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.

Posted on October 27, 2008 by admin

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

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

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Previously: #1 – #2 – #3 – #4

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UPDATE: Traders talk on Twitter about HSX.

Thanks to the HubDub guy for the tip.

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InTrade DOT NET – www.intrade.net

Posted on August 28, 2008 by admin

This post is a very short review of their new website. I might publish a deeper review, later on.

The log line is that InTrade CEO John Delaney has ingested all the innovations that HubDub has brought to the prediction market scene since January 2007 (e.g., long and rich prediction market webpages that are indexed by the search engines, and use of social networking to boost trading) and has asked his technological team to clone those innovations for InTrade. This is great. I also appreciate that their charting system is satisfying. (The advanced charts seem to be of the right size, I have noticed. Neither too small, nor too big.)

On the negative side, the execution is not as good as it should be &#8212-and I&#8217-m polite. But to be fair with them, they say their website is still in &#8220-beta&#8221- &#8212-so let&#8217-s give them time to improve their work.

Overall, it&#8217-s a good move, and it shows, as I have said for months, that Nigel Eccles of HubDub is having a profound impact on the prediction market industry.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that InTrade.net presents probabilities expressed in percentage, not prices, which they also took from HubDub.

Predictify gets the X Groups concept right.

Posted on August 27, 2008 by admin

#1. X Groups

Predictify is unveiling a two-way interaction between their prediction platform and the blogs out there.

FROM THE BLOGS TO PREDICTIFY: Number one, there is now a customized prediction widget that bloggers can embed in their blog posts so that their readers can vote within each blog post &#8212-without leaving the blog.
FROM PREDICTIFY TO THE BLOGS: Number two, there is now a trackback widget that bloggers can embed in their blog posts so that the blog readers can click and be connected to relevant questions on Predictify, based on the content in that particular post. As soon as one of the blog readers clicks a highlighted question, that question will have (on the Predicitif webpage) a trackback to the blog post &#8212-theoretically pulling traffic from Predictify to that blog. The first problem with this second feature is that only the most popular trackback will be published on the particular Predictify webpage, as I understand it. I don&#8217-t see how bloggers could be interested if there is no guarantee that their trackback will actually appear. The second problem is that we don&#8217-t know whether Predictify abides by the &#8220-do follow&#8221- policy, which is a way for a website to injects Google PageRank juice to the website it links to. (The opposite policy is called &#8220-no follow&#8221-.) Only the &#8220-do follow&#8221- approach would get bloggers interested in that scheme. Predictify should clarify that.
UPDATE: All the trackbacks will appear. They will be sorted by popularity. And, yes, Predictify has a &#8220-do follow&#8221- policy.

#2: Social Networking

I&#8217-m told that Predictify will soon unveil a FaceBook application. We will see whether it&#8217-s Predictify working on FaceBook or Predictify woking with FaceBook. See the difference? (YooPick works on FaceBook, not with FaceBook.)

The FaceBook profiles of the 2 most important men of the field of prediction markets

Posted on August 2, 2008 by admin

– Robin Hanson

– Justin Wolfers

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More profiles

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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. Its free, and thats a way for the LinkedIn visitors browsing stuff about prediction markets to stumble upon your resume / profile.

Posted on July 30, 2008 by admin

Heres how to create a huge buzz in the Blogosphere about the prediction markets and multiply the web links pointing to the InTrade, TradeSports, BetFair, TradeFair, Betdaq, Iowa Electonic Markets, Hollywood Stock Exchange, NewsFutures, Reality Markets, YooPick or HubDub websites.

Posted on July 7, 2008 by admin

– Create a &#8220-friending&#8221- system, on the side of your prediction exchange, so that traders can share their readings, trades and tips with their web acquaintances and friends.

– Invite some big bloggers into the system. It is not necessary that those big bloggers use the service.

– Put the names of these bloggers as the by-default choice in the landing page of your &#8220-friending&#8221- system, so that each newbie is prompted to become a &#8220-friend&#8221- of those big bloggers.

– Of course, the number of &#8220-friends&#8221- of those big bloggers will grow dramatically by the minute. After a while, the numbers of &#8220-friends&#8221- of those big bloggers will become impressive.

– Then, what happens is that those big, infatuated bloggers will notice the big number of &#8220-friends&#8221- they got on that &#8220-friending&#8221- service (which they don&#8217-t use), and they are going to start bragging about that on their respective blog &#8212-linking to that &#8220-friending&#8221- website, and thus, sending more newbies to it, and injecting PageRank juice into it.

– The best scenario is one where that &#8220-friending&#8221- service is seen as prestigious, and there is a competition going on between the big bloggers about who is going to have the longest.

– Success guaranteed.

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If you wondered why the big bloggers in the field of information technology are all talking about FriendFeed, then watch that video.

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Previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

The John Edwards Non-Affair gives us an opportunity to look deep into the caldron of the wisdom of crowds.
We Plug This British Betting Blog On Midas Oracle Because We Like Its Name.
24 hours after the launch of the “Prediction Markets” group at LinkedIn, we have already 39 members —both prediction market luminaries and simple people (trading the event derivatives or collecting the market-generated probabilities).
That was ubber world star Barack Obama in Berlin, during his July 2008 speech at the Victory Column. Spot all the digital cameras pointing to the socialist Messiah. Snatching something to bring at home — “see, I was there”.
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.