So, now, it is up to Leslie Fine and the 9 other managers to run and develop this forum.

Let’s promote it. Let’s have an interesting conversation on prediction markets, there.

We are 376 members.

I want it to surpass the 500 members, and then reach the 1,000 members. PLEASE, HELP ME GET TO THAT LOFTY GOAL.

P.S.: I have asked Doc Leslie Fine of CrowdCast to be a manager of the LinkedIn group. I am waiting her answer. Will let you know.

UPDATE: Done.

There is another spot. Please suggest a name. Thanks.

MEMBERS: All the prediction market industry is registered there. There are 374 members —and it’s growing every day. THIS MAKES THIS LINKEDIN GROUP THE WORLD’S #1 FORUM ON PREDICTION MARKETS ACROSS ALL SOCIAL NETWORKS.

MANAGEMENT: The group is owned by Chris Masse (moi). One individual has to create it, and, thus, “owns” it. There are 8 managers: Jed Christiansen (of Mercury), Nigel Eccles (of HubDub), Chris Hibbert (of Zocalo), Chris Masse (of Midas Oracle), David Pennock (of Yahoo! Research), Michael Robb (of BetFair), Emile Servan-Schreiber (of NewsFutures), and Adam Siegel (of Inkling Markets). John Delaney (of InTrade) has recently been evicted as manager (not as member) for a mean remark made on the Google Group. I will make an announcement soon to replace him with a more honest and friendly prediction market professional.

WHY THIS LINKEDIN GROUP IS BETTER THAN THE GOOGLE GROUPS: On the LinkedIn discussions, you can easily check the résumé of the person you’re talking with. It is not anonymous. On the Google Groups, there are posers and jokers, who hide behind pseudos. (Remember the “legal assistant”, who was in fact the San Francisco clown.) On LinkedIn, the people are real. There are real prospects. Real clients. Real consultants. Real bosses. Real employees. On LinkedIn, it is all real. On the Google groups, it is all fake.

DISCUSSIONS: There are 21 threads. Join the debate… Invite your friends in… Feel free to ask any questions to the professionals… Challenge them.

UPDATE: Additional manager: The Consensus Point CEO, Linda Rebrovick.

You are welcome to use it to make your “help wanted” announcements.

333 members —growing every day.

This group is for anybody who have a strong interest in prediction markets (and collective forecasting, generally) or works in the prediction market industry. Everybody can join —industry players, startup entrepreneurs, exchange managers, software providers, consultants, researchers, analysts, journalists, bloggers, and, of course, traders.

P.S.: Here is the LinkedIn group on Internet strategy…

This group is for anybody who have a strong interest in Internet strategy (Internet business models, Internet marketing, web design, and search engine optimization) or works in an Internet-related organization. Everybody can join —industry players, startup entrepreneurs, managers, software providers, consultants, researchers, analysts, journalists, bloggers, and, of course, marketers.

That second LinkedIn group is in homage to our good doctor David Pennock, of course —who, unlike our good friend Mike Linksvayer, has yet to join that group.

Hello dear members,

We all love prediction markets. We are [286] on this group. Please, do forward this e-mail to one or two of your friends who love the prediction markets, so they can join us.
http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/152133

The issues that are up in the air, these days:

- Are prediction markets really more accurate than the other forecasting mechanisms? “Sightly more accurate”… or… “in theory, but not in practice”… are the two kinds of answers you would get from the research scientists. In any case, do notice that their modest and humble claims are a far cry from the 2003–2008 hype, where the prediction markets were marketed as crystal balls.

- Is the elaborateness of prediction markets necessary? For the public, real-money prediction markets (InTrade and BetFair), yes, because the traders pay (thru the transaction fees) for this complexity, not the probability seekers. Plus, the public, real-money prediction markets are real quick at integrating new info. Contrast that with the other information aggregation mechanisms, which have a cost, and takes time. (Ask Gallup how much would cost you a nation-wide poll, and how much time is needed.) On the other hand, for the enterprise prediction markets, there are 2 churches: one headed by Robin Hanson and Inkling Markets, who insist on using prediction markets; the other one, headed by NewsFutures and CrowdCast, who say that simpler input mechanisms are necessary if we want to implement the concept of “collective intelligence that predicts” inside commercial companies.

