Why Google don’t want to hire research scientist David Pennock

A recruiter who left Google last year says that the company [= Google] had maintained a “do not touch” list of companies including Genentech and Yahoo, whose employees were not to be wooed to the Internet search giant.

That revelation could be significant in light of this week’s disclosure that the U.S. Justice Department is investigating whether Google, Yahoo, Apple, Genentech and other tech companies conspired to keep others from stealing their top talent. […]

Amazing.

Do give the Nobel prize to Yahoo! research scientist David Pennock. – Santo Subito! [*]

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He and his co-authors were the first to publish about the fact that flu-related searches on the Web are precise predictors of the upcoming influenza outbreaks.

Congrats.

Best wishes for the rest of their scientific career.

[*] &#8220-Make him a Saint, now!&#8221-, in Italian. :-D

New Yahoo! News election dashboard

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Cross-posted on Oddhead Blog.

The Yahoo! News Political Dashboard has re-launched for the general election stretch run of the 2008 US Presidential election.

Yahoo! News political dashboard for the 2008 US general Presidential election

From the main map you can see the status of the election in every state according to either polls or Intrade prediction market odds. Hover your mouse over a state to see current numbers or click on a state to see historical trends. On the side, you can see search trends, blogs, news, and demographic breakdowns at national and state levels.

You can also &#8220-create your own scenario&#8221- by picking who will win in every state. You can save and share your prediction and compare against markets, polls, history, or celebrities. More on ycorpblog.

Readers will be happy to see more thorough and prominent integration of prediction market prices compared to the primary election dashboard. Is that good enough to quiet Chris&#8217-s whining?

In the PM view, states are colored either bright red or bright blue, regardless of how close the race is in that state. To see a visualization that blends colors to reflect the tightness of the race, see electoralmarkets.com.

Yahoo! News also offers a candidate badge that you can display on your blog declaring your choice. The badge features national-level polls, prediction markets, search buzz, and money raised.

The blue screen we all wish David Pennock will never see

Yahoo!


Author Profile&nbsp-Editor and Publisher of Midas Oracle .ORG .NET .COM &#8212- Chris Masse&#8217-s mugshot &#8212- Contact Chris Masse &#8212- Chris Masse&#8217-s LinkedIn profile &#8212- Chris Masse&#8217-s FaceBook profile &#8212- Chris Masse&#8217-s Google profile &#8212- Sophia-Antipolis, France, E.U. Read more from this author&#8230-


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

  • A case of advertisement mistaken for content
  • Michael Shermer’s The Mind of The Market
  • A prediction market panel… where only 2 out of 5 are truly prediction market experts. What a nuclear joke. This poor line-up is the reflection of the poor state of the prediction market industry in the US… and the inherent mediocrity of the conference business.
  • VentureBeat makes it like established veterans NewsFutures, Consensus Point and Inkling Markets are contemporary of just-out-of-the-egg Xpree.
  • 13 lines for Justin Wolfers, but only 2 lines and one word for Eric Zitzewitz — Mat Fogarty, what were you thinking of?
  • Ducted Wind Turbines (DFWT)
  • The Betting King — The ATP Tour was his NASDAQ.

The Borg-Yahoo merger wont work.

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It&#8217-s like taking the two guys who finished second and third in a 100-yard dash and tying their legs together and asking for a rematch, believing that now they&#8217-ll run faster.

Fake Steve Jobs

The cultures will never fit together. And the deal is too big. It&#8217-s not manageable. And it&#8217-s completely anathema to Microsoft. It&#8217-s totally out of character for them. It goes against everything the company has ever stood for.

&#8212-

Psstt&#8230- On a related note&#8230- If you haven&#8217-t seen yet the Fake Steve Jobs address at the Crunchies 2008, (an &#8220-acceptance speech&#8221- he gave coz Apple didn&#8217-t send any representative at the event), you should. Hilarious.

Previous blog posts by Chris F. Masse:

  • No Trades (other than at the start) —-> Not a reliable predictor, as of today
  • How you should read Midas Oracle
  • The best prediction exchanges
  • “There will be no media consumption left in ten years that is not delivered over an IP network. There will be no newspapers, no magazines that are delivered in paper form. Everything gets delivered in an electronic form.”
  • Hillary Clinton won’t be on the Democratic ticket. — It’s not going to happen. — N-E-V-E-R. — Not a chance. — Period.
  • Suggestion for WordPress — Subscribers’ Capabilities
  • This is why I said that those who believe that Hillary Clinton has a chance to be on the Democratic ticket are “clueless”.

Merger Markets on Microsoft-Yahoo

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HP began to explore prediction markets in 1996, but did not even consider applying them to the 2002 HP-Compaq merger. Similarly, Yahoo and Microsoft are two of the companies mentioned most often as being involved in prediction markets (along with their main competitor Google), but I&#8217-ll bet none are considering the by-far-most-valuable markets they could create, on their just-announced proposed merger.

Decision markets could say whether this merger is good for shareholders, by estimating the combined stock price given a merger, and given no merger. Similarly, decision markets could say whether this merger is good for these firms&#8217- customers, by estimating the price and/or quantity of web ads given a merger, and given no merger. This might help convince regulators to approve the merger.

My main doubt here is whether ad price and quantity are good enough measures of the merger&#8217-s social benefits – what other outcomes could such markets estimate, to speak more clearly? And this is a very clear demonstration that these companies are just not serious about finding the highest value applications of prediction markets.

Cross-posted from Overcoming Bias.