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© NewsFutures
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© NewsFutures
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Will the marriage of President of France Nicolas Sarkozy to Carla Bruni survive for more than 2 years?
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When will Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni break up ?
The Wonderful Madame Carla Bruni
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Tag Archives: HubDub
Boom and Bust of Prediction Markets
The boom of public and private prediction markets started after the 2004 US elections. InTrade claimed to have nailed “-all 50 states”-. InTrade’-s performance in the 2008 US elections was less stellar, and in line with polls. Hence, the bust we are in.
If true, the good performance of HubDub in the Oscars 2009 forecasting race could lead to a small boom. We will see. We should first analyze the HubDub data. Nigel, care to share?
HubDub takes home the Gold at the Oscars.
Well the Oscars have come and gone and although most pundits are chattering about Slumdog’-s amazing 8 wins and Hugh Jackman’-s dulcet tones, I’-m more impressed by Hubdub’-s amazing success.
Out of the major races, we got EVERY SINGLE ONE RIGHT. We were also the only major prediction exchange to correctly predict the Best Actor race (Betfair, HSX, InTrade, Newsfutures and even Nate Silver all gave the gold to Mickey Rourke). Also, in five of the big 6 races, we showed higher confidence than InTrade predictors.
| Hubdub | InTrade | |
| Best Picture | 98% | 90% |
| Best Director | 76% | 90% |
| Best Actor | 63% | 33.5% (wrong) |
| Best Actress | 87% | 85% |
| Best Sup Actor | 100% | 95% |
| Best Sup Actress | 64% | 58.8% |
From the complete 24 award lineup, we nailed 19, generally by impressive condifence margins. Check out all of our settled markets here.
Not only have Hubdubbers had a successful night, each of my personal Oscar predictions were correct and I added another 40 thousand Hubbucks to my coffers. Award season is now finally behind us, but American Idol is just getting started!
Crossposted from Newspundits
The HHS-Sebelius prediction market might be (yet) another case-in-point for documenting velocity.
It is only today (February 19) that the New York Times emerges out of hibernation and headlines:
– Kansas Governor Seen as Top Choice in Health Post. —- Gov. Kathleen Sebelius is emerging as President Obama’s top choice for secretary of health and human services.
Now, look at the red line in the HubDub chart below: the prediction markets nailed her since the beginning of February 2009.
Of course, a scientific comparison would have scrutinized more closely than I did all the news articles from the New York Times (and from other mass media). That’-s what we are going to do with the “-Open Institute Of Prediction Markets“-. To this end, I will set up a portable and distributed “-Prediction Markets Consortium”- in the coming days. Then, I will try to anchor it in an institution of higher education, and, after that, I will try to gather support from think tanks and foundations. Not an easy task, but I know now that I can count on many prediction market people and companies. It should be an industry endeavor —-and it should deliver results, in the end (demonstrating the social utility of the prediction markets by documenting velocity, and, from there, following a logical thread which I will talk you about later on).
PS: About velocity…- Remember that we are about the prediction markets versus the mass media (The New York Times, The Times of London, NBC News, BBC News, etc.) —-as opposed to the vertical media (Politico.com, Nate Silver’-s blog, PoliticalBetting.com, etc.). The distinction is very important to keep in mind.
UPDATE: The only stuff I can find about Sebelius for HHS is that February 9 piece from the Associated Press (which didn’-t get a mass audience since it was not-republished in the New York Times or other mass media), saying that she was “-near the top”- for the job. Well, “-near the top”- is not like saying she was “-on top”-.
UPDATE #2: The Sebelius story is picking steam in the mass media. See Nate Silver’-s take.
ADDENDUM: Andrew Gelman tells me that he thinks that “-the Associated Press is a mass medium. It is a cooperative organized by a bunch of newspapers.”- I think that the AP news articles do indeed reach a big audience when they are re-published or cited in the mass media. But in the Sebelius case above, it was not the case.
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Previously: The truth about prediction markets
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Who will be the next nominee of the HHS, now that Daschle has withdrawn from consideration?
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No HHS contract on InTrade, BetFair or NewsFutures. 
Will FoxNews retract its story about $30M for the salt marsh harvest mouse?
Barney Kilgore and Nigel Eccles: Same vision, same combat
The general manager of ProPublica:
Today’s newspaper should be about tomorrow’s events, not yesterday’s. This was probably [Barney] Kilgore’s greatest insight, and it was one he first stated as a columnist in the Journal at the age of 23. Readers, Kilgore realized, turn to newspapers not because they are all fascinated by contemporary history, and want to puzzle out what another publisher later called journalism’s “first rough draft” of it. No, they want to know about what happened yesterday so that they can more intelligently cope with today, and tomorrow. More than 75 years after young Barney Kilgore set this rule out in his column, many publishers still haven’t fully absorbed it. Readers instinctively have. This has become even more important in a world where the Internet conveys new facts in real time, while the meaning of those facts often seems lost in a jumble of instant opinions.
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Nigel Eccles is the CEO of HubDub (”-Predict The News“-).
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HubDub CEO on Max Keisers The Oracle (BBC World News)
Cory Doctorow likes Max Keiser’-s TV show —- I do too.
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- Although I don’-t agree with them politically, Max Keiser is exceptionally charismatic and funny, and Stacy Herbert is very lively and competent.
- Max needs to invite a guest who is as lively and as literate in finance than he is. Otherwise, “-The Oracle”- will remain his show, as opposed to a good show.
- The TV format is a winner. Max is on a path to stardom.
- Nigel managed to plug his prediction exchange. Good.
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Handbags are down as one info-tech predictor defends his reputation against the one-year-later reality check done by HubDub.
HubDub has investigated and graded the 2008 predictions of some notorious pundits.
One of those pundits didn’-t take it graciously —-look down for the comments.
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Will the global economic recession kill the Web 2.0 (which includes HubDub)?
Jeremy Liew:
I predict that media buyers will focus on both a flight to quality and a flight to surety. This will benefit three types of startups: companies with large audiences, companies that sell direct-response advertising, and companies that offer valuable niche content.
In-House Vs. Outsourcing
BetFair Predicts is paying a social media consultant.
The Hollywood Stock Exchange / Cantor Exchange is paying a community service provider.
HubDub’-s community services are performed in house.
Should community building be a core constituent of a prediction exchange? I’-d say “-yes”-. It is not something to outsource.
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Previously: Cantor Exchange
Previously: Should the Hollywood Stock Exchange become a real-money betting exchange? – 2007-10-04
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