Michael Weiss of Gawker is misinformed about the wisdom of crowds.

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His Jason Calacanis-inspired critique of The Wisdom Of Crowds is an abyssal nullity.

James Surowiecki is a great thinker, and the principles behind the wisdom of crowds are effective. (see point #3.)

Previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

  • If you want your affiliation with the “Prediction Markets” group to appear on your LinkedIn profile, then click on “Edit Public Profile Settings”, and check the “Groups” option.
  • If you want to connect with InTrade CEO John Delaney on LinkedIn…
  • Do join the “Prediction Markets” group at LinkedIn, if you have a strong interest in the prediction markets or if you work in the prediction market industry. It’s free, and that’s a way for the LinkedIn visitors browsing stuff about prediction markets to stumble upon your resume / profile.
  • You can now join the LinkedIn group on Prediction Markets.
  • Nigel Eccles says that HubDub generates “data on peoples’ reputations for accurately analyzing and forecasting future events”.
  • I did drop BetFair from the Midas Oracle coverage of the prediction markets. They should re-establish the direct links, from their 2 frontpages, to the prediction markets on politics, finance, and the other socially valuable issues.
  • I dropped BetFair from the Midas Oracle coverage of the prediction markets. They should re-establish the direct links, from their 2 frontpages, to the prediction markets on politics, finance, and the other socially valuable issues.

James Surowiecki, author of The Wisdom of Crowds, sums up his book.

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Video #1

Video #2

Previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

  • The FaceBook profiles of the 2 most important men of the field of prediction markets
  • THE HUMAN GADFLY WHOSE OBJECTIONS ROBIN HANSON IS DUCKING…???…
  • Google now considers Midas Oracle as a major blog.
  • Horizon 2015: A long-term strategic perspective for the real-money prediction markets
  • Join our group at LinkedIn to have your “Prediction Markets” badge on your profile. It’s ‘chic’. (“Groups” info should be set as “visible”, in your profile options.) We are 63 this early Saturday morning —keeps growing.
  • If you have been using PayPal to fund your InTrade, TradeSports or BetFair account, please, check that horror story.
  • 48 hours after the launch of the “Prediction Markets” group at LinkedIn, we have already 52 members —both prediction market luminaries and simple people (trading the event derivatives or collecting the market-generated probabilities).

James Surowiecki, author of The Wisdom of Crowds, talks to the Midas Oracle readers.

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James Surowiecki – Short video

Previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

  • The FaceBook profiles of the 2 most important men of the field of prediction markets
  • THE HUMAN GADFLY WHOSE OBJECTIONS ROBIN HANSON IS DUCKING…???…
  • Google now considers Midas Oracle as a major blog.
  • Horizon 2015: A long-term strategic perspective for the real-money prediction markets
  • Join our group at LinkedIn to have your “Prediction Markets” badge on your profile. It’s ‘chic’. (“Groups” info should be set as “visible”, in your profile options.) We are 63 this early Saturday morning —keeps growing.
  • If you have been using PayPal to fund your InTrade, TradeSports or BetFair account, please, check that horror story.
  • 48 hours after the launch of the “Prediction Markets” group at LinkedIn, we have already 52 members —both prediction market luminaries and simple people (trading the event derivatives or collecting the market-generated probabilities).

James Surowiecki was in Texas (Michael Gibersons new land), yesterday, spinning educators (interested in technology) about prediction markets and collective intelligence.

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National Educational Computing Conference (&#8221-the premier forum in which to learn, exchange, and survey the field of educational technology&#8220-)

Classic stuff about the wisdom of crowds, but people enjoyed it.

Previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

  • The FaceBook profiles of the 2 most important men of the field of prediction markets
  • THE HUMAN GADFLY WHOSE OBJECTIONS ROBIN HANSON IS DUCKING…???…
  • Google now considers Midas Oracle as a major blog.
  • Horizon 2015: A long-term strategic perspective for the real-money prediction markets
  • Join our group at LinkedIn to have your “Prediction Markets” badge on your profile. It’s ‘chic’. (“Groups” info should be set as “visible”, in your profile options.) We are 63 this early Saturday morning —keeps growing.
  • If you have been using PayPal to fund your InTrade, TradeSports or BetFair account, please, check that horror story.
  • 48 hours after the launch of the “Prediction Markets” group at LinkedIn, we have already 52 members —both prediction market luminaries and simple people (trading the event derivatives or collecting the market-generated probabilities).

New Hampshire fiasco blamed on lack of InTrade traders diversity

On A Limb

Mister Kirtland:

[&#8230-] I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that the traders on InTrade may not be the most diverse group of people we could assemble. I would bet, for example, that not many people from New Hampshire – who would have more direct knowledge of the situation “on the ground” – bet on InTrade. [&#8230-]

As I already wrote here, I don&#8217-t buy the argument, but let&#8217-s put that aside.

