A list of the top 100 hottest emerging and most innovative tech companies in the media industry was released today, and everyone here at Hubdub was delighted to be included as hot property in the Games & Entertainment category. According to the press blurb, the Tech Media Invest 100 aims to:

“…showcase young entrepreneurial companies that are developing innovative new ways to serve business and consumers and have the potential to radically change the shape of the technology and media industry….these companies have potenial and we look forward to seeing how they monetize their innovation”

Congratulations to everyone else who made the list!

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We’ve just been notified that we’ve also been nominated for a Best Design Award at the European Tech Awards. There are some great websites in the category so we’re extremely pleased to even be nominated for such an award. If you’d like to help us out then click here to place your vote. Again, there’s no need to register and it only takes a few seconds to cast your vote.

Thanks again for your support.

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Techcrunch Europe is hosting the European Tech Awards next month in London and we were pleased to hear today that Hubdub has been nominated for Best European Web Application.

If you’d like to vote for us (and of course we very much hope that you will!) then click here to vote (no need to register, just click on Hubdub then scroll down and click the Vote button at the bottom of the page).

Thanks!

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Hubdub is up against media monsters such as the BBC, Sky, The Telegraph and Reuters - we’ve all been shortlisted for the Association of Online Publishers’ award for innovation, taking place on June 2nd in London.

The shortlist is:

Band In Your Hand - BBC
CluedUp - Telegraph Media Group
guardian.co.uk message for Obama - Guardian News & Media
Hubdub.com - HubDub
Reuters Davos World Economic Forum Coverage - Thomson Reuters
Sky News - Templated Graphics - BSkyB
Telegraph Mobile Application - Telegraph Media Group
The Economist Debate Series - Economist Group
The Feelings 24 Hour Challenge - Global Radio

It looks like the “glitterati of digital publishing” will be there, and  it will no doubt be a very glamorous and prestigous event. We’re absolutely thrilled to be short-listed. But how’s a wee start-up supposed to compete with the BBC et al when the cost to attend the ceremony is £300? All donations gratefully received…

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At long last, the moment every College Basketball Fan has been waiting for…no, there’s still 4 days to go until Selection Sunday, but today Hubdub’s March Madness 09 Predict-A-Thon launches!

So what exactly is this Predict-A-Thon?

• A discrete prediction competition only for the NCAA Basketball Tournament
• Players sign up and receive H$1000 to predict on questions about March Madness 09
• You can play right through the competition, with in-running predictions about the Final Four and Championship Game - watch the game live and make your predictions REAL-TIME
• The top 5 players at the end of the tournament win CASH prizes!
• Oh yes, and it’s completely free to enter!

You think you can last the distance? Then sign up for the March Madness 09 Predict-A-Thon here*

I’d love to hear what you think of our first Predict-A-Thon - drop me an email anytime.

*If you're an existing Hubdubber, you'll have to sign up with a different user

name I'm afraid - although you can use the same email address.

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Image via Wikipedia

Over the next couple of weeks we are going to be experimenting with advertising on the site. Initially, we are going to be trialling Adsense (that is the one that gives context sensitive text ads) but then we will also be looking to add some display advertising soon. We will be trying to add the advertising in a way that doesn’t significantly affect the look and feel of the site or negatively effect the functionality.

As I am sure everyone reading this blog will know, times are tight. Unfortunately, Obama’s stimulus package doesn’t stretch to us so we are on our own in trying to turn a dime. Hopefully, in the process we can introduce you to some great products and services.

If you are interested advertising with us then please contact us here.

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Today’s my first birthday at Hubdub and its forced me to do some reminiscing…  A year ago today, I read about Hubdub in Wired magazine — it looked like fun so I signed up, but like many of the early adopters didn’t get my initial 1000 stake. The Hubdub servers were unprepared for the onslaught and crashed.  I was quickly mollified though when Nigel wrote me a personal note to apologize!  I got my husband signed a couple days later and my mother a month after that.

In the beginning, I wasn’t very interested in my net worth. I put down random 10 and 20 dollar bets on what I wanted to happen and paid little attention to my dimishing bank account. It wasn’t long though until my husband was nearing the 10 thousand mark and all of a sudden I got a lot more competitive. I remember the days of obsessively tracking the stock market, listening to all the financial news prior to the opening bell and researching what earnings reports were being released that day — and at what time. I remember being *so* anxious that the American Idol market wasn’t settled within minutes of the reveal, because I was desperate to reinvest for the next week. (It took me a while to learn that all the editors at the time lived in the UK and were asleep then!).

The early days were short on rules. There were questions about aliens meeting with the UN and a lot more focus on the leaderboard rankings. New rules were usually hashed out over on the getsatisfaction board — ahh those were the days. Here’s one of my alltime favorite threads.  I think what I miss most was the little emoticons at the end of every message. I would love it if we could include that in our new forum!

We developed some Hubdub venacular early on in the year, which seems to have fallen by the wayside recently (via meanderingsearcher who was the official Hubdub vocabulary keeper):

“Spitzer” - literally “screwed”. Check out the history on this market…

“fistinction” - its gotta to be my way or “to the moon Alice”

“pics4ded” - I’m gonna take my toys and go home

“cognositis” - the act of deliberately losing your net worth, just to prove a point   

One of my favorite missing users — lucidstates. Which was clearly a misnomer, because he was rarely lucid, but a great player. He was the first to get me addicted to box office markets. He also spammed nearly every single open market during the Hubdub strike of 08! Craziest question, hands down, goes to Destry, who, while clearly being sarcastic made a pretty great question encapsulating every single important news item of the week.

Now a year later, I’ve been a user, a superuser and now a category editor. I figure by next year I should own the company (kidding, Nigel!). I find myself wishing the birthday cake on my profile was edible, but am thankful for the year of experiences that it represents. Can’t wait to see what another year will bring! [Did I leave out your favorite Hubdub story? Post it in the comments!]

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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.”

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Before the holidays, we announced the arrival of Hubdub’s latest blog - Newspundits - which offers analysis and predictions on current news stories written by Hubdub staff and Hubdubbers who have proven they’re an expert in the topic.

The blog you’re reading right now will be kept for company announcements, new features, press coverage and other corporate-type information. Hubdub’s weekly Hot Predictions for example, will now be published on Newspundits rather than here.

So, if you’re reading this by RSS feed, then you might want to also sign up for Newspundits.hubdub.com so you will continue to receive both editorial and corporate information from Hubdub.

If you have any feedback on either blog, I’d love to hear it. Drop me an email with your comments. (lesley at hubdub dot com).

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The questions on Hubdub are monitored, edited where necessary and settled by a fantastic team of Category Editors based all around the World. Each Hubdub category (Sports, Entertainment, Business, Politics etc) has it’s own Editor who is extremely knowledgeable in that particular topic.

We’re currently looking for a new Category Editor to join the team to help manage the World Category (so a keen interest and knowledge of international news and politics is vital - as well as a fundamental love of all things Hubdub!).

For more information about the role, click here.

If you think you’re smart/patient/nice enough to join the team drop me an email - I’d love to hear from you.

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