What does prediction market mean for India

Prediction markets are the most advanced form of Markets in the world. It is an online platform for users to trade on chances of future events.

It is used to predict future events and help in forecasting problems. It started in early 2000's, when people started talking about wisdom of crowds.

It was soon proven that prediction market is the most accurate form of forecasting intrument. In 2004 and 2008 US presidential elections, prediction markets predicted the exact percentage of votes for president. It was a huge success.

The first real money prediction market - indiaPX comes to india very soon. This prediction market will cater to four categories: Politics, Business, Sports and Movies.

The aim of such prediction market is to use the wisdom of crowds to solve nation's forthcoming problems by using the trading data to arrive at statistically significant results. I think, it is a big step towards solving the forecasting problem in India.

It not only tells us about the possiblity of future events but also prepares us for those events before hand.

Let's make our democracy functional by using the prediction market for India.

Evolution of Markets

Hi All,

First real money prediction market coming soon to india. Check their latest ad:

The Polyester prince - Why ban ?

I do not undestand why do we need to ban a book in the democratic society. The Polyester Prince is a very well written book by Hamish. International media has given it a huge applause.

Even if few facets of one's life are not cleanest ones, it does not make Dhirubhai Ambani anything less than a hero. He has been a hero not only for Reliance, its shareholders but also for the entire nation.

I'm currently writing a casestudy on Reliance and will post it here once its done.

Till then, enjoy reading: The Prince of Polyester (pdf version)

Book Publishing - See The CHANGE !!

 Machiavelli wrote books on barks of tree in 600AD. The publishing of knowledge continued to innovate. The barks of tree got converted to paper. Paper became the primary agent to transfer knowledge. We have not seen any innovation in the medium for so many centuries. 

Is it poised for disruption ??? Are e-books, the next medium of knowledge ??

e-books, the electronic form of rendering book knowledge became popular in late 20th century. Most of the publishing houses still think that the revenue model of hard copy books is the most profitable model. I tend to disagree on that. 

Like google, the publishing industry can also move towards the ad-based reveniew model. The e-books can have targeted ads and get the revenues out of it. If the e-books are free, the better the ebook is, more will be its circulation. The more the circulation, the more eye balls an ad gets. Like any content on website, its the content in an e-book. 

Ebook can have targetted Ads. A Finance book can have ads from Investment Banks and financial institutions etc. All those Ads can be clickable ads and it can again be a Ads-per-click model. 

This will not only make the good content free and widely avalaible but also remove the middlemen from the industry. This will be open sourcing of the content in the publishing industry. The costs of the publishers will go down in publishing the content from the authors. 

Today the biggest threat to publishing industry comes not from piracy or used books but from the you-tubing of the content. Most of the big universities have set up their online universities on I-Tunes, YouTube and Open Course Ware formats. Wikipedia is the biggest threat for all the publishers. There is no content which is not available on Wikipedia. 

So instead of being shy of technology, the best way is to adopt it to their advantage !!

Googlevangelism

Hey Guys, 

Just thought that I coined two new words but they already existed.  The reputation of these two words would depend upon how Google & Apple perform in the time to come. 

Googlevangelism - refers to evangelism of all the Google products. Some googlevanglists fight for the reason that google products are much better than it peers. I tend to disagree on G1 - T-mobile, Google's Android based phone. 

Applevangelism - refers to evagelism of all the Apple products. Apple has created a cult following its brand and its products. They are not only the best in the industry but also give you a satisfaction of owning. Although I only own I-pod, you can gues which category i belong to. 

No wonder these two companies are number 1 & 2 on Innovation index across all the industries. 

Own a house early in Life ... What it means ?

House has always been the most cherished assets of any individual in all the times. There are two significant type of assets that a person owns in his life. The first being the assets which makes him earn his livelihood. Historically for a farmer, it was the land and currently for a skilled professional, it is the skillset. This is the biggest investment of his life. He invests time, money and effort. Second, comes the House. The house in which he wants to spend the rest of his life peacefully with his family. He works hards, saves money and tries to get the house as soon as possible. The question is how soon is soon ????

Going back to the historical trends in US. There was a time, when automotive engineers were in great demand around 40's-60's. The average income for these engineers was much more than their peers in other industries. This resulted in letting them own the house earlier than their peers. As the industry matured, the average kept pushing higher and higher. Now its same as the average age in any other industry. The same thing happened for software professionals in early 90's but it has now gone to the same levels as the other industries. As a matter of fact, it is now  lower than other industries becuase offshoring started in 90's.

