In a Google search of five keywords or phrases representing the top five news stories of 2007, weblogs will rank higher than the New York Times’ Web site.

The bet has been expired on the “YES” side. Dave Winer (representing the bloggers) won —and Martin Nisenholtz (representing the New York Times —at the time, in 2002) lost.

We decided that a weblog had to be something that would have been recognized as a blog in [2002]. This includes ad supported blogs and commercial blogs like those of the NY Times. While the bettors argument in this case discusses why non-commercial content will beat out commercial content, Winer never provides a definition of a weblog. As it turns out, including major news source blogs like those of the NY Times or sources like Wikipedia do not affect the ultimate outcome in the case of this bet, but they certainly could have.

Hummm… How come Long Bets could have let people register a not-so-well-defined bet? Long Bets does not seem to be a serious organization to me.

As for what it all means: The blogging software packages are better content management systems than the other, older CMS packages. The blogging software and their specific usage (free access, content parcelisation, dates and keywords inserted in the URLs, peer linking, open comments, etc.) fit better in the Google super system.

Psstt… One idea for the prediction exchanges like NewsFutures or InTrade would be to open prediction markets on Long Bets topics just weeks before the expiration dates. The event derivative contracts would say that the expiry judge is Long Bets. Emile Servan-Schreiber and Michael Giberson, any thought?

External Link: TechCrunch on what is a blog.

In a Google search of five keywords or phrases representing the top five news stories of 2007, weblogs will rank higher than the New York Times’ Web site.

AGREE
Dave Winer

Stakes
$2,000
($1,000 each)

DISAGREE
Martin Nisenholtz

For Rogers Cadenhead, Dave Winer will win the bet. But he also says that the overall winner is… WIKIPEDIA.

[...] So Winer wins the bet 3-2, but his premise of blog triumphalism is challenged by the fact that on all five stories, a major U.S. media outlet ranks above the leading weblog in Google search. Also, the results for the top story of the year reflect poorly on both sides. In the five years since the bet was made, a clear winner did emerge, but it was neither blogs nor the Times. Wikipedia, which was only one year old in 2002, ranks higher today on four of the five news stories: 12th for Chinese exports, fifth for oil prices, first for the Iraq war, fourth for the mortgage crisis and first for the Virginia Tech killings. Winer predicted a news environment “changed so thoroughly that informed people will look to amateurs they trust for the information they want.” Nisenholtz expected the professional media to remain the authoritative source for “unbiased, accurate, and coherent” information. Instead, our most trusted source on the biggest news stories of 2007 is a horde of nameless, faceless amateurs who are not required to prove expertise in the subjects they cover.

So the real winner is Wikipedia —a news and knowledge aggregator… using anonymous volunteers. But Wikipedia is only an information aggregator… it feeds on both media and blogs to gather the facts. Wikipedia is the common denominator of knowledge —not the primary source of reporting. Just like prediction markets feed on polls and other advanced indicators.

External Link: See a previous assessment of the bet by Jason Kottke.

NEXT: Amateur Experts (Yahoo! Answers) Vs. Wisdom Of Crowds & Collective Intelligence (Wikipedia)

UPDATE: An empty comment from Read & Write Web.