At Hubdub we have many markets covering all the nuisances of the potential event. We have a market asking which bible verse his bible will be opened to:

Presidential Inauguration: What verse will Barack Obama’s Bible be open to?

We are also curious if Barack Obama will use his middle name while taking the oath of office, most Hubdubbers feel he will:

Will Barack Obama use his middle name when taking the oath of office?

One of my personal favorite markets is asking about the infamous “Yes We Can” line that began in New Hampshire, swept the country with the video by Will I AM, and was chanted at the acceptance speech on election night. Currently more than half of the Hubdubbers feel he won’t use the line at all, but I think he will, it fits his style, the American people want to be told that “Yes We Can”:

Presidential Inauguration: How many times will President Obama use the phrase “Yes We Can”?

For those of you who are going to be in the crowd during this day, we have a market right up your alley, the National Weather Service measures the temperature on Inaugural Day and we have a market asking what our Hubdubbers feel it will be, you better hope they got a good bead on this one, they are calling for a very comfortable 35degrees:

Presidential Inauguration: What will be the temperature at noon as recorded by NWS?

Another market more tuned into those of you who will be braving the weather, while the rest of us watch from the comfort of our homes or offices, is this market asking How Many Words Long will the Inauguration Speech be, again here at Hubdub we seem to feel that President Obama will carry on for more than 2250 words:

Presidential Inauguration: How many words long will President Obama’s address be?

and for those of you were were wondering here are the shortest and longest speeches - George Washington’s second address was the shortest (135 words) and William Henry Harrison delivered the longest (8,495 words).
And before we let you go, we would like to ask those in attendance to help us out if at all possible. If you see someone throw a donut at Rick Warren please notify the category editor right away so we may settle this market:

Will Mega Church leader Rick Warren have a donut thrown at him before or on Inauguration Day?

and finally if you see Tom Hanks at the Inauguration and you give him your seat, you will be helping settle a very fun but silly market:

Will Tom Hanks be given a seat at Barack Obama’s inauguration?

In a note of seriousness, please be safe, have a great time, and take alot of pictures. You may send all the pictures directly to me at destry@hubdub.com and I will share them on Picasa for everyone to see. Have a great time, enjoy your moment of history, and remember this “Now is the time to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth, that, out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope. And where we are met with cynicism and doubts and those who tell us that we can’t, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can.”

Popularity: 14% [?]

The election might be over, but for the politics geeks out there the fun is nowhere near done! Everyone seems to be talking about who’ll be in Obama’s cabinet, but if you’re looking for the real numbers breakdown based on the wisdom of the crowds, look no further. We’ve already correctly predicted Rahm Emanuel as Obama’s Chief of Staff!

Secretary of State: Initially many suspected John Kerry, in recent days though his stock dropped significantly (less than 20% chance now), even being overtaken by Bill Richardson at one point. Hubdub forecasts though that Obama won’t pick either Richardson or Kerry instead he’ll look for someone else, not currently known.

Who will be Obama’s Secretary of State?

Secretary of Defense: Along with others, Hubdubbers see Robert Gates, the current SecDef to be continuing his role after Bush leaves. Gate’s price is over 50% which is a good indicator, and his closest competitor is Chuck Hagel at just 16%.

Who will be President Obama’s Secretary of Defense?

Attorney General: Janet Napolitano is the front runner for Attorney General. Some rumors from the beltway even point to Napolitano being quite happy with the possibility.

Who will be President Obama’s Attorney General?

Energy Secretary: For all the Schwarzenegger fans out there I’m sorry to say, but it’s unlikely we’ll get Arnie in the cabinet to ‘terminate’ global warming. However I’ll admit it’d be awesome!

Will Arnold Schwarzenegger be President Obama’s Energy Secretary?

Treasury Secretary: Although suggestions of either Paulson staying on or Obama adviser, friend and billionaire Warren Bufftet taking Paulson’s place were intriguing, Hubdub is forecasting Federal Reserve Bank of New York President Timothy Geithner will take the spot.

Who will be the selection of a new Treasury secretary under President Obama?

Other Notable Picks According to Hubdub Markets:

• Al Gore is unlikely to be included in a formal role in the Obama administration.
• Gregory Craig has over a 50% chance of being Obama’s National Security Adviser.
• The new Obama cabinet will only have two or three Republicans in it
• Neither Colin Powell or Linda Darling-Hammond are likely candidates for Secretary of Education.