- Will real-money prediction markets be legal, one day, in the United States? We are waiting for the answer from the CFTC. That said, the CFTC will never legalize TradeSports-like exchanges, so any CFTC ruling won’t solve the general problematic of legalization.

Those are 3 issues, among many others. You should really subscribe to Midas Oracle to get fully informed.

Copy this URL:

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

Paste it in the “Add a Subscription” box at Google Reader:
http://www.google.com/reader/

And, yes, we are on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/midasoracle

Here is the list of the prediction market resources:

http://www.chrisfmasse.com/
http://www.midasoracle.org/predictions/
http://www.midasoracle.org/best/
http://www.midasoracle.org/links/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prediction_Markets
http://www.predictionmarketjournal.com/
http://www.forecastingprinciples.com/PM/
http://www.pmindustry.org/
http://www.reg-markets.org/policymarkets/

Here is the list of the prediction market blogs:

http://www.midasoracle.org/
http://blog.oddhead.com/category/prediction-markets/
http://blog.mercury-rac.com/
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/prediction-markets/
http://www.overcomingbias.com/prediction_markets/
http://torontopm.wordpress.com/

http://wiserthanthecrowd.com/

http://predicts.betfair.com/blog/
http://blog.inklingmarkets.com/
http://newsfutures.wordpress.com/

From any of the links above, you will be directed to the good resources and websites on prediction markets. As for the research papers, do use Google Scholar:
http://scholar.google.com/advanced_scholar_search

If you know a great website, blog, research paper, or prediction market company that should be indexed, feel free to tip us:

• cfm |-at-| midasoracle |.|-com-|
• chrisfmasse |-at-| gmail |.|-com-|
• chrisfmasse |-at-| yahoo |.|-com-|

A final note. Beware the $400-a-seat vendor conferences on prediction markets. They are not worth the price, and some speakers have “regrets” participating in them.

Best regards,

Chris Masse
Midas Oracle

Addendum to this blog post:

A great blog should have a great name and a great tagline.

- Midas Oracle = Prediction Markets = Collective Intelligence That Predicts — That’s this blog.

- CFM = Prediction Markets = Information Aggregation Mechanisms

- Midas Oracle = Everything But Prediction Markets — That’s the other blog, the one nobody but moi cares about.

As I told you the other day, I am spending a lot of time overhauling the websites, making them leaner and cleaner, and preparing for the new 2.0 strategy I will tell you about later on.

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1. How To Join Us

• From within LinkedIn, FaceBook, or Google Reader / Google Mail, send me (Chris Masse) an invite and I’ll accept it.
• You are also invited to join the Prediction Markets group at LinkedIn. We accept everybody (traders, analysts, researchers, consultants, exchange managers, bloggers, etc.).
  
• [As for joining Midas Oracle as a commenter or poster, see this other webpage.]
• I can introduce you to another member of our business network. Just ask me (Chris Masse), and I’ll do.

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2. LinkedIn Network

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For your information, here is the listing of the co-managers of the Prediction Markets group at LinkedIn:

• Jed Christiansen of Mercury
• Tony Clare of BetFair
• John Delaney of InTrade
• Nigel Eccles of HubDub
• Chris Hibbert of Zocalo
• Chris Masse of Midas Oracle
• David Pennock of Yahoo! Research
• Michael Robb of BetFair
• Emile Servan-Schreiber of NewsFutures
• Adam Siegel of Inkling Markets

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- The ownership of the group could be transferred to the yet-to-be-created “Prediction Market Institute”, at one time in the distant future.

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Once you have joined our Prediction Markets group at LinkedIn, here’s how to make its logo visible on your profile.

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-

- After you have joined our Prediction Markets group at LinkedIn, please make its logo visible on your profile. (In your listing of groups you belong to, you should read, near each one, “change visibility”. Click on that.)

- You are also invited to join Chris Masse’s network at LinkedIn.

