Monday, October 17, 2005
Betting on Public Gyan
This is yet another post I've been meaning to make for the longest time, but got side-tracked in the midst of all my travels. Most of you know about information exchanges like the Iowa Electronic Markets or Tradesports. These websites have proved themselves to be more accurate predictors of events than even exit polls, by aggregating information via futures contracts. Now comes an attempt by one of India's finest bloggers, Nitin Pai (The Acorn) and Srijith Nair, to create a similar information exchange, Public Gyan, but minus real money. Trade is conducted by way of a virtual currency called moolers.
Having done a dissertation on the issue of imperfect information in markets, this is obviously something I am very curious about. Specifically, I am curious about whether such a marketplace will work without monetary incentives. Obviously, if we can actually get such an exchange to work minus real money, that will be terrific and will probably throw up a few questions about traditional notions about markets. The other concern I have is that for a true marketplace to work, you need real depth. If you have information you want to bet on, you've got to bet able to act on it immediately, without having to wait 5 days for your order to be fulfilled.
The latter is something I can actively do something about. So, if any of you are curious about Public Gyan and would like to play (after reading a primer or two), please send me a note and I'll be happy to invite you. You could, of course, just contact Nitin directly too. In the meanwhile, kudos to Nitin and Srijth for going out on a limb to set this up to see if it will work. At the very least, we know something about their risk appetite :)
Having done a dissertation on the issue of imperfect information in markets, this is obviously something I am very curious about. Specifically, I am curious about whether such a marketplace will work without monetary incentives. Obviously, if we can actually get such an exchange to work minus real money, that will be terrific and will probably throw up a few questions about traditional notions about markets. The other concern I have is that for a true marketplace to work, you need real depth. If you have information you want to bet on, you've got to bet able to act on it immediately, without having to wait 5 days for your order to be fulfilled.
The latter is something I can actively do something about. So, if any of you are curious about Public Gyan and would like to play (after reading a primer or two), please send me a note and I'll be happy to invite you. You could, of course, just contact Nitin directly too. In the meanwhile, kudos to Nitin and Srijth for going out on a limb to set this up to see if it will work. At the very least, we know something about their risk appetite :)
