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UPDATE: I have disabled all the FireFox add-ons, and still impossible to get anything from SSRN. Still investigating… I will update you…

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To watch Mark Davies speaking French:

1. Internet Explorer —no FireFox.
2. Latest Flash.
3. Go to M6 Replay.
4. Select “magazines”.
5. Scroll on the right to go to “Enquete Exclusive”.
6. Select Sunday, May 1, 2008 — Paris sportifs: Quand la Mafia s’en mele…
7. Windows Media.
8. 9:00 into, they talk about Davydenko.
9. 11:00 into, they show the BetFair HQ.
10. Mark Davies is introduced as “the #2″. And, later on, they mis-translate “Managing Director” into “Directeur General”, which means “CEO” in French. Let’s hope David Yu won’t watch that tape.
11. His French is not superb… but quite close to.
12. Explains that, in the Davydenko match, it was the bets that lead the game —not the other way around. So, BetFair voided all bets.
13. I am realizing that the phrase “the prices of the bets” (“les prix des paris“) is not usable. Better to talk about probabilities to the public.
14. The rest of that news report is devoted to demonstrating, thru innuendos, rumors, unfounded pseudo facts, and mis-reported true facts, that the Mafia is in control of all world sports —thru world-wide betting.
15. At the very end, though, one official (from the tennis federation, the ATP, if my memory is correct) says that they cooperate with some betting operators to stop corruption.

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M6 – Enquete Exclusive – Sunday, June 1, 2008 — Paris sportifs: Quand la Mafia s’en mele… – [Sports bets: When the Mafia gets involved...]

1.6 million French people watched that TV show.

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That’s the only interesting bit of information I got from watching M6′s news report. It was a shallow report. All insinuations and un-documented pseudo evidence; no hard facts about the alleged corruption of sports by the Mafia. Shallow journalism by sensationalist incompetents who eat cheese that smells like people’s feet. Waste of time to watch that.

M6 – Enquete Exclusive – Sunday, June 1, 2008 — Paris sportifs: Quand la Mafia s’en mele… – [Sports bets: When the Mafia gets involved...]

Re-run next Wednesday at night —if you happen to be in the F country.

You need Internet Explorer 6+ and Flash to access that shitty French website.

And Napoleon was a tyrant.

Voila.

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UPDATE:

1.6 million French people watched that TV show.

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UPDATE #2: M6 Replay, select “magazines”, then “Enquete Exclusive”, and then the Sunday show. BetFair and Mark Davies appear at 11:00 into the video.

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1. Simplistic enough. Sounds more like a promotion trick than a real game.
2. The Sporting Exchange has outsourced the development of this game (and others) to a Swedish team.
3. The Swedish people won a “multi-year” contract. I don’t understand which partner is responsible for the creation of future games. Probably both, but it’s not clear. To get new game ideas, I would rather bid for them around the planet (just like book publishers and movie producers are looking out for good scripts) —as opposed to have a “multi-year” contract with someone, even a talented someone. (And in the case under my very nose, I can’t see any talent, here.)
4. In both Internet Explorer and Mozilla FireFox, there are usability problems, as you can see in the screen shot. This BetFair site (just like their corporate site) was not designed to be fluid. A shame.

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I am happy to report that on my suggestion intrade has listed futures contracts for 2008 search engine market share.

Here is how they work:

A contract will expire according to the percentage share of internet searches conducted in the United States in 2008. For example, if 53.5% of searches conducted in the United States in 2008 are made using Google then the contract listed for Google will expire at 53.5…

…Expiry will be based on the United States search share rankings published by Nielson Online.

I think this could be a fascinating market because:

• Search engine market share is very important to these major companies, with dramatic effects on their share prices.
• Search engine market share is fluid, so far with Google growing inexorably. However, Microsoft has cash, determination, Internet Explorer, and the willingness to experiment. Ask.com has erasers, 3D, ad budgets, and The Algorithm. Yahoo!, second in market share, often tests equal or better than Google, and new features like Search Assist are impressive.
• The media loves to write about it.
• A major search company might use the market to hedge. Well, this seems far-fetched but you never know. Certainly, from an economic risk management standpoint it would seem to make a great deal of sense. (Here, as always on this blog, I speak on behalf of myself and not my company.)

Finally, I have to comment on how refreshingly easy the process was in working with intrade. They went from suggestion to implementation in a matter of days. It’s a shame that US-based companies are in contrast stuck in stultifying legal and regulatory mud.

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Introduction

The goal of CNN Political Market is to combine the opinions of a diverse group of people to try and predict the probability of an event occurring or the value of something. Why is this important? Because more often than not, a diverse group of people or “crowd” will generate a more accurate prediction than an individual or a small group of “like-minded” or “single-discipline” folks.

