Hi, let me give you a short presentation of askmarkets we hope you’ll find of interest.

viaheadrush.typepad.com

There is a common belief that, while each of us is smart and capable, getting all of our views and information together finally provides a less insightful outcome.We think it’s not our collective intelligence but the tools in use to blame.

polls

57% of target market think that our product is going to be successful*

* telephone survey among 500 householders

And which are these tools that we are use in everyday practice?We turn to telephone surveys, which are maybe indicative of the public opinion, but, let’s face it, in 2009 they look like an inefficient approach.

meetings

So, I guess we’re done! Idea XYZ -mine by the way- is going into R&D for sample production.*

* “Consensus Executive Officer” ends a 2h session on selecting a new product for development

Or we gather to spend hours together, and actually do not share our true beliefs, as biases and politics get on our way.

estimates

In 2009 we will sell 5.2 million pieces*

* general sales manager’s estimate, adopted as-is

Given the failure of other tools, we typically resort to the afflatus of the expert.But, isn’t there a better way to sum up the information and knowledge of the many? We think there is, here’s an example:

That’s a screenshot of the Yahoo stock, as presented in Google Finance.

The important parts of it are the following two:

News!

The first one is news, actually everything related to YHOO

Price!

The second one is price, here you can see the price of YHOO over time.

ok, so, you may wonder, where’s the magic?

news are here!

All news are weighted and evaluated in real time, finally getting incorporated into prices.And this is not a characteristic of this specific market, but a fundamental property of each running one.

markets

bring people together

trigger conversations

sum up information

transmits it through prices

After all, these are the functions that each market performs (stock market, betting market, futures market, or the flea market, you name it)

OK, the market concept seems to be remarkable, but what do you do if...

ACME

... you are not interested in YHOO but in ACME, and you are not interested in its market value but...

ACME Sales Q1

?... in forecasting, for example, its sales for Q1?

?ACME Project End Date

... or the end date of a crucial project?

?ACME Market Share

... or the company’s market share? Markets are the best tool to aggregate existing information and quantify the probability of any future event. But where are the ones regarding what matters most for your company or community?

We believe they are here. At http://askmarkets.com you may...

?your

questions!

... create your very own questions

?your

forecasts!

... enter your predictions, information and beliefs

?your

results!

... then watch collective intelligence taking shape for your own benefit.

dead simple!

Making a transaction is a dead simple 2-step process,

dead simple!

... while it’s equally simple to create your own market question.

And you also have a traders ranking, in a sense serving as a reputation system that learns over time and improves by itself.

your marketplace!

Liked all these? Now you are able to create a discrete, public or private, marketplace for your organization, check http://askmarkets.com/services for more.

does it matter?

tough times require wise decisions... and wisdom lies in the crowds

And we strongly believe that now it’s high time you put such a tool into use for your own company and/or community.

photos from under

Thank you very much!