In the past, Midas Oracle has published many things that infuriated some prediction market players: Public facts wrapped up in our sarcastic commentaries. And we will do it again, to Russell Andersson’s despair. Would we publish internal documents stolen from a prediction exchange or a prediction market software provider or a prediction market consultant? We would never publish trade secrets on Midas Oracle –let alone stolen ones. We should stick with public factoids and open opinions protected by free-speech laws.

I am a bit disturbed by Michael Arrington’s stance.

Once those documents are all over the Internet, of course, the matter becomes a topic of discussion, and it could (or could not) become fair game for blogging. But that is a far cry from publishing stolen documents. Midas Oracle would not be “aiding and abetting“…

UPDATE: The Twitter docs…

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If the answer to that question is “no”, then do scan-read that interesting New York Times story about bloggers and blogging.

Yes, that NYT story was written by… a blogger (who usually blogs at ValleyWag) —if you were wondering.

Yes, many blogs are “opinionated” —as you can see in the picture below.

The qualification that does not apply to me is in bold:

• intense
• passionate
• consumed with his subject
• opinionated
• sleep-deprived
• forward-thinking
• easy to irritate
• apt to air his grudges in public

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We’re talking Michael Arrington, of course.

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Signal Vs. Noise:

Web Conferences: Where’s the outrage?

Over the past 7 years I’ve probably been to almost every major web industry conference at least once. I can’t remember the last time I saw a good honest disagreeable debate on stage. There’s too much “yeah, totally” and “I definitely agree” and “Absolutely” going around.

Panels of friends

Part of why this happens is that the web design industry as a whole is pretty chummy when it gets together. That’s not a bad thing, but it amplifies the echo chamber. Another reason why this happens is that when people put panels together they usually put their friends on them. Friends can disagree, but it doesn’t happen in public very often. Finally, most of the panels I’ve seen aren’t assembled to present three different points of view — they are assembled to present the same point of view in three different ways.

Conferences are meek, Blogs are strong

There’s plenty of debates going on over the web. Take the recent Calcanis vs. Hansson round. And then the recent Norman vs. 37signals exchange. And then there are the savvy provocateurs such as Michael Arrington that suggested 37signals drove a company to the deadpool because we encourage people charge for their products. We didn’t respond on the web, but it would be fun in person. These back and forths are wonderful. They are passionate, interesting, and heated. People are forced to sharpen their position and everyone learns a thing or two. They expose important discussions and spawn new ones. They also generate a lot of traffic for those involved. So why does the web have all the good debates? Where are the web conferences pitting two opposing viewpoints on stage? Hearing two passionate points is a great way to reevaluate what you believe. Where’s the web conference called Web Fight Night? I see a big market opportunity. [...]

Conference speakers should be more bombastic.

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Michael Arrington refers to this blog post, which I have already linked to.

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I’m rather in the Mike Arrington camp, but I’m not necessarily proud of it. (Ducan Riley would tell me to “get fu****“. )

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I would be interested to have Adam Siegel or David Perry’s opinion on all that. Or Mat Fogarty… Or Emile Servan-Schreiber. Or John Delaney. Or else.

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Explainer: Michael Arrington is Ducan Riley’s boss —and Michael Arrington’s post (which prompted the 2 comments you see above) happened to contradict Ducan Riley’s previous take on the issue. (See Robert Scoble’s take, for more info on the general issue, if you need. More by the same Scobble. See also Fred Wilson. And Ducan Riley. Mark Cuban. Mike Arrington.)

Lloyd Grove: I ran into Nick Denton [the owner of Gawker Media, parent company of the Silicon Valley blog ValleyWag.com] last night. What do you think of him?

Michael Arrington: I think he’s a total dick.

Lloyd Grove: Would you care to elaborate?

Michael Arrington: I think he’s amoral. I don’t think he has any sense of right and wrong, and he’ll do anything he can to make money and have a successful blog. So I just don’t associate with him.

Lloyd Grove: I have to say, when he invited me to be his friend on Facebook, I had to think about it a long time. Because here in New York, when I had a gossip column at the New York Daily News, Gawker particularly attempted to make my life less pleasant than it ought to have been.

Michael Arrington: Yeah, I know what that’s all about. By the way, Valleywag competes with TechCrunch on some stories, and it doesn’t matter. If they get a tip or think something’s funny, they’ll write it about me. And it’s not just me, they do it to everyone. But I just try to ignore it.

Lloyd Grove: Uh huh. Tell me, obviously the big challenge for traditional print journalism organizations like the Washington Post or Time magazine or New York magazine, and even Condé Nast Portfolio, is to figure out how to monetize the internet and make their businesses viable on the internet. Do people in those businesses ever consult you since you seem to have a very successful journalistic operation?

Michael Arrington: Not so much. I mean, we’re able to monetize because we have a very high-end audience and it’s very niche and very specific. We’re lucky, but it’s not magic. If you can get an audience like ours, it’s pretty easy to generate revenue.

Lloyd Grove: How do you describe your audience to advertisers?

Michael Arrington: You know, they’re early adopters. They’re people that want to try new products. A significant portion of my audience, for instance, would’ve bought the Kindle when Amazon released it last year, immediately. And they’re a lot of entrepreneurs, so a lot of them need service providers, they need designers, they need accountants, and then they need to buy software. So Microsoft, Adobe, and others are always advertising on the site as well. So that’s it, and sometimes, you have other things as well, but it’s a high-end high-income sort of audience. We did a survey a while back, and the average was like $100,000 a year.

Lloyd Grove: You’re only two years old, right?

Michael Arrington: This is going to be our third year.

TechCrunch

CrunchNotes

More Info

Michael Arrington of TechCrunch took the pic.

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Here’s a Davos video taken with a mobile video phone:

I was a corporate lawyer and an entrepreneur, and I know about working all the time. But now, you’re always worried a big story is breaking in your e-mail, and if you wait an hour, you’ll miss it. Every morning when I wake up, the panic hits and I have to see my e-mail as soon as possible.

[...] The prediction markets, though, are probably the most accurate data when it comes to predicting the actual winner of each primary. Hillary Clinton shows a current 61.3% likelihood of winning, even though she is only polling at 43%. When it comes to predictions, I’ll be watching the people betting real money vs. poll results. [...]