In business, politics, and culture, this can have big ramifications:
- Predictions often turn out to be more accurate than surveys and polls;
- More accurate forecasts affect how marketing dollars are spent, how many widgets should be built in the first run, etc.;
- Decision making is more democratized, giving everyone input where they may not have had it before;
- Markets can serve as on-going indicators for key performance metrics.

Frequently Asked Questions

These are answers to questions we receive on a regular basis.
Q: What if I forgot my username or password?
A: It’s easy, just click here and new information will be sent to the email address we have for you.

Markets and Trading
Q: How do the prices in a market change?
A: Markets are guided by the forces of supply and demand. Every time a user buys a share in a particular idea or outcome, that demand forces the price up a little. The more people buy, the higher the price becomes. If the price gets too high, people will do the natural, self-interested thing and sell their shares to get a profit (or sell shares that they don’t own on credit). Similarly, each time a user sells a share, the price goes back down some.

Q: My math says I can buy more shares than the system lets me. Why?
A: Remember that for each share you buy, the price goes up some. If you’re buying a lot of shares at once, the last share in your order might cost significantly more than the first.

Q: I sold a block of shares, but I got less money out of it than I thought I would.
A: Just like the market price increases you see when you purchase shares, each share you sell drives the market price for those shares down a little. If you’re selling a lot of shares, the last share you sell be worth much less than the first.

Q: I think the current price in a market is reflective of what the market is trying to predict. What do I do now?
A: The best thing to do is to hold onto your shares. If you try to sell them, the market price will start to go down and you won’t make as much profit as you could if you wait for the market to close.

Balances
Q: What is “on credit?”
A: When you sell shares on credit you are betting that the market price of a stock is going to go down instead of up. The idea is to sell shares you don’t have at a high price, and buy them back later once the market price has fallen. You get to keep the difference as profit.

Because you never know how high a price will go up, we’ve set up specific rules for selling shares on credit so you don’t get yourself in to trouble:
- You can buy back shares you bought on credit with the money in your bank.
- There is a limit on how much stock you can sell on credit. You can figure out what that limit is by adding your available balance to the total value of shares you have bought. For example, if you have $10 available balance, and you also own $10 of stock, you can sell $20 of stock on credit. In other words, we try not to allow you to go in to debt by always protecting you against the worst possible scenario.

Q: How can I tell how much money I have?
A: Your balances are listed in the “total assets” box which you can find on your dashboard/portfolio. Your balance is also listed on each market trade page.

Q: How can I get more money?
A: You can earn money by trading wisely in markets. Look for good ideas that are undervalued, examine market descriptions for interesting things that others might not have noticed, or use your own unique, personal knowledge to make predictions that others can’t.

Q: What is the play money good for?
A: Status in the online trading community is based on how much money you have; just take a look at the “top traders.” The more money you have, the sooner everyone will begin to refer to you as “sage.”

Q: Can I give some of my money to another user?
A: Money is non-transferable – you must earn your own by trading.

Marketplace and Help
Q: The website looks a little funny. Is my computer supported?
A: We support the latest versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Mozilla for Windows XP and 2000. For Mac OS X we support the latest versions of Safari, Firefox, and Mozilla. The application may work in alternate OSes and browsers, but we can’t make any promises.

After doing some testing of both Bloglines and GReader over the past week or so, I still think Google Reader is better.

UPDATE: Google Reader has added search capability. More info: – Google Blog – Matt Cutts – Tech Crunch -

UPDATE: The future of the Google Reader – Tech Crunch: Google May Add Comment Feature On Shared Reader Feeds

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How To Subscribe To Midas Oracle:

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You can subscribe for free to any of the Midas Oracle feeds by adding its URL to your PC-based or Web-based feed reader.

I recommend reading a blog within a feed reader and I recommend Google Reader (a Web-based feed reader). The alternative way of reading a blog is to check its website everyday for updates, which is tedious (since most of us like to read many blogs).

YouTube Video: A great video explainer on why and how to subscribe to blogs

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Feed Reader Tips

- Recommended: Read your feed items starting with the oldest items.

- Google Reader: Click on “View settings” and select “Sort by oldest”.

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For people who want to read all the Midas Oracle blog posts within their feed reader:

Site Feed – Posts Only

http://www.midasoracle.org/feed/

Subscribe to the Midas Oracle site feed via Google Reader

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For people who, additionally, want to read the comments within their feed reader:

Sub-Site Feed – Comments Only

http://www.midasoracle.org/comments/feed/

Subscribe to the Midas Oracle comment feed via Google Reader

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For people who don’t want to read all the Midas Oracle blog posts, but only the selected pieces:

Sub-Site Feed – Best Posts Only

http://www.midasoracle.org/category/all-best-posts-ever/feed/

Subscribe to the Midas Oracle selection feed via Google Reader

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For people who want to read all the Midas Oracle blog posts, but not Chris Masse’s ones:

Sub-Site Feed – Guest Authors Only

http://www.midasoracle.org/category/all-guest-authorss-posts/feed/

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For people who want to read only a small part of the Midas Oracle content, there are two other types of sub-site feeds:

Sub-Site Feed – Post Category

Sub-Site Feed – Author

Snatch the URLs at Archives and Authors and add “feed/” at the end.