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Our Prediction Market People – (from the two networks listed just above)

- Bernd Ankenbrand (Gexid Manager)

- Paul Architzel (Counsel at Alston & Bird)

- Maurice Balick (NewsFutures CTO)

- Pierluigi Buccioli (Entrepreneur and Betting Exchange Trader; Owner of Bookmakers Review)

- Jason Carver (Entrepreneur and Engineer)

- Yiling Chen (Professor at Harvard University)

- Jed Christiansen (Prediction Market Consultant)

- Tony Clare (Head of Strategic Initiatives at Betfair)

- Norris Clark (Vice-President of Sales at NewsFutures)

- Alexander Costakis (Managing Director of Hollywood Stock Exchange)

- Tyler Cowen (Economics Professor at George Mason University)

- Bo Cowgill (Quantitative Marketing Manager at Google)

- Eric Crampton (Senior Lecturer at University of Canterbury)

- Noam Danon (Qmarkets CEO and Founder)

- Pedro Da Cunha (Exago Markets CEO)

- John Delaney (InTrade CEO)

- Juan Manuel Ducler (Founder, BestChartsOnline.com / Trader & Financial Consultant)

- Nigel Eccles (HudDub CEO)

- Leslie Fine (VP of Market Design at Xpree)

- Matthew Fogarty (Prediction Market Consultant – Xpree CEO and Founder)

- Lance Fortnow (Professor of Computer Science at Northwestern University)

- Nick Garner (SEO / PPC / Search Manager at BetFair)

- Cédric Gaspoz (Research and Teaching Assistant at University of Lausanne)

- Michael Giberson (Energy Economist at Texas Tech University)

- Sean Glass (Founder, Chairman, Chief Strategy Officer at Pikum Holdings)

- Andrew Goldberg (Intern at Media Law Resource Center)

- Robin Hanson (Professor of Economics at George Mason University)

- Chris Hibbert (Software Architect, Project Lead at Zocalo)

- Donna Hoffman (Professor and Co-Director, Sloan Center for Internet Retailing)

- Panagiotis Ipeirotis (Assistant Professor at New York University)

- Max Keiser (Entrepreneur, Journalist, Co-Founder of the Hollywood Stock Exchange)

- Alex Kirtland (User Experience Consultant)

- Ken Kittlitz (Software Architect, Foresight Exchange, Consensus Point)

- Greg Knaddison (Developer and Sys Admin for PingVision)

- Nathan Kontny (Inkling Markets CTO)

- Kriss Monaco (Director of New Product Development at International Securities Exchange)

- Dean LeBaron (Independent Investment Management Professional)

- Heidi Levin (Director of Business Development at Inkling Markets)

- Mike Linksvayer (Vice-President of Creative Commons)

- Rory Mackay (PredictionsMarkets.com Co-Founder and Owner)

- Chris. F. Masse (Founder and President of Midas Oracle)

- Tracy Mullen (Penn State Professor of Information Technology)

- Jesper Muller-Krogstrup (Managing Director of Nosco)

- Sean Park (Founding Partner at Sixth Paradigm)

- David Pennock (Principal Research Scientist at Yahoo!)

- Daniel Reeves (Yahoo! Research Scientist)

- Michael Robb (Communications & PR Executive at BetFair)

- Steve Roman (Financial Analyst at FXCM)

- Mark Rose (Ex-HedgeStreet Director of Product Development)

- Jason Ruspini (Financial Research Analyst, Vice President at Conquest Capital Group)

- Mike Sankowski (Product Development and Market Operations Manager at US Futures Exchange)

- Emile Servan-Schreiber (NewsFutures CEO and Co-Founder)

- Brian Shiau (The Sim Exchange CEO and Founder)

- Adam Siegel (Inkling Markets CEO and Co-Founder)

- Ashish Singal (Capital Markets Professional)

- Erik Snowberg (Assistant Professor of Economics and Political Science at California Institute of Technology)

- Brad Stewart (Reality Markets Founder)

- Brent Stinski (Media Predict CEO and Founder)

- Karim Tahawi (MyCurrency Founder)

- Jason Trost (Co-Founder of Smarkets)

- George Tziralis (Doctoral Researcher at National Technical University of Athens, Co-Founder of AskMarkets)

- Robert Wilburn (Rimdex CEO and Founder)

- Gerry Wilson (YooNew CEO and Co-Founder)

- Justin Wolfers (Professor of Business and Public Policy at the University of Pennsylvania)

