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+[Betocracy][1] is a new website that allows you to create your own decision markets and opinion polls. If, like me, you have no idea what that means, allow me to give a quick overview.

Some time ago the Pentagon floated up an idea called the Policy Analysis Market, which would have allowed online traders to wager on the likelihood of future terrorist attacks. At first glance such a market may sound like a cynical and politically stupid move, which it was and that's why it was abandoned, but the idea behind the market is more than just a so-called death pool. 

Decision markets, or predictive markets as they're sometimes called, operate on the same premise as the stock market; that is, a group of people buy and sell shares, but in this case the value of the shares are determined by the value of the judgments attached to them. [According to Wikipedia][4]:

>People who buy low and sell high are rewarded for improving the market prediction, while those who buy high and sell low are punished for degrading the market prediction. Evidence so far suggests that prediction markets are at least as accurate as other institutions predicting the same events with a similar pool of participants.


It may sound like little more than modified sports betting, but many economists believe that such markets can find hidden information about future events just like the soaring price of a stock can indicate a healthy company. [For the moment we'll ignore cases like Enron.]

Now thanks to Betocracy you can participate in this growing trend and easily create your own decision markets. The markets on Betocracy do not trade in actual money, but use a points system instead. Theoretically if the site takes off, shareholders with the highest points (i.e. those that buy low and sell high) will have a greater influence on the site.

I spoke briefly with Yaron Koren the man behind Betocracy about the site. Koren says he was "inspired to create the site by reading James Surowiecki's *The
Wisdom of Crowds*." He went on to add, "I was really struck by that idea of collective intelligence."

The idea behind Betocracy is to combine easy-to-use social internet tools with the predictive power of decision markets. Koren likens Betocracy to, "a cross between TradeSports and Blogger: bringing the concept of intuitive self-publishing to prediction markets.

The concept is fairly simple. Create an account, customize your page and create a market to display. You can choose to make your page public, publicly viewable but members only for usage or invite only.

I created a decision market based on [how the popular television show Lost will end][3]. My sample isn't probably the best since as I note on the page the results will be arbitrarily (and randomly I might add) decided by me. Hint: you can do better.

I'll admit that the whole things sounded a bit crazy to me when I first ran across it, but then again there were probably some folks that said the same thing four hundred years ago in Amsterdam. 

Many thanks to the ever-prescient folks on the NoEnd mailing list for bring Betocray to my attention.

[1]: http://betocracy.com/ "Betocracy"
[3]: http://luxagraf.betocracy.com/market/8
[4]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_market "Decision markets"
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diff --git a/old/published/Webmonkey/Monkey_Bites/2006/11.27.06/Thu/js-kit.jpg b/old/published/Webmonkey/Monkey_Bites/2006/11.27.06/Thu/js-kit.jpg
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+Every now and then someone comes up with a way to make a complex thing incredibly simple and leaves you wondering -- why didn't I think of that? That's exactly the case with Lev Walkin's [JS-Kit comment script][1].

One of the outstanding features of social internet sites is the ability to leave comments on just about anything, blog posts, saved links, uploaded videos, you name it and there's probably a way for you to express you opinions via comments. 

But for amateur web developers creating a comments system can often be a complex and intimidating undertaking. JS-Kit reduces that undertaking to pasting a single line of code into your webpage. Just add this line to your site:

	<script src="http://js-kit.com/comments.js"></script>
	
That line activates Walkin's comment code which then uses your IP address to fetch the comments from his server. 

The script creates threaded comments so you can comment on both the main content and what other people have said. Other niceties including an option to be notified by email whenever some replies to your comment.

You can also embed multiple instances of the script on the same page if you'd like for instance, to have a photo gallery page with individual comments per photo. 

For those with the CSS knowhow, it's fairly easy to customize comments to fit the design of your site.

JS-Kit is brand new and lacks a few important comment features like spam protection, but that and other new features are already in the works.

Some people will no doubt be a little nervous about storing their comment data on another person's server, after all what happens if that server crashes or just plain disappears? Perhaps in the future they're will be a way to store comments locally, but for now I don't know of a simpler way to add comments to your web pages.

Found via [TechCrunch][2].

[1]: http://js-kit.com/ "Embed Comments in any page"
[2]: http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/11/29/quick-embed-code-to-add-comments-to-any-site/ "Techcrunch on JS-Kit"
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diff --git a/old/published/Webmonkey/Monkey_Bites/2006/11.27.06/Thu/rebbot.txt b/old/published/Webmonkey/Monkey_Bites/2006/11.27.06/Thu/rebbot.txt
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+<img alt="Any_key_3" title="Any_key_3" src="http://blog.wired.com/photos/uncategorized/any_key_2.jpg" border="0" style="float: right; margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;" />Just what exactly is irony? Does it change socks every day like the rest of us? Anyway, here's your morning reboot:

*	It's official, [Windows Vista for Business launches today][1]. Microsoft has a new website to celebrate to occasion, complete with a video the ever creepy Steve Ballmer welcoming you to "a new day." Office 2007 and Exchange Server 2007 will also be today.

*	AMD is expected to [launch the Quad FX Platform today][2]. The new chip consists of two of the dual-core Athlon processors connected to two Nvidia chipsets. The Quad FX Platform is AMD's response to Intel's Core 2 Extreme, but the Quad FX is slightly different in that it isn't two chips in one socket, rather two chips in two sockets. If you know what that means, then this could be the chip for you. AMD plans to release a true quad core chip early next year.

