Tag Archives: blogging

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

I am much more aligned with InTrade than you are, Chris.

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No GravatarThat came from a margin trader [*] and prediction market blogger.

Well, if you practice (amateur or professional) journalism (which blogging is), then I don&#8217-t see how you can be interesting to your audience if you are &#8220-aligned&#8221- with one prediction exchange in particular &#8212-whether it&#8217-s InTrade-TradeSports or BetFair-TradeFair. Journalism should be independent. Caveat Bettor, who is a great amateur prediction market journalist, and who overall supports InTrade-TradeSports, is not &#8220-aligned&#8221- with them. He makes up his own mind, and would occasionally disapproves an InTrade or TradeSports policy he can&#8217-t stand. As a reader, I trust Cav. Mike Smithson is not &#8220-aligned&#8221- with BetFair. I trust Mike Smithson. In general, I trust any web editor and publisher who has an independent editorial line. (And if that blogger can foster diversity of opinion on his/her blog, that&#8217-s better.) &#8220-Aligned&#8221-??? A blogger should be out of line.

Bush Finger

[*] Margin traders and prediction market researchers are very much dependent from their prediction exchange, just like heroin addicts are from their dope dealer. They are at the mercy of the executive running the exchange. No trading data = no academic career in the field of prediction markets. Don&#8217-t expect the full truth from addicts. And when a scandal breaks out, those academics plunge under their bed. (Robin Hanson is one of the rare exceptions, because he does not specialize in meta analysis. He is more a new-institution designer, and thus less dependent from the InTrade trading data than the other researchers. That doesn&#8217-t make him a courageous white knight, though.)

Previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

  • Robin Hanson wants to rule the world —just as CEOs and heads of states do for a living.
  • Predictify got funded… Great for those who will be hired… But is it a good thing, overall?
  • Nassim Nicholas Taleb likens modern-day financial markets to medicine in the 1800s, when going to a hospital in London or Paris multiplied your risk of death by four times, he says. Similarly, quants increase risk by deploying flawed financial tools designed to reduce it, he argues.
  • TradeSports-InTrade — Check Deposits
  • BetFair Australia fought for free trade across Australian state boundaries… and won.

The answer to any anti-prediction market backlash is quality, impartial, exchange-independent, science-based, diligent, pro-PM blogging.

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No GravatarIs John Delaney the greatest psychic of all times (past, present, and future)?

Deep Throat is very impressed by how accurate the InTrade-TradeSports CEO&#8217-s 2005 prediction turned out to be. According to Deep Throat, the great Irish oracle &#8220-accurately predicted back in early 2005 in a PM conference in NY that someday the markets will make a horribly wrong prediction and that the [prediction market] industry will take a lot of s**t for it.&#8221-

Hummm&#8230-.

Deep Throat is easily impressed. What about the prediction below, then:

  • One of these days, a powerful hurricane will land in one of the southern states, and make billions of dollars in damage.

Vague and obvious predictions are of little help, here. An interesting thought to have, collectively, is how to prepare well in advance to counter such a backlash &#8212-as it is sure to happen again in the coming years. Due to the readers&#8217- new behavior (using the Web to get their info), the conversational aspect of the Web (comments, bloggers responding to their peers), and the velocity of the bloggers (tempests in tea cups spread over one or two days, and then the bloggers move on), the answer is quality, impartial, exchange-independent, science-based, diligent, pro-PM blogging.

You will note that InTrade-TradeSports, BetFair, NewsFutures, and the other PM firms, are completely absent from the dialogue between anti and pro PMs. The BetFair blog has not published anything about the New Hampshire fiasco, and the InTrade bulletin has only put in writing, on a post, the post-NH market-generated probabilities &#8212-without adding any bit of analysis. Totally pointless and useless corporate publications.

As for me, I have worked hard to put our group blog, Midas Oracle, on the blogging scene. I will further this endeavor and announce new initiatives in the future &#8212-if I am able to do so.

Previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

  • NUCLEAR SCANDAL: HubDub allow their traders to bet on celebrities’ death.
  • APRIL FOOL’S DAY: This year, again, CNET makes fun of the wisdom of crowds.
  • Play-money prediction exchange HubDub is a phenomenal success.
  • BetFair Australia’s spin doctor tells all about their payments to the horse race industry.
  • Meet Jeffrey Ma (at right on the photo), the ProTrade co-founder, and whose gambling life is the basis of the upcoming movie, 21.