here’s what they wanted you to see, actually:

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So, as you have seen, the chart is missing from the content if you are using a feed reader (like Google Reader).

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Let’s recap:

1. They are using a kind of chart widgets that does not go into feeds.
2. They are asking bloggers to embed their BetFair chart widgets…. that the blog readers using a feed reader (like Google Reader) won’t be able to see.
3. Only the most stupid and most computer illiterate bloggers will actually embed those Betfair chart widgets in their posts. I won’t. [*]
4. The fact that the technical team of Betfair Predicts has not been able to understand the importance of feed reading, and the necessity to create chart widgets that are compatible with feed readers (like Google Reader) is telling a lot about the dual fact that the BetFair executives don’t understand the Web and that BetFair has a hiring problem.

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Technical Note: Refer to my “predictions” webpage, if you want the list of the chart widgets that go into feeds and the list of those that don’t.

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[*] I do publish some BetFair dynamic charts, but not the crappy chart widgets created by the incompetents of BetFair Predicts.

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Not surprisingly, BetFair Predicts has virtually no feed subscribers (the people who are so interested in the content of a blog that they want to stick to it on a daily basis). For your information, Midas Oracle has probably about 900 feed subscribers, in all (counting both our PC-based feed subscribers and our Web-based feed subscribers). No wonder that some BetFair Predicts writer come on Midas Oracle to try to gather some interest.

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See the appendix of my previous post.

We’ve just released our 2008 Presidential Election Map. The map is based on markets for all 50 states. In addition to the page there is a map widget (displayed above). The widget goes into feed readers and also dynamically updates on a page refresh. Click on the widget above to access the code snippet.

It has been a dramatic week for the election markets with Obama surging back from around 50% to the low 60′s. The Hubdub market has generally kept in line with the UK bookmaker and betting exchange odds. Roll on the debates!