Enterprise Prediction Markets … Without Office Politics

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Google&#8217-s Bo Cowgill, as reported by IT Business:

[&#8230-] If you let people bet on things anonymously, they will tell you what they really believe because they have money at stake. This is a conversation that&#8217-s happening without politics. Nobody knows who each other is, and nobody has any incentive to kiss up. [&#8230-]

[In one example,] the market was predicting that [a project] was behind. A manager says what&#8217-s going on here, &#8230-starts investigating and finds some glitches. [&#8230-]

Read the previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

  • Ratted by his bank, sex-addict New York governor Eliot Spitzer (alias “Client 9”) resigns.
  • BBC’s coverage of politics is dull like taxes, death and German sausages.
  • Never talk when you can nod, and never nod when you can wink, and never write an e-mail because it’s death. You’re giving prosecutors all the evidence we need.
  • Is Justin Wolfers a libertarian? Probably not.
  • The information technology that caught Eliot Spitzer
  • Eric Zitzewitz’s 10 minutes of fame
  • Fun with conditional probabilities

How InTrade-TradeSports and BetFair-TradeFair should reach out

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Fred Wilson (a famous NY-based venture capitalist, a &#8220-VC&#8221-):

Really think about if you need that $15,000 a month PR firm. – There are some really good PR firms out there and if you can get one of them to work with your company, then it may be worth considering it. But a mediocre PR firm is not worth it for sure. I encourage our portfolio companies to hire a person inside the company to be an &#8220-evangelist&#8221-. That job includes blogging actively, reading and commenting and linking to other blogs, reaching out to the media and industry analysts and gurus, going to conferences and events, and generally getting the word out. That person can be young and not particularly expensive, certainly nowhere near $15,000 a month. And they have two things that a PR firm cannot offer. They work for you and they represent your company exclusively.

Exactly.

As of today, the BetFair blogging is appalling and works in reverse. The BetFair blog is a digital cockroach that repels the prediction market aficionados. Over the time, the BetFair blog will generate bad publicity for BetFair-TradeFair.

As for InTrade-TradeSports, their little &#8220-bulletin&#8221- is totally uninteresting. It&#8217-s not awful, but it&#8217-s not clever either. It&#8217-s money wasted.

Read the previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

  • Collective Prediction – Combining human and machine intelligence in prediction economies
  • BLEG: Maine data
  • Al Gore is off his rocket, going thru the roof.
  • Enterprise Prediction Markets … Without Office Politics
  • Meet bettor/trader Harry Findlay.
  • Uh oh.
  • 3 fundamental aspects that will determine the success of a company

FREE BO COWGILL. CALL IN JOHN RAMBO.

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Our testosteroned Grandizer [JOKE] is trapped in communist China:

Sadly, I&#8217-m not able to read the announcement on the Google Analytics blog thanks to the Great Firewall. I&#8217-m in Shanghai until the end of the month with Google.

Great Wall

Shangai

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Google Analytics blog post:

Benchmarking now available plus additional opt-in settings
Wednesday, March 05, 2008

We&#8217-re happy to announce the launch of two related new Google Analytics features: a beta version of industry benchmarking and a data-sharing settings page. Both are designed to give our customers more choice and better control over their data. We are also launching an integration with Audio Ads today, which we&#8217-ll discuss in more detail in tomorrow&#8217-s post. All of these features will begin appearing in customer accounts today, though benchmarking reports may take up to a couple weeks to show data.

Industry benchmarking is a commonly requested new service that enables customers to see how their site data compares to sites in any available industry vertical. We believe this data will provide actionable insights by providing context for users to understand how their site is doing. For example, if you have a travel website and you get a spike in traffic on Mondays, you may want to know whether other travel sites get that same spike on Mondays.

You can also compare your site against an industry vertical different than your own. For example, you might see that your industry&#8217-s traffic dips at certain times of the year while another industry&#8217-s traffic increases. Based on that information, you may wish to explore cross promotional opportunities to drive traffic back and forth.

[Link to their screen shot.]

For more information, take a look at the benchmarking FAQs in the Google Analytics help center.

Of course, benchmarking only works if people can opt to share their data into the system, so we&#8217-re also introducing a new data-sharing settings page. On this page, customers can choose whether to opt in or opt out of sharing their Analytics data. To be clear, we are not sharing individual data with competitors- we bucket data into industry verticals and then anonymize and aggregate the data. Once you opt in, it may take a couple weeks for the reports to populate.

You can also elect to share your data with other Google services. This setting will allow us to provide you with additional advanced new features. For example, many of you have asked us to integrate Conversion Optimizer (which is currently only available to AdWords Conversion Tracking users) into Google Analytics. By opting to share your data with Google, you&#8217-ll be able to take advantage of these related new features as they become available. For more information, take a look at the data-sharing options FAQs in the help center.

Look for tomorrow&#8217-s post on the Audio Ads integration.

