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EXCERPT FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES
The Wisdom of Sales Trend Predictions
By BOB TEDESCHI
Published: September 17, 2007

INTERNET pundits make a spectacle of their annual predictions for online holiday sales. Now an Internet group is turning to a new approach to arrive at its forecast: just ask everybody.

The Sloan Center for Internet Retailing, part of the University of California, Riverside, will announce a new Web site tomorrow relying on so-called prediction markets to foretell online sales and other Internet-related trends, like the shopping sites most likely to survive, or the popularity of “World of Warcraft.” In doing so, the Sloan Center is adopting a method of online research that off-line companies have used widely in recent months, but one that is not in broad use to study Internet sales.

“It’s increasingly hard to get people to participate in research studies, but they’re very eager to participate in prediction markets,” said Thomas P. Novak, a director of the Sloan Center. “Consumers are actually coming to you, which seems to me what the Web is all about.”

The concept behind the Sloan Center’s initiative, and the trend in general, is known as competitive forecasting, where Web sites pit users against each other to determine who is the most prescient about a certain topic. Analysts said this method, publicized widely in “The Wisdom of Crowds,” the book by the New Yorker columnist James Surowiecki, yields more accurate results because participants care much more about their answers than in a typical phone survey.