In a recent interview about the Doha round of trade talks on Al-Jazeera, the interviewee quoted a Hubdub forecast of the likelihood of a successful result. Here is the clip:

Since that clip was recorded the forecast has dropped to 17%.

In launching Hubdub we believed that the markets could prove a great way to follow any running news story. With the number of open stories/questions we are tracking approaching 2,000 the site is starting to achieve that potential.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Recent analysis conducted for ReadWriteWeb has shown that the presence of Tech stories on Digg has halved every year for the past 3 years. They found the percentage of most popular stories that are Tech on the front page were:

1st Week in March 2006: 75.72%

1st Week in March 2007: 37.89%

1st Week in March 2008: 19.78%

Get over it, we’re mainstream now

The reason for the drop is pretty clear as Digg tries to make itself more mainstream, potentially in preparation for a sale. In last night’s town hall event Kevin and Jay pretty much seemed to be say “Get over it, we’re mainstream now”. So what will the percentage of tech stories in most popular be in March 2009 compared with March 2008? If the current rate of halving continues it will be around 9%. However, I don’t often see tech on the front page of Yahoo News so if that is the aspiration it could be even less.

Currently the forecast is around 12-18%, although some are forecasting a even steeper drop. What do you think, is there a future for tech stories in Digg?

Popularity: 3% [?]

By Nigel (Technology Editor)

Techcrunch is reporting that Facebook fatigue is setting in with the number of visitors in the US down; dipping by 800,000 in January. There may be some seasonal effect as MySpace also dipped but not by as much as Facebook despite being larger. The Guardian is reporting an even bigger drop in the UK, with Facebook visitor numbers down 5% on December.

One swallow doesn’t make a summer but one data point is usually more than enough for Robert Scoble to draw a line. In his recent post, Is Facebook Doomed?, he links Facebook’s downturn to it’s limitation of 5,000 friends which seems to affect the sum total of one person, Robert Scoble!

I guess by that twisted form of internet mathematics, Scoble equals 800,000 visitors. I can see a new unit of measurement, a Scoble! With 33.9 million US visitors Facebook is at 42.4 Scobles, which is surely a much easier number to remember.

But what does this mean for Zuckerberg? BoomTown is reporting that senior management changes are happening in Facebook with them looking to hire a seasoned technology veteran (an unZuckerberg) to act as a steady hand to Zuckerberg who would retain the CEO position. But the question has to be asked: Will the right candidate want to report to a 23 year old (even one as visionary and successful as Mark)?

Will Zuckerberg still be CEO by the end of 2008? None of the pundits are making predictions on it but Hubdub users are currently forecasting there is only a 63% chance that he will. And that’s down from 90% just over a month ago.

Will Mark Zuckerberg still be CEO of Facebook by the end of 2008?

What do you think? Click here to make your own prediction.

Popularity: 5% [?]