Posted by Brett Crosby, Group Manager, Google Analytics

Read the previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

  • Is Justin Wolfers a libertarian? Probably not.
  • The information technology that caught Eliot Spitzer
  • Eric Zitzewitz’s 10 minutes of fame
  • Fun with conditional probabilities
  • Wrongly Crafted Headlines Of The Day
  • an American, petite, very pretty brunette, 5 feet 5 inches, and 105 pounds
  • Mississippi: Is it a primary or a caucus?

The Mathematics of Gambling

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Ed Thorp - one of the pioneers of scientific betting

Here’s an interesting book: The Mathematics of Gambling (free download), written by the legendary mathematician and hedge fund manager Ed Thorp. The book is about mathematical systems and optimal betting, and encompasses various games, such as blackjack, baccarat, roulette, the wheel of fortune, horse racing and backgammon.

[ cross-posted from Reasonable Deviations ]

The Sporting Exchange, owner of BetFair and TradeFair, is being considered for inclusion in the 2008 list of The Worlds Most Valuable Digital Startups.

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No GravatarSAI 25

Wow. :-D

[I left a comment, there. Oh, and I see that WeatherBill made the list, too. :-D ]

Read the previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

  • Is Justin Wolfers a libertarian? Probably not.
  • The information technology that caught Eliot Spitzer
  • Eric Zitzewitz’s 10 minutes of fame
  • Fun with conditional probabilities
  • Wrongly Crafted Headlines Of The Day
  • an American, petite, very pretty brunette, 5 feet 5 inches, and 105 pounds
  • Mississippi: Is it a primary or a caucus?

Chris Masse is a total and complete fake -thats what Niall OConnor seems to think.

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No GravatarNiall O’Connor

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Niall, my good Lord,

Firstly, thanks for your constant scrutiny of my web activities. I&#8217-m so honored &#8212-and you should be too, because I&#8217-m one of your feed subscribers.

As you point out, that post was not an instance of &#8220-prediction market journalism&#8221- &#8212-and was never branded as such. I have made a long-time policy on all the Midas Oracle blogs that their content is not about prediction markets only. That post was about US politics, and it consisted in a link to a story explaining why Oprah Winfrey is not able to help Barack Obama, because of demos and else. I thought my readers would like to read that story.

Niall, if you want an instance of &#8220-prediction market journalism&#8221- (not in its richest form, though, as we are just started experimenting and researching it), try that &#8212-and you&#8217-re welcome to criticize it and improve it on your own blog&#8230- if you can. (And if you want material for your next damning critique, try that.)

Your impulse to eviscerate the field of prediction markets (most of the times, with phony arguments, and at other times, with valid arguments) should be kept in check with both science and common sense &#8212-or you risk losing your credibility totally.

Best regards, my good Lord.

Chris Masse

Read the previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

  • Never talk when you can nod, and never nod when you can wink, and never write an e-mail because it’s death. You’re giving prosecutors all the evidence we need.
  • Is Justin Wolfers a libertarian? Probably not.
  • The information technology that caught Eliot Spitzer
  • Eric Zitzewitz’s 10 minutes of fame
  • Fun with conditional probabilities
  • Wrongly Crafted Headlines Of The Day
  • an American, petite, very pretty brunette, 5 feet 5 inches, and 105 pounds

2nd annual Tech Policy Summit

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No Gravatar2nd annual Tech Policy Summit – @ Hollywood, California, U.S.A. – 2008-03-26~28

Inkling Markets is a silver sponsor&#8230- if you can believe it.

Read the previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

  • Ratted by his bank, sex-addict New York governor Eliot Spitzer (alias “Client 9”) resigns.
  • BBC’s coverage of politics is dull like taxes, death and German sausages.
  • Never talk when you can nod, and never nod when you can wink, and never write an e-mail because it’s death. You’re giving prosecutors all the evidence we need.
  • Is Justin Wolfers a libertarian? Probably not.
  • The information technology that caught Eliot Spitzer
  • Eric Zitzewitz’s 10 minutes of fame
  • Fun with conditional probabilities

I can be bombastic sometimes, but I can also be polite and respectful at other times.

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Caveat Bettor,

In my post, I said that I &#8220-respect&#8221- him &#8220-as a Wall Street professional and as a libertarian blogger.&#8221-

How more &#8220-agreeable&#8221- should I have been???&#8230-

On top of that, his name is listed here.

As for responding to him, I will do once he links back to that piece of mine &#8212-and not to an empty Blogger page.

Joyce Berg, director of the Iowa Electronic Markets, talks about how business schools are using the tool for research and teaching.

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She says prediction markets are &#8220-substitute&#8221- for polls&#8230- or any forecasting tool.

Read the previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

  • Never talk when you can nod, and never nod when you can wink, and never write an e-mail because it’s death. You’re giving prosecutors all the evidence we need.
  • Is Justin Wolfers a libertarian? Probably not.
  • The information technology that caught Eliot Spitzer
  • Eric Zitzewitz’s 10 minutes of fame
  • Fun with conditional probabilities
  • Wrongly Crafted Headlines Of The Day
  • an American, petite, very pretty brunette, 5 feet 5 inches, and 105 pounds