ENTREPRENEURSHIP and MARKETING

No GravatarYou Tube streaming video (Feb. 2007): Larry Page speaks at the AAAS (The American Association for the Advancement of Science)

Larry Page - AAAS

by CNET

Larry Page&#8217-s main advice to the scientists in the room: take their scientific studies, market them better and make them readily accessible to the world.

– CNET: Google&#8217-s Page urges scientists to market themselves.

&#8220-Most of the works you guys have done are not represented in those searches. We have to unlock the wealth of scientific knowledge and get it to everyone. I don&#8217-t care what we do, but we need to do something,&#8221- he said. [&#8230-]

– Attila Chordash: Google’s Larry Page at the AAAS meeting: entrepreneurship and unlocking in science.

“Science has a really serious marketing problem and nobody pays attention to that since none of the marketers work for science. If all the growth in world is due to science and technology and no one pays attention to you, then you have a serious marketing problem.” [&#8230-]

&#8220-You need to have the right attitude about it, and you need to think that business and entrepreneurship are important parts of science.” [&#8230-]

– Richard Brandt: Larry Page at AAAS

Most importantly, he wants scientists to &#8220-try to change the world.&#8221- That means not just doing research in their labs, but taking control of and trying to commercialize their technologies. It worked for him. [&#8230-]

Google&#8217-s Larry Page&#8217-s set of advice given in a speech at &#8220-Triple A S&#8221- (AAAS) also applies to scholars and experts in the field of prediction markets.

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Chris Masse&#8217-s advice (if I may):

#1. Publish as HTML or XHTML files with informative titles and URLs (as opposed to the bad, non-usable PDF files).

#2. Participate in popular group blogs (as opposed to publishing on individual blogs read by nobody) and, from there, link to your other files.

#3. Publicize your site feed, so people can subscribe to it and automatically receive updates (via their feed reader).

#4. Create your internet network and, once a quarter, e-mail them your most important URL.

#5. Help popular bloggers unearthing good stories, in the long-term hope of getting linked to, as an appreciation for your little aiding and abetting.

#6. Monitor how the main search engines rank your postings with some webmaster tools, try hard to understand the damn whole mechanism, and take action to improve the search engine results on your name or works.

#7. If possible, always favor free, open-source software, like FireFox, Open Office, Word Press or Compozer / Nvu.

#8. Own your vanity domain name (e.g., robinhanson.com, as opposed to a sub-website owned by somebody else, like hanson.gmu.edu) and, from there, link to all the other webspots (e.g., Robin Hanson&#8217-s profile page at Midas Oracle) where you publish your ideas.

Previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

  • Is that HubDub’s Nigel Eccles on the bottom left of that UK WebMission pic?
  • Collective Error = Average Individual Error – Prediction Diversity
  • When gambling meets Wall Street — Proposal for a brand-new kind of finance-based lottery
  • The definitive proof that it’s presently impossible to practice prediction market journalism with BetFair.
  • The Absence of Teams In Production of Blog Journalism
  • Publish a comment on the BetFair forum, get arrested.
  • If I had to guess, I would say about 50 percent of the “name pros” you see on television on a regular basis have a negative net worth. Frightening, I know.

Since November 9, 2006, the Sim Exchange has attracted over 2,400 registered players.

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Brian Shiau, the founder of the Sim Exchange, has put out a Press release today.

The frontpage is clearer, now. (Brian, the grey and orange tabs are a bit less readable than the two others.) Great, they rank the top-500 traders. Great. (Take that, Inkling ABC7 Futures Markets!!)

Fantastic. I will register there, later on, but I will need to research about the video games &#8212-that&#8217-s not really my turf. I&#8217-m bullish on the Sim Exchange &#8212-it&#8217-s a winner. I wish that Brian Shiau will also rent the software on demand for corporate applications.

Previous: An invitation to join the simExchange beta

Technology Prizes & Prediction Markets

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ABC7 Futures Market: Will the $25 million dollar reward for developing something that will extract greenhouse gases be handed out in the next 5 years?

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Virgin Earth Challenge:

The Virgin Earth Challenge is a prize of $25m for whoever can demonstrate to the judges&#8217- satisfaction a commercially viable design which results in the removal of anthropogenic, atmospheric greenhouse gases so as to contribute materially to the stability of Earth’s climate. […]

The purpose of the Virgin Earth Challenge is to encourage the development of commercially viable new technology, processes and methods to remove anthropogenic greenhouse gases from the atmosphere to improve the stability of the Earth’s climate.

