The power of prediction markets
nature.com
The power of prediction markets
1–10 of 39 posts
Re: The power of prediction markets
#2One place I'd love to try prediction markets is with product changes undergoing A/B tests. A product manager could submit an experiment and people at the company could bet on what the product change will do to engagement/revenue/growth metrics. This framework could eventually be used to weed out product changes before they are built. It would be particularly useful when the product change is driven by the leadership and most of the rank and file think the direction is wrong.
Re: The power of prediction markets
#3Here is a US election prediction market: http://tippie.biz.uiowa.edu/iem/
The "Winner Takes All" market predicts Trump vs Clinton presidency: https://iemweb.biz.uiowa.edu/graphs/graph_Pres16_WTA.cfm
According to this, after last night's performance, Trump has an 8% probability of becoming the 45th President of the United States of America, while Clinton has a 92% probability.
Re: The power of prediction markets
#4One place I'd love to try prediction markets is with product changes undergoing A/B tests. A product manager could submit an experiment and people at the company could bet on what the product change will do to engagement/revenue/growth metrics. This framework could eventually be used to weed out product changes before they are built. It would be particularly useful when the product change is driven by the leadership…
Enterprise Prediction Markets have been a thing for a long time. There are existing enterprise software vendors [1], it is known that Google has an internal prediction market [2], and there is a wealth of academic literature on corporate prediction markets [3]
[1] https://www.crowdworx.com/prediction-market-software-consult...
[2] https://www.quora.com/What-does-Google-use-prediction-market...
[3] http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/10/cor...
Re: The power of prediction markets
#5The "guess the number of jelly beans in a jar" game gave its name to one of the startups whose failure disappointed me the most, Beansight. In 2010, it was asking people their opinion on various topics, attributing them experience points when they guessed right, and using this information about the expertise of its users to improve its predictions.
Re: The power of prediction markets
#6The "guess the number of jelly beans in a jar" game gave its name to one of the startups whose failure disappointed me the most, Beansight. In 2010, it was asking people their opinion on various topics, attributing them experience points when they guessed right, and using this information about the expertise of its users to improve its predictions.
Sounds similar to http://www.almanis.com
Re: The power of prediction markets
#7The "guess the number of jelly beans in a jar" game gave its name to one of the startups whose failure disappointed me the most, Beansight. In 2010, it was asking people their opinion on various topics, attributing them experience points when they guessed right, and using this information about the expertise of its users to improve its predictions.
Sounds similar to http://www.almanis.com
Pretty similar yes. I didn't know that one, thank you.
Re: The power of prediction markets
#8The "guess the number of jelly beans in a jar" game gave its name to one of the startups whose failure disappointed me the most, Beansight. In 2010, it was asking people their opinion on various topics, attributing them experience points when they guessed right, and using this information about the expertise of its users to improve its predictions.
how'd they fail?
Re: The power of prediction markets
#9One place I'd love to try prediction markets is with product changes undergoing A/B tests. A product manager could submit an experiment and people at the company could bet on what the product change will do to engagement/revenue/growth metrics. This framework could eventually be used to weed out product changes before they are built. It would be particularly useful when the product change is driven by the leadership…
This doesn't seem useful. Innovation has an always unpredictable character, in the sense that it might occur in unlikely places. Unforeseen consequences might make workers no better than chance in predicting the outcome of the majority of product changes.
On the other hand, if something which is obviously wrong is being pushed by management despite all evidence and opposition, in all likelihood, that's because neither one has any bearing on the it's advocates ability to push it nor it's willingness to push it. It might be less an issue of right or wrong, and more one of shameless corporate politics.
I'll look a Taleb reference for the innovation bit.
Re: The power of prediction markets
#10I think I heard Nick Bostrom mention the idea of using prediction markets in the legislature, and it sounded like a good idea.