I’ve been talking to a lot of people over the past couple of days about the differences between polls and a market. Of course there is a rich set of academic research showing the superiority of a liquid market over a poll. Additionally, to me it makes intuitive sense: You would never try to price a stock by polling a 100 traders.

Anyway I thought I would do a quick fun comparison between a poll and a market. We are currently running a market on who will be the most followed on Twitter by the end of June.

Cast your votes here:

Place your bets here:

what is this?

The Diggnation Army v The TWiTs: Who’ll be most followed by the end of June?

% chance over time

    Leo Laporte

    Kevin Rose

    Jason Calacanis

    Alex Albrecht

    Robert Scoble

    John C Dvorak

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Hubdub - The News Prediction Game

Let the competition commence!

Popularity: 12% [?]

If you want to keep up to date with what is happening at Hubdub HQ, new markets, stuff and trivia then follow me (Nigel Eccles) on Twitter.

Moving from the bottom of the leaderboard to the top with news that Leo Laporte has put 500 followers between himself and Kevin Rose. It is now trading at about 50/50 but I think the grey (Laporte) is going to pull it off. Offering to give a way a top end gaming PC to one of his followers at random seems to have done the trick!

what is this?

TWiT Twitter Derby: Who’ll be most followed by midnight May 25th?

% chance over time

    Kevin Rose

    Leo Laporte

    Jason Calacanis

    Robert Scoble

    John C Dvorak

    Wil Harris

Get this widget

Hubdub - The News Prediction Game

Popularity: 11% [?]

The early leader, Leo Laporte, is still way out in lead by just under 1,000 followers. So confident was he in his lead that he didn’t even mention Twitter in his weekly tech podcast. That complacency might cost him dear (well at least a Hubdub T-shirt!) as Kevin Rose is gunning for the top spot and he is willing to play dirty to get there. Last week he sent out a tweet saying he was going to give his old iPhone to one of his followers chosen by random.

Only a few more followers and Rose will have bested Obama and it will be man-o-man between Laporte and Rose. Also looking comfortable in the saddle is Jason Calacanis who has rocketed up to 4th position. Could his new Tesla sportscar give him the firepower he needs to catch them at the finish line? The cameraman is opening his bag for what looks like will be a thrilling finish!

Prediction markets

what is this?

TWiT Twitter Derby: Who’ll be most followed by midnight May 25th?

% chance over time

    Kevin Rose

    Leo Laporte

    Jason Calacanis

    Robert Scoble

    John C Dvorak

    Wil Harris

Get this widget

Can you get it right? Make your prediction…

Hubdub - The News Prediction Game

Looking at the prediction markets now shows that punters have recognized Rose’s push up the field with them currently putting him at favorite with a 48% chance to win. Punters aren’t convinced that a late Calacanis surge is going to happen but a mystery punter has gone out on a limb and placed a stack on John C Dvorak. Dvorak looks like he has a mountain to climb but does someone out there know something we don’t?

Me? I’m putting my money down on Rose to pull ahead on the final furlong.

TWiT Twitter Derby: Who’ll be most followed by midnight May 25th?

I predicted Kevin Rose   on last Friday

what is this? The News Prediction Game

Popularity: 15% [?]

By Nigel (Chief News Junkie)

Regular This Week in Tech (TWiT) listeners will know that a race is breaking out between their pundits as to who will become the most followed on Twitter, which is tracked by Twitterholic. What started as friendly rivalry seems to have turned into an all out Derby where every follower counts. Hubdub has a market on who will win in having the most followers by the end of May.

For those of you that don’t closely follow TWiT here is a more detailed form guide:

Kevin Rose - founder of Digg, Revision 3 and Pownce. Kevin is a late convert to Twitter due to Pownce being a competitor. Now he has joined Twitter his number of followers has rocketed in the past couple of months. Kevin stars in the hugely popular Diggnation show which, if he used it to get more followers, could probably leave his rivals for dust. Follow Kevin.

Leo Laporte - founder and host of TWiT. Another late convert to Twitter due to concerns about brand confusion between TWiT and Twitter. He has now fully embraced it and is hugely ramping up his follower base having recently taken the top slot from Obama (who is that guy?). The TWiT show reaches 500,000 monthly unique listeners so he has a lot of firepower to draw on if needed. Follow Leo.

Jason Calacanas - founder of Weblogs and Mahalo. Jason was an early adopter of Twitter and has built up a sizable following. Mahalo is massively ramping up its user base and Jason is a born networker, so while he is behind he shouldn’t be under-estimated. Follow Jason.

Robert Scoble - the Scobleizer, formerly of the Pod Show, now with Fast Company. Robert is an A-list blogger extraordinaire. If you follow him you get the feeling that their is barely a thought that goes through his head that doesn’t get blogged, Twittered, streamed or otherwise blasted out to the blogosphere. Easily the winner on most prolific Tweeter. Follower growth seems to have flattened though. Follow Robert.

John C Dvorak - tech journalist and blogger, star of Cranky Geeks among other shows. John is the cranky uncle who moves seemlessly from the correct way to cook pulled chicken to Microsoft’s web strategy. Despite claiming not to be interested in the race he never misses the chance to pitch his blog (Dvorak.org/blog!) or twitter account (THErealDVORAK!). Follow John.

Wil Harris - British technology blogger and founder of Channel Flip. Wil is the youngest of the crew coming in at a sprightly 25. He is way behind on number of followers but could potentially galvanise the British nation by turning this into a transatlantic fight. You guys dumped our tea in the harbour, we’ll bloody well take your Twitter! Follow Wil.

Personally, my money is on Leo Laporte but I might have a small side bet on Wil Harris, purely out of patriotic duty.

Market: TWiT Twitter Derby: Who will be the most followed by midnight May 25th?

Popularity: 12% [?]

By Nigel (Chief News Junkie)

On the day we launched our site, Hubdub, into public beta, I received the following email:

Nigel,

We have a problem. I have here a postmarked and sealed a 22 slide Power Point presentation regarding my concept, dated well before your launch today that I just heard about on the news, and I have been seeking legal representation since November 2007, so it is well documented this was mine before you even founded it in November 2007….Now I believe this concept has been stolen from me. I don’t know how you want to handle this, but I do expect a resolution. I will await your response.

Regards,

Cole Bartiromo

The email fell into my spam bin and I’ve only just found it. I thought “Who the hell is this guy? so I googled ‘Cole Bartiromo’ and came across some very interesting news clippings from 2004 about a Californian 19 year old of that name going to jail for 3 years for eBay fraud. Apparently, he’s got previous having as a 17 year old scammed $1 million off investors by selling “risk-free” investments. CBS have a nice picture of him (although he appears to be playing baseball with an invisible bat).

So Cole, you asked for a response and here it is: Give up your life of crime. You are young, obviously smart and clearly highly entrepreneurial. Take Jason Calacanas’s advice, “The life of crime is too much work for too little benefit; start a company!” (Twit 130, last 12 minutes). I’m not sure if you could raise outside money (well you probably could, but you might need to tell them where the money is going!) but a guy like you should easily be able to bootstrap yourself to profitability. At the end of the day, the company of hairy assed pizza eating developers is always going to be better than the company of hairy assed pretty-boy worrying cellmates!

Popularity: 7% [?]