hi all,
First of all, I’-m delighted to join this site – now as a blogger, and not just as a reader.
You’-ll have to forgive me, but my first blog will go to “-self promotion”- of my new site – www.qmarkets.net.
Qmarkets allows anyone to create their own prediction markets (we simply refer to them as “-Questions”-), and invite people to trade (we call it simply “-Answering”-…-). Our target audience is anyone – from corporate, bloggers, site owners etc.
You can either add your questions in our public marketplace, or you can create your own Qmarkets group (where you can limit it to your company employees, or make it a public group).
So – I’-d be happy to hear your feedback on our new site, which was just launched 2 weeks ago (after a short Beta period). We have many new features waiting in our to-do list, so we’-ll keep updaing our site in upcoming months.
I promise – starting on my next post, no more “-Qmarkets promotion”-…-
Noam Danon,
Qmarkets CEO
we simply refer to them as “Questions”
Yes, I have remarked that you make an effort to introduce people to your product with a simpler vocabulary than what the other exchanges/vendors use. It might be a good idea.
I find it difficlt to see what your unique selling point is? What factors differentiate this site from those of your competitors?
Is is not the case that, like so many, you are merely jumping on the prediction market bandwagon, without any real knowledge of how you are going to drive traffic/liquidity to your website?
Is this site not just another example of the muddle that currently exists between betting markets and prediction markets?
Niall –
I understand your concern, but I disagree.
At least give me a chance, and maybe get to know me – before you “burry” me…
Qmarkets will not only focus on the “free” web 2.0 part of it, where I agree it will be hard to drive traffic to the site. However, even in that area, I have lots of ideas which I think are rather unique, in how to get people into the site. That’s part of the reasons we went to great lengths to simplify the UI – to make it available for anyone.
Hope I can show you results in a few months, as I do not intend to shout out loud my marketting strategies…
In addition, site will offer subscription based services (monthly subscription) to companies & sites that would like something a bit better – and private.
And last – I had to launch somewhere – and this is the beginning point.
New features to come soon will show more unique selling point, mainly in the market research area.
I am with Noam Danon. I think Noam is smart, and I want to see how he conducts his business in the coming months.
Noam, Niall is always a bit too much skeptical. Look here his hatchet job against Betfair:
http://www.midasoracle.org/200…..vider-too/
It is not that I am a sceptic, but merely that I see the same marketing and economic issues arising for these fledgling prediction exchanges, as impacted on the betting exchange sector.
Casualties in the betting exchange sector to date have included; Betx, matchedbets; iwageru; ggbet exchange; bluevex; ubetanything; spomaxx; swapbets; Betbutler; Betxc; Fairoptions; Levelbet; Playp2p; mybetyourbet; bet-ex; bettingsociety, SportingOptions, Betmart, and Crossbet.
It is important that one does not get caught up in the hype and ask the questions that matter. Prediction markets are trendy, but they remain vaguely defined……………..
Inkling Markets and Qmarkets have a special business model, unlike the public betting exchanges you cite. They don’t aim at competing with Betfair. They aim at creating software for internal prediction markets. Once they have 3 or 4 big clients, they are profitable.
The development of their public betting exchange is important to test their software, but it’s not where they are going to earn their money.
Chris is exactly right – the public part serves many purposes for Qmarkets, but can not stand on its own. Other uses for the public section could be: gaining awareness and building the Qmarkets brand, a place where people can try it out – before they use it for internal markets, etc.
Just to add 1 more point –
I know some of the sites you mentioned, but I am not sure all of them did all the right things to make it work. For instance, I think the perfect audience for creating markets is people that already have a popular content site or blog, with frequent readers. And the prediction markets site should provide these bloggers with all the right tools to make this work…
Noam, you’re a smart man. Listen, I’d advise you to install WordPress to run your blog. I don’t like your blog right now.
http://www.qmarkets.net/#qblog
http://wordpress.org/
CORRECTION: I’m just realizing you’re using Drupal, which is a good CMS. But your blog does not look like a blog. For instance, I need to see a RSS feed to subscribe to it.