MIT Center for Collective Intelligence – Play-money prediction exchange

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Yesterday, I blogged about the MIT CCI&#8217-s collective book project, &#8220-We Are Smarter Than Me&#8220-, which will be presented today at a live web cast (at lunch time, EST).

I completely overlooked that the MIT CCI is launching a play-money prediction exchange. The topics are CCI self-centric and thus totally uninteresting.

PREDICTION TOOL FAQs

What is a &#8220-Prediction Tool&#8221-?

The Prediction Tool on this site is based on the idea of prediction markets. &#8220-Prediction markets are speculative markets created for the purpose of making predictions. Assets are created whose final cash value is tied to a particular event or parameter (e.g., Will there be at least 10,000 registered community members by March 31, 2007?). The current market prices can then be interpreted as predictions of the probability of the event or the expected value of the parameter. Other names for prediction markets include information markets, decision markets, idea futures, and virtual markets.&#8221- (Source: Wikipedia)

OK I get it, sort of, but what does that mean?

We have made a set of predictions about the success of the &#8220-We&#8221- community. You get to buy and sell stock in these predictions based on how likely you think they are to come true. If the prediction turns out to be true, the stock will pay out $100 per share. If it turns out not to be true, the stock will pay out $0 per share.

The hope is that through trading stocks back and forth, the market value of the stocks will eventually closely match the probability of each event coming true.

My Question: Does anybody know which software/design the MIT CCI is using here?

The Answer (added October 25): Shared Insights runs the MIT CCI&#8217-s play-money prediction exchange with the software provided by Consensus Point.

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