Entrants must submit a commercially viable design (the “Design”) to achieve the net removal of significant volumes of anthropogenic, atmospheric greenhouse gases each year for at least 10 years without countervailing harmful effects (the “Removal Target”). The removal achieved by the Design must have long term benefits (measured over say 1,000 years) and must contribute materially to the stability of the Earth’s climate.

The prize fund will be awarded to (or shared amongst) any entrants whose Design (in the opinion of the judges) achieves or appears capable of achieving the Removal Target and other criteria set out in paragraph 7 and which in the opinion of the judges makes an outstanding contribution by way of innovation in the fields of engineering or the other physical technologies or in the application of the physical sciences, which is or will be for the benefit of the Earth’s climate. […]

Richard Branson:

History has shown that Technology Prizes have been invaluable in encouraging technological advancements and innovation in many, many areas of science and industry. From the very first recorded prize offered by the British government in 1714, offering three financial incentives to the inventor who developed a device capable of measuring longitude within a given degree of accuracy. The Prize, which has been immortalised in the book Longitude, was won by John Harrison, a self-educated clock maker. Harrison was awarded ?20,000 in 1773 for devising an accurate and durable chronometer.

But prizes were not just the domain of the British- in the 18th Century the French also used Prizes as an incentive to fuel innovation. In 1775 a 100,000 franc prize was offered to the individual who could produce an artificial form of alkali – the wining of this prize was to form the basis of the French chemical industry. Today, vacuum packed food in our fridges and cupboards is nothing remarkable, but it may surprise some to know that it was actually a Prize offered by Napoleon in 1810 which led to Nicolas Appert coming up with a method of vacuum packing cooked food in glass bottles – it took him 15 years of experiments but in the end won him 12,000 francs!

It wasn’t long before newspapers and private sector companies became involved in setting up Prizes to encourage development in many areas. The American automobile industry was encouraged to grow through inducements to win prizes by competing in races set up by newspapers such as the Chicago Tribune in the late 19 th Century. Aviation and the development of long distance flying were greatly encouraged by similar prizes to those offered in America for the fledgling automobile industry. The Daily Mail prize for example, for the first flight across the Channel, was won by Louis Bleriot in 1909- and ten years later, Alcock and Brown won the Mail prize for crossing the Atlantic. Lindebergh was competing for a prize when he flew in the Spirit of St Louis, non-stop from New York to Paris in 1927. The Spitfire was the result of the Schneider trophy, which was a series of prizes for technological development.

The most recent technological Prize was awarded in the area of space travel, and is one that I have come to know very well – the Ansari X Prize – a $10 million dollar Prize set up by Peter Diamandis and funded by the Ansari family. The Ansari X Prize was won in 2004 by Paul Allen, Burt Rutan and Scaled Composites when they successfully flew SpaceShipOne to space and back twice within two weeks. The technological feat of SpaceShipOne resulted in the Virgin Group licensing that technology to build five space ships and two White Knight carrier crafts and has given birth to a commercially viable space tourism industry for the future. Using the latest technology in hybrid rocket motors and next generation turbo fan engines SS2 and WK2 will be environmentally benign.

Previous: You Want Innovation? Offer a Prize –not a Grant. + Stiglitz on using Prizes to Stimulate Innovation

FINALLY, THE HOLLYWOOD STOCK EXCHANGE ACKNOWLEDGES ITS TWO FOUNDERS, MAX KEISER AND MICHAEL BURNS.

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In my previous story, I regretted that the names of the two HSX founders (Max Keiser and Michael Burns) were not clearly spelled out on the HSX website. Well, here&#8217-s from HSX&#8217-s Alex Costakis:

I just saw your post about HSX nomination forecast accuracy. Chris, good one. But first I think the congratulations really should be directed to our traders. It&#8217-s their collective wisdom that generates our predictions. HSX is the facilitator, they are the brain power. And, beyond that, your point is well taken. The visionary founders of this innovative website should be listed. We will correct that. Happy Oscar Night.

FANTASTIC. We should reward entrepreneurs for wealth and job creation.

Previous: HSX – Oscars Nominations Prediction Markets – Accuracy + Hollywood Stock Exchange’s Alex Costakis makes historical mistake, TOO.