In public prediction exchanges, traders are self selected. Nothing can be done to change that. Am I correct?

Read the previous blog posts by Chris. F. Masse:

  • Davos – World Economic Forum
  • CME Group = Chicago Mercantile Exchange + Chicago Board Of Trade
  • Democratic and Republican caucuses in Nevada + Republican primary in South Carolina
  • The BetFair blog is not a serious publication.
  • MICHIGAN PRIMARY @ BETFAIR: Niall O’Connor asks the very pertinent question.
  • One thing John Delaney and his Irish employees at InTrade-TradeSports can learn from the BetFair-TradeFair folks at HammerSmith.
  • BetFair compound chart on the Michigan primary

Malcolm Gladwells Blink + James Surowieckis The Wisdom Of Crowds

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&#8212-

What Do We Mean When We Talk About Intuition? – by James Surowiecki

[…] This suggests that the real challenge is figuring out which problems can be solved by rapid cognition and which are better solved by a calculating, rational approach. […]

Challenging the Standard Model of Decision-Making – by Malcolm Gladwell

[…] The war game that I write about, which was the most expensive and most elaborate war game ever conducted in history ($500 million dollars!), was a preview of the Iraq War. One side played the United States. Van Riper, essentially, played Saddam Hussein. And van Riper won, hands down, sinking half the U.S. Navy on the second day of the war. How did that happen? Because at the moment he attacked the U.S. Forces, they were so caught up in their computers and charts and systems analysis and complex matrixes that they had lost the ability to engage in the flexible, free-wheeling, instinctive thinking that is essential in the midst of battle. […]

The Virtues of Group Decision-Making – by James Surowiecki

[…] To me, that&#8217-s one of the (and maybe the) great virtues of collective decision-making: It doesn&#8217-t matter when an individual makes a mistake. As long as the group is diverse and independent enough, the errors get corrected and you&#8217-re left with the knowledge. […]

The Biases and Delusions of Experts – by Malcolm Gladwell

[…] My survey of Fortune 500 CEOs, as you mentioned, revealed that, with very few exceptions, they are almost all tall. Are CEOs chosen whimsically? Not at all. Committees spend weeks and months in deliberation. But at the end of the day they still end up overwhelmingly picking tall men. Deliberation makes us more confident in our decision. But I&#8217-m not sure it makes the decision itself more accurate and free of bias. […]

Which Information Really Does Matter? – by James Surowiecki

[…] I&#8217-ve thought for a while now that one of the reasons why the collective decision-making mechanisms I write about in my book—like, for instance, betting markets—work well is that in part they aggregate intuitions and impressions that people can&#8217-t necessarily articulate, but that are nonetheless real and valuable. […]

How To Improve the Decision-Making Environment – by Malcolm Gladwell

[…] For instance, one of the really interesting facts about police work is that an officer behaves much better—makes better decisions, fires his gun less frequently, has fewer complaints filed against him—when he is by himself than when he is paired with a partner. Officers on their own are far more cautious. Without the emboldening presence of a companion, they take far fewer risks. They don&#8217-t pick fights, or put themselves into nearly as many ambiguous or dangerous situations, because they know they have no one looking out for them. […]

GOOGLERY: Bo Cowgills Boss misunderstands the Wisdom of Crowds.

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Google CEO Eric Schmidt:

[…] The book Wisdom of Crowds (by James Surowiecki) says that you have to have two things to make better decisions in groups. One is you need a deadline, which someone &#8212- at the end of the day is me or some external factor, and the second is that you need a dissident. There needs to be one person who will sit there in the room and say I disagree, and then the person next to him or her will say, &#8220-Well, yeah.&#8221- See, everyone waits for the first person to be the dissident, and then they pile on, and that&#8217-s how you have a healthy argument. […]

James Surowiecki:

Under what circumstances is the crowd smarter?

There are four key qualities that make a crowd smart. It needs to be diverse, so that people are bringing different pieces of information to the table. It needs to be decentralized, so that no one at the top is dictating the crowd&#8217-s answer. It needs a way of summarizing people&#8217-s opinions into one collective verdict. And the people in the crowd need to be independent, so that they pay attention mostly to their own information, and not worrying about what everyone around them thinks.

Question To Bo Cowgill: Would you mind releasing the transcript of your speech at Yahoo! confab?

UPDATE: He does not mind. :)

Previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

  • Become “friend” with me on Google E-Mail so as to share feed items with me within Google Reader.
  • Nigel Eccles’ flawed “vision” about HubDub shows that he hasn’t any.
  • How does InTrade deal with insider trading?
  • Modern Life
  • “The Beacon” is an excellent blog published by The Independent Institute.
  • The John Edwards Non-Affair… is making Memeorandum (twice), again.
  • Prediction Markets = marketplaces for information trading… and for separating the wheat from the chaff.