LinkedIn group for Economists, Econometricians and Statisticians
For those who have something in common with economist Mike Giberson…- who blogs at Knowledge Problem about energy economics —-and has never used prediction markets for that goal (FAIL 
).
The Inkling Markets website is not on the first page for the “-prediction markets”- query at Google Search.
It appears on the 3rd page —-where nobody will find them.
By the way, the NewsFutures website has re-made it to the 1st page.
If you have an interest in Internet marketing, I highly recommend that you watch the 4 videos made at Revenue BootCamp 2009. They are awesome.
Ben Shannon on his “-SELL”- market call
Previously: Wiser Than The Stock Market —- NOT
UPDATE: Andrew Page + Henry Blodget
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In its ten tracks Singularity University (SU) tries to cover as much as possible of a vast amount of material. The specifics are steered by the track chairs, with a lot of input from both the students, the teaching fellows, and also sometimes from the outside. The Futures Studies &- Forecasting track does indeed cover prediction markets, and yes, if not a proper market, tasks, ideas, and group activities are often evaluated using group raking tools within SU.
David
David Orban
Advisor &- European Lead, Singularity University
NASA Ames, Bldg 17 Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA
http://www.singularityu.org/david
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Spot the 3 men on the right-side of the photo:
– In blue, our good friend Mike Linksvayer of Creative Commons–
– In red, the Google guy in charge of open-source software-
– In grey, Matt Mullenweg of WordPress.
So, my question to Mike:
– Do you sense that prediction markets could be a topic at the Singularity University, or do you think that they couldn’-t care less?
UPDATE: See the comments by Mike and a guy at that University…-
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Ben Shannon (alias “-Jesse Livermore”-, who blogs at “-Wiser Than The Crowd”-) claims on his blog to have an uncanny ability at forecasting the future and profiting from it, whether it is speculating on InTrade’-s prediction markets or on the US stock market. Here is his stock market call from July 10, 2009:
SELL SELL SELL
REALITY CHECK:
The stock market is up about 12% since Ben Shannon’-s “-sell sell sell”- call on July 10th.
Spot the 10th on the chart…- Ben Shannon sold the exact bottom immediately before the rally.
Thanks to Deep Throat for the tip.
UPDATE: Ben Shannon on his “-SELL”- market call
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Chris Hibbert (of Zocalo):
I disagree, Chris. Much experience on FX has shown that interesting questions (those that aren’t routine repetitions of previous questions) often result in realities that diverge from the obvious expectations of nearly everyone involved in describing the possibilities. In those situations, we’ve found that trying to interpret intent leads to more confusion than sticking to the letter of the question as asked.
If a [prediction market] sticks to its written description of what the claims mean, then careful readers are rewarded, and they learn that they have a good chance to predict how the judge will interpret the question and events in the world. If questions are determined based on “intent”, then everyone has to spend time deciding which aspect of the question the judge will decide was more important, when reality decides not to conform to the question’s expectations.
Sometimes (as you argue was the case with the North Korea question) the result is surprising and disappointing, but choosing the other approach leads to much less participation as people who see that something surprising is preparing to happen or has happened back out of their bets rather than waiting to find out what the judge decides is important. I’m much happier when the participants spend their time figuring out what will happen in the world, rather than when they have to spend their time predicting how the judge will react. Strict construction gives us a predictable world.
See also Jason Ruspini’-s comment on the same topic…-
HubDub is a huge success in term of Internet popularity (pageviews, time spent on the site, etc.). However, HubDub has no business model, other than trying to get bought up by some bigger fish. Which is why Nigel Eccles and his smart team have devised a social fantasy sport game, FanDuel. Its business model (allowed under the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006) is simple: you pay to play. –->- $$$
The problem with FanDuel‘-s simple business model (selling social gaming services over the Internet) is that, unlike HubDub (which is free to play), there won’-t be free publicity generated on the Web —-other than the TechCrunch UK post. Just because you have a business model does not mean that you have a marketing strategy.
The best marketing strategy you can have on the Internet is a dual one:
Since FanDuel won’-t be free, it won’-t generate any buzz on the Web. [UPDATE: See Nigel Eccles’s comment, just below.]
Nigel Eccles is proud of the fact that his team crafted FanDuel in a matter of weeks. But have they thought long enough about marketing strategy?
–
Addendum:
The FanDuel press release:
SHAKING UP THE FANTASY SPORTS INDUSTRY
New Fantasy Sports Game Lets You Play Today, Win Today
There are at least 20 million of us playing fantasy sports every year and yet in recent years it has seen very little innovation. For many, one of the major problems with fantasy sports is the huge time-commitment involved –- when you play fantasy, you have to play for the whole season – no breaks, no holidays, no excuses. However, in this era of Facebook and Twitter, people want instant gratification.
This issue is tackled head on by FanDuel.com, a new fantasy sports game which launches today. FanDuel.com lets us play and win in a day instead of waiting the whole season. Players can draft a new team at any time, and pitch it head-to-head against an opponent – a friend, or another FanDuel player – for real money. The player whose team has the most fantasy points at the end of the day’s games wins the cash prize. It’s purely fantasy baseball right now, but the fantasy football game will launch with the start of the football season.
Clever integration with sites like Facebook means that picking opponents is slick, as is bragging about your wins. This is a first for the fantasy sports industry which has been dominated by the big players such as Yahoo, CBS and ESPN for too long.
The game is a competitive draft rather than salary cap – making it much more challenging. However unlike traditional competitive draft both players don’t have to draft at the same time. The way it works is one player drafts their first pick and a back-up for each position. They then order their draft and submit their roster. When they are matched with another user (a friend or another FanDuel user) the system works through each player’s draft in priority order. You get an email telling you and your opponent’s final roster and then you can watch the live stats on both fantasy teams update in real-time as the games progress.
Online social gaming is already well developed but the daily fantasy sports market is quite new. Nigel Eccles, CEO of the company behind FanDuel, admits, “After playing Mafia Wars and other social games on Facebook, going back to playing traditional fantasy sports on CBS felt like going back in time. We felt we could build something faster, more social and exciting.”
Thanks to the fantasy sports carve out of the 2006 Unlawful Internet Gaming Act [Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006], FanDuel.com is perfectly legal to play in the US – something that the team behind FanDuel have been very careful to adhere to. FanDuel offers free and paid entry games with users able to enter $5, $10 and $25 competitions.