To get the most up to date forecasts on likely picks for Obama’s cabinet check out our new RSS Feeds here.

Popularity: 15% [?]

After over a month tracking the predictions of some of America’s top pundits, today we are launching PunditWatch. TechCrunch covered the launch.

Bear Sterns is doing just fine shouted Jim Cramer just before they got bought by JP Morgan for $2. Google could hit $2,000 claimed Henry Blodget of Silicon Alley Insider just as their stock price peaked and started its long slide to under $500. Hillary Clinton is going to lose in New Hampshire claimed just about every commentator before her dramatic come back.

These are just some of the examples the recent examples of ‘experts’ failing miserably to predict future events. But we still listen to them. Are these isolated examples or does the seer/sucker theory hold true (”No matter how much evidence exists that seers do not exist, seers will find suckers”)?

The Pundits

Well now we will find out. PunditWatch’s mission is to track the predictions of public commentators to see how they perform. Initially we are going to select 10 commentators from the fields of Politics, Entertainment, Sport and Technology. The pundits are:

• Politics: Chris Matthews (MSNBC), Pat Buchanan (MSNBC, NBC), David Brooks (PBS, NYT)
• Entertainment: Perez Hilton, Nikki Finke (Deadline Hollywood Daily), DListed
• Sport: Peter King
• Technology: TechCrunch, VentureBeat, Silicon Alley Insider

There were plenty more we wanted to add but after exhaustive investigation we found that they don’t ever in fact make any real testable predictions. We do however plan to add a second wave of pundits to this list so do comment with your suggestions.

How it all works

We have created a Hubdub account for each of the pundits (for example the TechCrunch user id is techcrunch_pw).

1. Every Monday morning we will post up a round of all of their previous week’s predictions, a look at their performance and also a call for readers to be on the look out for them spotting new predictions.
2. During that week each time a pundit makes a prediction we will place H$10 on it from their Hubdub account.
3. If the question doesn’t exist we will create it with an estimate of the correct probabilities. We will then invite some of the top Hubdub forecasters to make predictions in order to set the prices. Then when the prices have settled down we will place a prediction for the pundit from their account.
4. We will update the PunditWatch blog with a post to say that the prediction has been placed.

Pundits can make anything from zero to three predictions per week. If they make more than three then we will ignore the later ones. After analysing many of these pundit’s predictions it is clear we are going to have to give some interpretation to their predictions to make them testable (hey, if they don’t like that then they can just start making real concrete predictions!). We will have to feel these out as we go along. One point is that if a pundit reports rumors then we will treat these as a prediction. If they don’t think the rumors are likely to be true then why report them?

Click here to check PunditWatch out.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Nothing has yet replaced the newspaper front page as a means to convey powerful messages. Here are some of the most striking of the past 40 years.

8. Olympic Games Rocked by Black Power Salute (1968)

Perhaps the most overt political statement in the 110 year history of the Olymbic Games. African American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos performed their Power to the People salute at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City.

7. Murderers (1997)

The Daily Mail accused the five men with the murder of of Stephen Lawrence. The men had all been arrested but never convicted after a botched police investigation.

6. Challenge to the Crown (2000)

‘In the new millennium Britain should be given the choice whether to keep the royal family or to become a republic’, stated The Guardian in this controversial edition on the State Opening of Parliament.

5. Brighton Bomb (1984)

An IRA bomb ripped through the Grand Hotel in Brighton during the Conservative Party Conference in 1984. The bombs failed to kill Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher or any of her government ministers, but did kill five others.

4. The War is Over (2005)

Britain’s troubled relations with Ireland in the 20th century saw the Easter Rising, the birth of the Irish Free State - today the Irish Republic - and the Troubles. The Independent’s story reflected a potential turning point.

3. No News (2004)

The Independent made a power statement with their ‘No News Today’ headline which carried the foot note of ‘Just 6,500 Africans died today as a result of a preventable, treatable disease. [HIV/Aids]’

2. Gotcha (1982)

News of the sinking of the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano, by a British submarine during the Falklands war, was greeted enthusiastically by The Sun. Later editions led with ‘Did 1,500 Argies Drown?’.

1. War on America (2001)

An unforgettable image of New York’s Twin Towers ablaze together with a simple headline.

Popularity: 31% [?]