Comments on: MSNBC.com debuts iPredict

By: discreet_chaos

discreet_chaos — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 02:14:56 +0000

I’m sure the whole thing is wonderful and Rex did his usual outstanding job, but I’ll have to fiddle with the thing later.

Instead, what’s prompting this comment were the headlines which came across my rss reader and which may have led back to the interface, but there really wasn’t a lot of explanation to go along with the underlying buttons.

“iPredict: Fred Thompson will win the GOP nomination”
“iPredict: Jefferson will not resign if not convicted”

Uh… No, duh….

By: Rex

Rex — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 20:11:40 +0000

Yep, it’s a poll, extended over time, prettied up, and given some user persistence (it remembers your votes, you can change your votes, etc.). That’s all it is.

Not to make hyperbolic comparisons, but the iPod is just a mp3 player. The entire goal of iPredict was to be simple. It *could* have been a massive futures market project, but will casual news users really invest in that? I happen to love futures markets, but this is intended to appeal to a lower-scale interaction model.

By: Tim Gold

Tim Gold — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 16:04:08 +0000

Yeah, I see a survey — just with a better display.

By: Chuck Madden

Chuck Madden — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 15:55:58 +0000

In other words, it’s a poll