confab.yahoo is Yahoo! TechDev's new open microconference series. Join academic and industry experts from across the valley and the country as we discuss the latest technologies and their applications and see for yourself what's next on the web. Attendance is free and open to the public. Food and drinks provided. We'll also have a limited number of free copies of "The Wisdom of Crowds."
Join us for a public “how to” session on prediction markets** moderated by James Surowiecki, New Yorker columnist and best-selling author of The Wisdom of Crowds. Speakers from Google, HP, Microsoft, and Yahoo! will describe how they are using prediction markets to aid corporate forecasting and decision making. Other speakers include the developer of Zocalo, an open source prediction market platform; the co-founder of InklingMarkets.com, a Paul GrahamyCombinator startup, Eric Zitzewitz, professor of economics at Stanford Business School, and Robin Hanson, the visionary economist and inventor whose pioneering work paved the way. The event is open to the public and will emphasize practical lessons and hands-on advice. After brief presentations from each speaker, Surowiecki will open up the session for discussion with the audience.
** A prediction market is like a stock market for ideas or information. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prediction_market
The market rewards good information whether it comes from elites or the masses. Prediction markets have built a track record of besting pundits and pollsters when it comes to predicting everything from political elections to quarterly sales figures.
Unfortunately I can't be there myself but we're sending emissaries - I blogged one of the PM events in Chicago last June that featured a few of the speakers:
A room called "Classroom 5" doesn't sound big enough if word gets around about this meeting. Does my having signed up here mean that I will definitely get in?
Right, so my computer is eccentric. For anyone experiencing the same problem, I opened one of the webcast URLs with Windows Media Player, and that worked.
Great event! See you all there. Note there is an open, non-commercial prediction markets consortium and google discussion group. See:
http://www.pmcluster.com/
and
http://groups.google.com/group/Prediction-Markets
Cheers,
-jheuristic a.k.a.Il Pagliaccio da SF