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Google Putting Crowd Wisdom to Work

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the just-don't-start-a-stampede dept.

daveperry writes "The Google Blog has a post about their use of prediction markets to forecast certain events that are relevant to their business. From the article: "Our search engine works well because it aggregates information dispersed across the web, and our internal predictive markets are based on the same principle: Googlers from across the company contribute knowledge and opinions which are aggregated into a forecast by the market. Sometimes, just feeling lucky isn't enough, and these tools can help." In related news, some software was recently open sourced that enables people to set up their own prediction markets."

11 of 190 comments (clear)

  1. See Here by XFilesFMDS1013 · · Score: 3, Funny

    use of prediction markets to forecast certain events that are relevant to their business.

    Nothing to see here....hmmmm...bet they didn't see that one coming.

  2. Awesome Mindpower! by mfh · · Score: 3, Funny

    We also found that the market prices gave decisive, informative predictions in the sense that their predictive power increased as time passed and uncertainty was resolved.

    This is why I like Google. The use of intelligence to develop accurate results in a predicative system, and keep it all flowing -- it shows not only wisdom -- it shows an early level of omnipotence, which has to be the key ingredient to success today! If God is supposed to be omnipotent, why not try it? (haha I'm not a religious nut, FYI... just like to use the data available)

    Consider the alternative solution to success and you really must put your investment dollars where you have the most faith. Google stock can only go up, thus breaking the law of Gravity. Only a supra-genius (Wyle E. Coyote) knows how to bend the laws that govern market economy to their favour. Are you really going to bet against that kind of mindpower?

    Being geeks, we naturally used information theory to measure the entropy of our probability distributions:

    This is a demonstration of wisdom. Knowing the rate of market decay is a HUGE BENEFIT for all Google stockholders. Google keeps proving that time and time again: being a geek puts you in the best position for the continuation of the species, even if you're not getting laid *today*, you will get laid PLENTY when you get lots of money, and therefore sire many children and overwhelm the market with clones of yourself. Then improve the genome of your clones in modular functionality, so that parts become interchangeable. You can now patent genes, so you don't have to patent actual clones to profit.

    Seriously, at this rate, I see this coming as the next logical step for Google. Bioharvesting of nerds for fun and profit. Especially nerdy gamer chix!

    --
    The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
    1. Re:Awesome Mindpower! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      except I've seen many a genious father create very very stupid children.

    2. Re:Awesome Mindpower! by ArsonSmith · · Score: 2, Funny

      Google decided to pose the question to it's search engine. "Is there a GOD". After feeding in all internet information available they typed it in and waited. After a lot of hard disk searching and the checking of all drives the computer went into an eerie silence for a few hours and then started typing.

              "Not enough resources to compute answer."

      This time they were going to get an answer to an age old problem and nothing would stop them. After months of negotiations with governments around the world they were able to link 12,000 linux computer all over the world together to produce the ultimate computer search lcuster. Nothing would stop them now. Just to make sure they re-crawled the web to to find all information even remotely connected to God.

              It's answer was "Insufficient data."

      Not to be outdone the scientists in their infinite wisdom started gathering books on everything from the Worlds libraries, archives, and archaelogy institutions. So much information was assembled that copywrite holders sued. Book publishers complained. Not detured by the lawsuits, again the question was ready to be posed.

      The information entered and all computers linked a scientist typed in the question "Is there a God?". The computer cluster whirred into action checking all it's RAM and then linking with all the other computers. After .0012 seconds of activity going from one computer to another the computer started typing the answer and everybody waited eagerly as it typed to the screen.

              "There is now."

      --
      Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
  3. Soon available in Beta by WormholeFiend · · Score: 3, Funny

    GoogleAstrology

  4. Re:Result of this by bezgin · · Score: 2, Funny

    1. Predict Market
    2. Act on Prediction
    3. Cause Market Impact
    4. Need New Prediction!
    5. ????
    6. Profit

    --
    exit();
  5. I predict... by Jumbo+Jimbo · · Score: 1, Funny

    that this story will be duped by the end of the week

  6. Re:Fiction becoming reality by R.D.Olivaw · · Score: 3, Funny
    The science of psychohistory is advanced once more.

    I'm doing my best to ensure it does.

  7. I'll buy it if... by AnonymousYellowBelly · · Score: 3, Funny

    ... they do correctly predict:
    - launch date of MS Vista;
    - launch date of Ballmer's furniture;
    - which 'feature/bug' will be dropped from the Vista release.

    --
    Disclosure: I'm stupid
  8. Google! by Mr.+Underbridge · · Score: 3, Funny

    Hey, I wonder what Google's doing today, I haven't heard anything about them lately.

  9. Re:Sheep by mysticgoat · · Score: 2, Funny

    This can be summed up by the plaque I once saw on the wall of a manager who had a reputation for making good decisions:

    I must hurry and catch up with the others, for I am their leader!