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Web-based feed readers: Google Reader, BlogLines, iGoogle (with the Google Reader module), NetVibes, etc.

PC-based feed readers: browsers (MicroSoft Internet Explorer 7+, Mozilla FireFox), browser extensions (Sage with Mozilla CSS, or Wizz), cross-platform and open-source software (RSS Owl, Blog Bridge), etc. Parameter your feed reader so that it fetches the site feed once an hour, no more.

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Next: You can now search for PREDICTION MARKETS within your Google Reader.

UPDATE: A great video explainer on why and hoe to subscribe to blogs

#1. FEED READERS. I renew my advice: read your site feeds with a Web-based feed reader as opposed to a PC-based feed reader. Let another machine (other than your PC) deal with the downloading and organizing of the site feeds. Plus, you can access it from anywhere on the Earth (your office, your home, your hotel, or your conference room). As for the best Web-based feed reader, it’s Google Reader. (For more information, here’s a detailed comparison between Google Reader, BlogLines and Internet Explorer 7.)

#2. BLOGGING PROFESSORS. Professor Steve Bainbridge explains how and why he publishes some class materials on his blogs.

#3. FREE NEWS SITES vs. SUBSCRIPTION NEWS SITES. The Wall Street Journal earned more money with its online website than its print publication. (Related: Jakob Nielsen on micro-payments.)

#1. Try it. Don’t listen to me or Tyler Cowen. Go to Google Reader (the best “feed reader”), and add to it the feed URLs of all the blogs you like. (Here’s the feed for Midas Oracle. And if you want to subscribe to Midas Oracle via Google Reader in one click, here’s the link.

#2. Once you have added all the blogs you like, what is great is that the only place you have to visit now is Google Reader —as opposed to clicking like crazy to visit all the blogs you need to visit. Make sure that your browser (Internet Explorer, FireFox, Opera, or else) remembers your Google Account user name and password. Go to your “feed reader” once a day, twice a day, or just once a week. It’s your call. Google Reader (just like any other Web-based feed reader) remembers old items, so feel free to put your needs at the center, and this RSS technology at the periphery.

#3. When you feel it’s the right time to read your favorite blogs, go to your Google Reader, click on ALL ITEMS. Activate the sub-window by selecting a portion of text in the first blog post you spot —it’s necessary to perform the next operation. Then, put your finger on the GO DOWN button of your keyboard. Scan the title of that blog post and its body text. If it is of no interest to you, then push the GO DOWN button, and you’ll get to the next blog post. (Actually, if the blog posts are short, they can be grouped by pack of three or four, on your screen.) That way, you can subscribe to many blogs, but still be very selective about what you read.

#4. If you are a blog publisher, note that it is a great idea to put your main idea in bold. It helps the scanning —and that’s also true regarding the behavior or normal, website-based readers.

#5. The day you want to leave your current Web-based feed reader, just export your OPML file, and import it into another (Web-based or PC-based) feed reader of your choosing. (My OPML file is here. The list of all the blogs I like is here —especially this one.)

Happy feed reading!!

And, generally speaking, don’t pay too much attention to what Tyler Cowen says on information technology and the Internet. He is a good economist and a curious blogger (I mean, a blogger whose level of curiosity is high), but you will never hear anything on open-source software, or social bookmarking services, or any other revolutionary technology, on Marginal Revolution —alas.

- Blog subscribers who read inside a feed reader don’t mind anymore about publication frequency. Their (PC-based or Web-based) feed reader (which is a piece of software that downloads the feeds) has freed them from checking many websites once a day (more or less). These blog subscribers are free to consult their feed items (e.g., the blog posts) whenever they like, since feed readers remember old items. It’s convenient to have all one’s readings automatically aggregated on one place (a feed reader).

- That said, as of today, alas, only a small percent of all Web readers turn themselves into subscribers. Thus the need for educating them —with all due respect. MicroSoft, with its Internet Explorer #7 (which has a built-in feed reader), will do just that.

I disagree with Tom Bell (sorry… Tom “W” Bell):

- The best Web-based feed reader is not BlogLines (anymore), but Google Reader. (Don’t take my word for it: the Life Hacker girl, pictured yesterday in the WSJ, said so.)

- Click here to subscribe to Midas Oracle via Google Reader.