The InTrade traders are wondering what the future of InTrade is -now that TradeSports has bellied up in style.

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Here are the screen shots of their posts &#8212-before they get removed.

Previously: on TradeSports death – on InTrade&#8217-s viability

At inception, I created an Internet usability category, and, since, I have published many Jakob Nielsen stories. Many wondered why I would bother. Now, the Midas Oracle readers can understand why.

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These traders are talking down the newly redesigned Hollywood Stock Exchange website.

[They guy above has misspelled, two times. He meant: “unusable“.]

Previously: #1 – #2#3#4

UPDATE: Traders talk on Twitter about HSX.

Thanks to the HubDub guy for the tip.

How to break a successful prediction exchange in less than one week

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Whiskey Kilo (a Hollywood Stock Exchange trader):

Change is one thing, breaking the whole site and acting like its nothing happened is another. The whole concept of trading movie stocks, movie bonds and options have taken a backseat to making sure you can blog, add friends, and “Schmooze”.

The old portfolio page was color coded and extremely easy to understand, you instantly knew if you were making H$ or losing your shirt. Now the current portfolio page is a small box, one colour, light grey on a white backround and the type is half the size of the font here, also you can only see 12 stocks at any given moment. Whoever OK’d this part of the site has to have never traded any shares online before.

From what I can gather, there was a beta version of this 3rd generation of the game, but no one paid any attention to the any of the feedback, two days after this new rollout, HSX.com started calling this new version a beta game, and what HSX staff there is say that portfolios are now their priority. However the only things that really work right now are the blogs, which pay H$10,000 a posting, adding friends pays traders H$1000, Online Polls, and Schmoozing. which paid initially H$1000, but now pays H$100 per reply. The only reason I see for paying traders to blog is to bring more eyeballs to the garish 728?90 and 300?225 ads on each page to pump the number of advertising views on HSX. But if this is part of the grand scheme here, I can’t see Gold coin or Forex advertisers closing sales from a bunch of 13 years because all the veteran traders have left in disgust.

I welcome Jed [*] to read the HSX Support page: http://www.hsx.com/cms/forums/support and look around, I shudder to think this all is going to be a B-School case study on how to kill a successful site in under a week.

[*] Jed Christiansen, who put up a comment in defense of HSX (Jed systematically defends the people I slam on Midas Oracle) &#8212-and who has just begun an MBA education.

The BetFair crisis board meeting was a total invention of the Daily Mail, but the PR debacle is real.

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Mark Iverson&#8217-s take

Racing UK discussion on the BetFair Premium Charges

http://myfreefilehosting.com/f/65316b3dad_13.76MB

http://myfreefilehosting.com/f/e050785511_12.87MB

Go first to the 2 webpages above. Then, right-click the link, and download the files.

A list of the Betfair forum threads about the new premium charges.

A FaceBook group has been created to protest the new BetFair premium charges.

PREVIOUSLY: BetFair impose new &#8220-Premium Charges&#8221-&#8230- Do BetFair gag the critics, too?

AUDIO on the BetFair Premium Charges

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http://myfreefilehosting.com/f/65316b3dad_13.76MB

http://myfreefilehosting.com/f/e050785511_12.87MB

Go first to the 2 webpages above. Then, right-click the link, and download the files.

Racing UK discussion on the BetFair Premium Charges

PREVIOUSLY: BetFair impose new “Premium Charges”… Do BetFair gag the critics, too?

Questions to InTrade CEO John Delaney about InTrade .NET and InTrade .COM

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– InTrade .NET is a play-money prediction exchange while InTrade .COM is a real-money prediction exchange. Is there an automated market maker linking the InTrade .NET prices (or bids) with the InTrade .COM prices?

– Why is it that you ask the consumers of InTrade .NET to sign the terms of use of InTrade .COM, which mentions that: &#8220-2.2.4 You may lose money on Exchange trades.&#8221-? – [Thanks to Deep Throat for that remark.]

– InTrade .NET has a very good charting system. Will the same charting system be implemented at InTrade .COM whose charts are absolutely awful? (See this comparison between the InTrade .COM charts and the InTrade .COM v2 charts.) I insist to say that this should be a priority.

– Will InTrade .NET have chart widgets, just like InTrade .COM and InTrade .COM v2 both have?

– Will InTrade .NET have closed contracts (which are very useful in the accuracy discussions), just like InTrade .COM and InTrade .COM v2 both have?

– Finally, it is stated on the InTrade .COM frontpage (in a text promoting InTrade .NET) that:

When Intrade.net goes out of beta it will become the new default but the current version of Intrade.com will be retained indefinitely.

How should we understand that? Does this mean that you are going to merge your play-money and real-money prediction exchanges? (Might not be a bad idea provided that full information is given on each prediction market.)

UPDATE: Deep Throat tells me that their techies are testing their new user interface on InTrade .NET, which deals with with play money, and then if everything works out well, they may implement the same user interface on InTrade .COM, which deals with real money &#8212-while maintaining the legacy InTrade .COM on a dedicated server, for the nostalgic users.

Midas Oracle is the only publication that defends the event derivative traders (even when they are too sarcastic, boisterous, or annoying) -at the risk of infuriating the prediction market big brass.

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