Anyway.

1. I’m minding a grand “Midas Oracle Project“, and you can join it.
2. Emile believes that prediction markets represent “the future of journalism“. I am trying to mind, specifically, what form could take the “prediction market journalism“.
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’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’t have the patience to wait until “2020″.
5. I don’t think that much will come out of the prediction exchanges. The BetFair blog and the InTrade newsletter are 2 pieces of crap —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 —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… guess who.)
7. Needless to say, prediction market journalism is costly. Now, go directly to point #8, because that’s where the beef is.
8. Yes, I have “heard of Christmas” , and I understand Robin Hanson’s reasoning. [*] That’s where my funding idea lays. The idea is to think hard about who “might actually be willing to pay”. I am thinking of a class or organizations that “might actually be willing to pay”, 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 —not just Chris Masse’s one. Those 2 things are essential.
9. So, Emile, wanna join the “Midas Oracle Project“?

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[*] APPENDIX:

The “high IQ” 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?

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TAKEAWAY: The relationship between the prediction exchanges (betting exchanges) and the bloggers (as opposed to the online media, which rarely link to the outside) is probably the most complex and mysterious area in the field of prediction markets. You will note that the issue of marketing (and internet marketing in particular) is never addressed by the scholars or the commenters. It’s a study of great interest to me, and I am going to deepen it. (I’m not pretending any superior mastering here.)

[*] As opposed to feed readers, whose behavior is unknown to me.

[**] Despite some very good web stats for yesterday, overall. (Average: 2.61 P/V — Visits: 325 — Pageviews: 849 — Again, keep in mind that that’s only the web readers; the feed readers are not counted in. Add 200 people, probably, to the number of visits.)

Addendum: The State of the Web-based RSS Reader Market – Feedburner, Pheedo Release Stats

- Blog subscribers who read inside a feed reader don’t mind anymore about publication frequency. Their (PC-based or Web-based) feed reader (which is a piece of software that downloads the feeds) has freed them from checking many websites once a day (more or less). These blog subscribers are free to consult their feed items (e.g., the blog posts) whenever they like, since feed readers remember old items. It’s convenient to have all one’s readings automatically aggregated on one place (a feed reader).

- That said, as of today, alas, only a small percent of all Web readers turn themselves into subscribers. Thus the need for educating them —with all due respect. MicroSoft, with its Internet Explorer #7 (which has a built-in feed reader), will do just that.

I disagree with Tom Bell (sorry… Tom “W” Bell):

- The best Web-based feed reader is not BlogLines (anymore), but Google Reader. (Don’t take my word for it: the Life Hacker girl, pictured yesterday in the WSJ, said so.)

- Click here to subscribe to Midas Oracle via Google Reader.

Studies by Mr. Nielsen’s company, the Nielsen Norman Group, an Internet design firm in Fremont, Calif., show that only 50 percent of Web visitors scroll down the screen to see what lies below the visible part on their PC monitor. “Users spend 30 seconds reviewing a home page,” Mr. Nielsen said. “A business must encapsulate what they do in very few words.”

Web Usability Links:

- Jakob Nielsen: UseIt.com – AlertBox -

- David Pennock and Robin Hanson, the wannabe bloggers, would probably pass the following Jakob Nielsen test: Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes – by Jakob Nielsen – 2005-10-17

- Alex Kirtland – Blog: Usable Markets – E-mail interview with Alex Kirtland.