Chapter 7 – What the Crowd Knows: Collective Intelligence in Action – by Jeff Howe

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He is a Wired journalist.

I prefer stuff written by economists like Robin Hanson, Justin Wolfers, Eric Zitzewitz, Koleman Strumpf, David Pennock, etc.

What’s the point of having the mainstream media journalists writing their own stuff when we can cite the people listed above????

I believe in the “In His/Her Own Words” principle.

Enough with the journalists. I’m fed up by them.

The Internet enables us to access directly the people who know. Let’s bypass the journalists. Let’s bulldozer this unnecessary filter.

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(Via Tom Carden)

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Keith Anderson (Senior Analyst at RNG)

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Keith Anderson’s PC (which has a North-American IP number) shows two more advertisers, HSX and Inkling Markets:

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–> Keith Anderson tips me that at MSNBC’s iPredict, it’s 50/50. Keith remarks that MSNBC should have used a prediction exchange… Right. [Psstt… Keith is clairvoyant. One big media company is currently working on a play-money prediction exchange for this summer or next fall.)

–> NewsFutures: Ouch, there’s a slight decrease in the market-generated probability (odds). Somebody knows something?????

© NewsFutures

Harry Potter will survive The Deathly Hallows.

DISCLOSURE: The author of this blog post is long on the Harry Potter survival.

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MIT Center for Collective Intelligence:

CCI Spring 2007 Seminar Series

All seminars will be held in NE20-336 (3 Cambridge Center).
CCI seminars are on Mondays and Thursdays during the spring semester of 2007
- Mon Mar 5, 4:00-5:30 Richard Hackman and Stephen Kosslyn, Harvard University, Brains and Groups: Findings from a Cross-Level Research Program
- Thur Mar 15, 4:00-5:30 Fernanda Viegas and Martin Wattenberg, IBM Research, Visualizing Wikipedia: Then and Now
- Thur Mar 22, 4:00-5:30 Brewster Kahle, Director and Co-Founder, Internet Archive, Universal Access to Human Knowledge (Or Public Access to Digital Materials)
- Thur Apr 5, 4:00-5:30 Marty Tenenbaum, Founder and Chairman, CommerceNet, Healthcare 3.0: Transforming medicine through collective intelligence
- Mon Apr 9, 4:00-5:30 Henry Jenkins, MIT Comparative Media Studies Program, How Collective Intelligence is Transforming the American Entertainment Industry
- Thu Apr 19, 4:00-5:30 Talk rescheduled for April 24
- Mon Apr 23, 4:00-5:30 Kevin Crowston, Syracuse University, The Developmental Arc of Participation in Massive Voluntary Collaboration
- Tue Apr 24, 4:00-5:30 Bo Cowgill, Google
- Thu May 3, 4:00-5:30 Seminar changed to Monday May 14
- Mon May 7, 4:00-5:30 Tara Lemmey, Chair, Technology Committee of the Markle Taskforce on National Security in the Information Age, Vast Innovation in Intelligence: The Collective Approach to National Security
- Mon May 14, 4:00-5:30 Justin Wolfers, Wharton School, Prediction Markets
- Thu May 17, 4:00-5:30 Doug Engelbart, The Augmentation of our Collective IQ

Keith Anderson, do you have something to wear?

Tech Crunch:

[...] Atomic Moguls has launched FantasyMoguls.com, which is essentially a fantasy league for movies. You can draft movies and earn points based on how well they do at the box office, number of weeks in the top 5, per-theater average, and their IMDb review score (IMDb is Amazon.com owned). Traditional fantasy sports leagues allow you to draft players and earn points for how well they perform in games. [...]

Voila, mister Keith Anderson.

Predicting World Cup results: Do goals seem more likely when they pay off? – by Maya Bar-Hillel
Center for the Study of Rationality, The Hebrew University at Jerusalem

A paper by Maya Bar-Hillel of The Hebrew University at Jerusalem reviews suggested instances of wishful thinking and desirability biases in the context of probability estimates of the outcome of World Cup matches. Participants estimated the probabilities of various teams to win upcoming games and were promised money if one particular team, randomly designated by the experimenter, would win its upcoming game.

Participants judged their target team more likely to win than participants whose promised monetary reward was contingent on the victory of the rival team. This was interpreted as desirability bias.

However, in a follow-up study with no promised monetary rewards, one team was designated as being of “special interest.” Again, participants judged their target team more likely to win than other participants, whose “team of special interest” was the rival team.

The paper’s conclusion is that what truly exists is a “salience” or “marketing” effect.

Paper: PDF file

Prediction exchanges featured:
- InTrade
- Iowa Electronic Markets
- Casual Observer

Previous Slate Page: Slate’s 2006 Political Futures

Addendum: I’m a decerebrated idiot.

Chris,

Just saw your post about Techcrunch omitting Inkling from their list of Y Combinator companies. I quickly noticed the same thing, but after re-reading the post, it looks like Techcrunch was only covering “the last batch of Y Combinator companies” and not providing a comprehensive list of companies funded by the firm. (Other notable companies, like the recently acquired Reddit, were also left out.)

Y Combinator funds start-ups in batches twice a year–once in the summer, once in the winter. I think Inkling got their funding last winter.

Regards,
Keith Anderson