If you look at the trends, you will find out that an average software professional in India can own a stable and reasonable  house a the age of 30-35 in India. The average age of owning a house for a professional in this industry is much lesser than average age for other industries. What is the reason for the anomaly? Ofcourse, the anomaly comes from the $$ money that they earn at onsite in US for 3-4 years of their life. Is it going to continue??

With improving technology, there will be lesser and lesser component of onsite roles. With coutries like Brazil and Vietnam coming up as outsourcing centers, India's role in outsourcing industry will go down. The Indian software industry will become mature and growth rate would go down too. Inturn, this will result in the increase in average age to own a house among indian software engineers in India. Few years down the line, it will be no better than professional in any other industry. 

Average people who own the house very early in life are the ones who made the right choice about the industry. The other average people who surpass them in making up more and better assets are the ones who invest in the long term.  

The trend shows that if you get into a industry which is growing and is still in the nascent phase, the growth in the industry is phenomenal and leaves so much money with you as savings that you can afford to have bigger assets early in life. The problem is not only this advantage goes away very soon but is also followed by lull in the industry because of intense competition in the market.  Therefore, Make hay while sun shines. 

The other way to buck the trend is to keep investing in the other big asset you have. Your skillset. The key is the agility in terms of aquiring new skills and moving up the ladder. This is the long term investment. It might sound like loosing a golden goose at a point in time, but it is a failsafe approach. It never hurts. 

Does Cloud has a Silver Lining ?

Which cloud are we Talking about ? Is it Cloud Computing ??  Is it another buzzword like dotcom. Why should you and I care about computing .......

Well yes !! We are talking about the cloud computing. Follow the news on technology and you'll see all the companies joining the bandwagon. Why ??

To give it a perspective, lets start with looking at what happened in past. When electricity started becoming popular in early 20th century, every nook and corner produced its own electricity. Very soon, Industry started realising the power of economy of scale and national electricity grids came into picture. Everything converged to a single point. Now Electricity generation is like using Cloud computing today. No more silo sources. 

On the contrary, Another big revolution that affected our lives to a great extent in 20th century, was transportation. Initial ships and rails were followed by cars and airplanes. Even though personal mode of transportation became more popular in US, the public transport became hit in European countries. With an analogous viewpoint, the Trains & Airplanes became the cloud of transportation whereas Cars and Motorbikes became individual computers & servers. Today, we see a wonderful hybrid model in transportation across the globe. Though, each mode of transport is always a competitor for the other mode of transport but they also are in co-opetition. 

In telecommunication, mobile phones were revolutionary. Their invention was not only a competitor to the existing landlines but also a major threat for making landline phone extinct. It took long time to realise that the society needs both of them and they are complementary to each other. Internet, which has changed the official and personal communication to a great extent in past two decades, is a major threat for other communication channels. So far, it has been very friendly and always augmenting the services of the other communication channels but we never know when it turns hostile. 

Similar to technologies discusses above, Cloud Computing definitely looks very promising but the concerns still loom for the effectiveness and usage of the cloud computing resources. More than cloud resources, it is bandwidth and connectivity issues which need to be addressed before getting ready for the cloud. It like building the highways and airports before getting ready to drive the cars and planes. 

On one hand where Microsoft has been consistent on maintaining its supremacy over desktop platform, Google is heavily betting on web platform. Google's latest release, Chrome, the fastest and most secure web browser is the foundation stone for ensuring success on the web platform and future web services. Its open source code will not only make it better but also lead to making the most popular web browser.  The increase widespread usage and popularity of web2.0 service is another good indication for the cloud computing landscape.

The cloud computing initiative which is being run by industry heavyweights like Google,Yahoo, Amazon, Microsoft, HP and IBM  has caught some attention by big consumers like GE and P&G, the big consumer of IT. The cloud initiative will change the landscape of current IT consulting industry. It is one of the biggest threats for the companies like Accenture, CSC and EDS. Their concerns are to adapt their current business model to the new evolving model with IT resources moving on to the cloud. 

Cloud will not only take away all the infrastructure redundancy but also lead to much more reliable and safer IT resources for the company. With hybrid model, cloud will take care of the peak time capabilities and also reduce the Total Cost of Ownership(TCO) of IT for the companies. The device and location independence of IT resources signifying the global nature of economy and usage will also help in resource utilization, more eco-friendly and efficient IT systems. What it won't take away or rather increase - would be the concerns of loosing control over company's sensitive data and security concerns. 

So is this silver lining at the cost of Golden lock on sensitive data ???