Why InTrade CEO John Delaney, TradeSports acting CEO John Delaney, BetFair CEO David Yu, HubDub CEO Nigel Eccles and NewsFutures CEO Emile Servan-Schreiber should supplicate me to develop my prediction market journalism project

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200 web visitors (coming from Google) reached my John Edwards post, published yesterday afternoon (ET).

10% of them followed my links to the 2 HubDub prediction markets on John Edwards.

Remember that those web stats count only the web visitors, not the feed subscribers &#8212-who are more numerous, and whom I focus more on.

TAKEAWAY: A popular PMJ website, which would associate fresh news and betting recommendations, would send many people to the prediction markets.

The mainstream media and the classic bloggers will never deal with real-money prediction markets the way they should be dealt with &#8212-for multiple reasons (moral, ethical, legal, etc.). And for other reasons, they will never link to the play-money prediction markets.

Look Justin Wolfers at the Wall Street Journal: He is the most excited about prediction markets. Yet, he does not link to InTrade directly. He does not link to the InTrade real-money prediction markets. Hence, his blah blah blah does not translate into more revenues for InTrade.

What it takes is a brand-new media organization, entirely devoted to prediction markets, and run by die-hard prediction market people.

Please, guys, help me.

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

In the prediction market timeline, its 00:05 am. The most interesting developments of the field of prediction markets are yet to come. Join the Midas Oracle Project.

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by Bad Boy 69

Previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

  • Excellent article about enterprise prediction markets and Inkling Markets —with a good word for Robin Hanson, who invented MSR.
  • HubDub limitations
  • BetFair Developer Program use Joomla! as their blog software (and CMS).
  • Lawsuit aiming at compelling the office of the United States trade representative to produce a copy of its compensation settlement with the European Union over the United States’ withdrawal of gambling services from the General Agreement on Trade in Services.
  • Iraq War = “not necessary”, “a serious strategic blunder” — US News Media = “complicit enablers” in the manipulation of the public (“the propaganda campaign”) — George W. Bush turned away “from candor and honesty when those qualities were most needed.”
  • JASON RUSPINI’S CROCKERY: The Brain states forcefully that they are not “event futures”, but “binary options”. Still, as soon as he premieres prediction markets on tax rates at InTrade, he calls them “tax futures” —of course.
  • Tasmania’s Prime Minister who licenced BetFair Australia departs “abruptly”.

Prediction markets = the future of journalism -said, from day one, Emile Servan-Schreiber of NewsFutures. Emile, if you have balls, lets do it -all together.

My yesterday&#8217-s post about the Obama&#8211-Clinton prediction markets was the most popular Midas Oracle story of that Monday. Hummmm&#8230- No idea why&#8230- I was not helped by Google Search or by an external blogger. Sounds like our Midas Oracle web readers and feed subscribers liked it &#8230- for some reasons I have yet to discover fully.

Anyway.

  1. I&#8217-m minding a grand &#8220-Midas Oracle Project&#8220-, and you can join it.
  2. Emile believes that prediction markets represent &#8220-the future of journalism&#8220-. I am trying to mind, specifically, what form could take the &#8220-prediction market journalism&#8220-.
  3. The idea is this: We need to put the charts of prediction markets inside news stories, and those stories should incorporate the meaning of the probability fluctuations (a la Justin Wolfers).
  4. If we stay in our armchairs, nothing will happen, because most of the old-school journalists and bloggers don&#8217-t think much of the prediction markets. The prediction market infiltration in the Mediasphere and the Blogosphere is like a weak stream, right now. I don&#8217-t have the patience to wait until &#8220-2020&#8243-.
  5. I don&#8217-t think that much will come out of the prediction exchanges. The BetFair blog and the InTrade newsletter are 2 pieces of crap &#8212-they compete in content quality with the Mongolian edition of the News Of The World.
  6. If you look at the evolution of the media, you see that the old-school, dead-tree publications are slowly dying, and are replaced by professional blog networks &#8212-look especially in the IT industry, with TechCrunch, etc. What you have is writers who publish only for the Web, and who fill a vertical niche. (And, the Washington Post is now publishing content from&#8230- guess who.)
  7. Needless to say, prediction market journalism is costly. Now, go directly to point #8, because that&#8217-s where the beef is.
  8. Yes, I have &#8220-heard of Christmas&#8221- :-D , and I understand Robin Hanson&#8217-s reasoning. [*] That&#8217-s where my funding idea lays. The idea is to think hard about who &#8220-might actually be willing to pay&#8221-. I am thinking of a class or organizations that &#8220-might actually be willing to pay&#8221-, provided 2 things. Number one, that I operate a certain twist on my form of prediction market journalism. Number two, that this project becomes the project of many prediction market people, or, better, of the whole prediction market industry &#8212-not just Chris Masse&#8217-s one. Those 2 things are essential.
  9. So, Emile, wanna join the &#8220-Midas Oracle Project&#8220-?

[*] APPENDIX:

The &#8220-high IQ&#8221- Robin Hanson:

Chris, you’ve heard of Christmas I presume. Many people circulate lists of items they might like for Christmas. If you did, would you circulate a list of million franc/dollar gift ideas for people to give you? Would you consider that list more honest/logical than a list of gifts of roughly the price you think others might actually be willing to pay?

The managing editor of CNBC.com asks readers whether they should report what the (play-money and real-money) prediction markets say. He is not that hot on the idea -to say the least. Which is why we should develop a blog network on prediction markets -to get rid of the journalists filter and report

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But the &#8220-gambling&#8221- nature puts some journalists off.

Is it just providing information &#8230- or promoting betting action?

See, that&#8217-s exactly why I want to develop my &#8220-Midas Oracle Project&#8221-.

Classic journalists and classic bloggers will never treat prediction markets with the maximum sophistication they deserve.

Only brand-new blog networks that will specialize in prediction markets will do a good job.

I&#8217-ll provide more details soon.

I hope that some of you will join this project. It should be a collective endeavor.

E-mail me to join.

The Midas Oracle Project

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Einstein

  1. the richer and most technically sophisticated form of prediction market journalism
  2. a very popular form of prediction market journalism

Sounds like a too lofty dual goal- your feeling is right. My idea is to find an adequation between this (too) lofty dual goal and the class of organizations that could fund that. I have had a crazy idea, which I submitted to MG and some others, and it might not be that crazy after all. In the coming days, I&#8217-ll reach out to more Midas Oracle people.

Besides informing you of my intention, the purpose of this post is to create the &#8220-Midas Oracle Project&#8221- category and tag. Stay tuned&#8230-