*	Fast on the heels of yesterday's Verizon/YouTube deal, comes another announcement that [Verizon has a similar deal with Revver][3]. Revver typically adds adverts to the end of it's video streams, but that won't be the case with the mobile offering, instead uploaders will share in the licensing deal with Verizon.

*	The NFL is [bringing live broadcasts to the web][4] -- sort of. The NFL Network's Thursday and Saturday telecasts will be available to Verizon's FiOS and DirecTV internet subscribers. The Reuters article has a great quote from NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy, "it's not disrupting anything that's already available... It's taking advantage of the current technology." In other words, the NFL still doesn't understand the internet.





[1]: http://msnewday.com/ "Windows Vista - it's a new day"
[2]: http://news.com.com/2100-1042_3-6139465.html?part=rss&tag=2547-1_3-0-20&subj=news "AMD Quad Core"
[3]: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061129/ap_on_hi_te/verizon_wireless_revver "Verizon Revver deal"
[4]: http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=internetNews&storyid=2006-11-30T114916Z_01_N30420400_RTRUKOC_0_US-MEDIA-NFL.xml&src=rss "The NFL goes online"
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+[Searchmash][1] is new search engine that appears to have some connection to Google Search. I know what you're thinking, there must be ten thousand search engines out there, and that's not counting all the new implementations of Google's Custom Search tools, do we really need another?

Well, maybe. Searchmash is a bit different, and perhaps better, than most. According the the Lifehacker post by which I discovered it, [Searchmash is run by Google][2], which might explain why it generates almost the exact same results.

At first glance Searchmash isn't much, just a white page with a familiar results listing. But then when you look closer there's a number of features that improve on the basic Google Search concept. For instance you can dynamically collapse and expand the page descriptions and clicking the "more search results" link reveals another nice piece of Javascript which appends the results below the current ones rather than loading a new page. I'm one of those people that rarely delves into the second page of search results, but the ability to append them to current page makes more results somewhat more appealing.

Off the right hand side of the page are a series of collapsed links for images, video, Wikipedia and blog search results. Clicking the plus link opens a panel with the top results in that category. At the bottom of each panel is a link to "see more results," click that link that category becomes the main links for the page and the web pages result is shuffled off and collapsed in the right column.

Essentially Searchmash takes the results of Google's Web Search, Image Search and Blog Search, combines them with a Wikipedia search and video search, gives it an elegantly simple interface and integrates it into a single page. Very nice indeed.

Someone wrote in to the Lifehacker saying:

>(Searchmash) gives you a multi-page search view on one page and the ability to drag (yes drag) the 35th search result to the 3rd slot because you think it's more appropriate to your query.

Personally I can't seem to drag anything to reorder the results. I'm not even sure I'd want to unless there were some way to save the order, but if anyone can enlighten me as to how the drag and drop feature works, I'd at least like to try it.

The main downside to Searchmash is that it doesn't support very many of the advanced Google Search operators that I've come to rely on. Obviously <code>images:</code> works, as do common operators like <code>site:</code>, but more advanced ones like <code>filetype:</code> do not.

Did I mention the searches are lightning fast?

[1]: http://www.searchmash.com/ "Searchmash.com"
[2]: http://www.lifehacker.com/software/search-engines/searchmash-google-interface-experiment-218217.php "Lifehacker on Searchmash.com"
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diff --git a/old/published/Webmonkey/Monkey_Bites/2006/11.27.06/Thu/vista-release.txt b/old/published/Webmonkey/Monkey_Bites/2006/11.27.06/Thu/vista-release.txt
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+As I mentioned in the morning reboot, today is the [official launch day of Windows Vista][1], There was a launch party in New York and other events worldwide. At last count a Google News search revealed 524 articles on the subject. So that means I can head down to Best Buy and pick up a copy right? Actually, uh, no.

To sort out what might be the most confusing release of software ever, here's the rundown.

Today *business* users may purchase Windows Vista, Exchange Server 2007 and Office 2007 through Microsoft's volume licensing program. But purchase does not equate with use in all cases. Exchange Server 2007 will not be available for even business customers until the end of next month. Vista and Office are available for business customers today. 

*Retail* customers, that would be you and I, will have to wait until January for the *retail* versions to hit the shelves. There will be no less than four *retail* versions of Vista -- Home Basic, Home Premium, Business and Ultimate -- ranging in price from $199 - $299. For more details have a [look at the breakdown of version differences][2] on Microsoft's website (note that there's also an Enterprise version for large businesses and Starter version for sale in developing nations).

I haven't been able to find details on what versions are available today through the business volume licensing program, but it seems reasonable to assume that Business, Ultimate and Enterprise would be the primary targets for the business market. If you know more details leave them in the comments below.

To add to the confusion of today's Vista release/not release, many retail outlets actually resell the business software, so if you're planning to make your purchase via the volume licensing program, you *can* theoretically head down to a participating retailer and walk out with the software.

And just in case you're still reading, to further complicate matters many retailers are offering free or discount coupons for consumer versions of Windows Vista (to be released in January remember) with the purchase of a new computer today. So in a sense you can buy Vista today, you just won't actually get it until January.

*	November 30: Business users get Vista, Office 2007
*	End of December: Business users get Exchange Server 2007
*	January 30: Retail versions of Vista and Office 2007

Everything clear now? 

Oh and If you're wondering what new features Window's Vista offers, I stumbled across a thorough and [detailed Q and A][3] on the Dutch site Techworld, which should answer most people's questions. 

[1]: http://msnewday.com/ "Window's Vista Launch Site"
[2]: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/editions/default.mspx "Vista Versions"
[3]: http://www.techworld.nl/idgns/1651/windows-vista-faq.html "Vista FAQ"
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