- Matt Youill (Chief Technologist at Betfair)

- David Yu (BetFair CEO, Former CTO and COO of BetFair)

- Eric Zitzewitz (Professor of Economics at Dartmouth College)

- Plus, many, many more…

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Other Prediction Market People At LinkedIn

- Russell Andersson (Chief Operating Officer, Third Ave Beach)

- Adrian Asher (Global Head of Security at BetFair)

- Henry Berg (Group Manager on Information Markets at Microsoft)

- Matt Carter (Director of the Advanced Technology Group at BetFair)

- Jonathan Cumberlege (Former Director of Registrations & Payments at BetFair)

- Gerard Cunningham (President at BetFair USA)

- Mark Davies (Managing Director of Corporate Affairs of BetFair)

- Mike Dooley (Vice-President of Engineering at NewsFutures)

- Sean Dunbar (Former Head of Technology at Hollywood Stock Exchange)

- Mathias Entenmann (Exchange Managing Director of BetFair)

- Brian Galebach (Freelance Computer Programmer and Owner of Probability Sports)

- Carol Gebert (Former Founder at Incentive Markets)

- Christian Hellmers (Director of US Business Development of BetFair)

- David Jack (TradeFair Director)

- Richard Jaycobs (Cantor Exchange Project Leader)

- Nicholas Jenkins – Nick Jenkins – (Owner of Betcha.com)

- Ajit Kambil (Global Director at Deloitte Research)

- Alam Kasenally (Xpree CTO)

- Mike Knesevitch (Ex-InTrade Director)

- Dawn Tevekelian Keller (Director, Services Business Group & Prediction Markets at Best Buy)

- Robin Marks (Head of Media at BetFair)

- Hunter Morris (Co-Founder of Smarkets)

- George Neumann (Professor of Economics And Applied Mathematics and Computational Sciences at the University of Iowa, Co-Founder of the Iowa Electronic Markets)

- Scott Page (Professor at University of Michigan)

- Paul Pluschkell (Founder & CEO at Spigit)

- Todd Proebsting (Director at Microsoft, Former Group Manager on Information Markets at Microsoft)

- Linda Rebrovick (Consensus Point CEO)

- Don Reynolds (Site Administrator at NewsFutures)

- Felix Salmon (Financial Journalist at Portfolio)

- Bimal Shah (Product Manager at TradeFair)

- Martin Spann (Professor at the University of Passau)

- Will Speck (Director Business Development & Market Research at Financial Times & FT.com)

- Martin Thompson (Engineering Director at TradeFair)

- Geoffrey Tso (Engineering Manager at Xpree)

- Andrew Twaits (Corporate and Business Affairs Director of BetFair Australia)

- Mark Wood (Head of Programme at TradeFair0

- Plus, many, many more…

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- John M’s group has only 83 members. — Boo, boo…

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-

How To Join Us

• You are invited to join the Prediction Markets group at LinkedIn. We accept everybody (traders, analysts, researchers, consultants, exchange managers, bloggers, etc.).
  
• [As for joining Midas Oracle as a commenter or poster, see this other webpage.]
• I can introduce you to another member of our business network. Just ask me (Chris Masse), and I’ll do.

-

LinkedIn Network

-

For your information, here is the listing of the co-managers of the Prediction Markets group at LinkedIn:

• Tony Clare of BetFair
• John Delaney of InTrade
• Nigel Eccles of HubDub
• Chris Hibbert of Zocalo
• Chris Masse of Midas Oracle
• David Pennock of Yahoo! Research
• David Perry of Consensus Point
• Emile Servan-Schreiber of NewsFutures
• Adam Siegel of Inkling Markets

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-

- The 10th seat of this board should be reserved for a yet-to-be-created “Open Institute for Prediction Markets”, so that the change of ownership of this group could be operated, at one time in the distant future.

-

Once you have joined our Prediction Markets group at LinkedIn, here’s how to make its logo visible on your profile.

-

-

- After you have joined our Prediction Markets group at LinkedIn, please make its logo visible on your profile. (In your listing of groups you belong to, you should read, near each one, “change visibility”. Click on that.)

- You are also invited to join Chris Masse’s network at LinkedIn.

-