Will Twitter survive Elon Musk? Readers are Googling this question and reporters and columnists are working hard to provide an answer. But journalists are neglecting one of the most promising sources for answering it: prediction markets and forecasting platforms.
Prediction markets have been around in one form or another for decades and have already made inroads into journalism during elections. 2023 will be the year they become a source for other types of stories, simply because there’s now too much activity in the crowd forecasting world to ignore. For almost any question you can think of, there are online crowds making predictions. And if journalists do think of a question that isn’t yet being forecasted, there are platforms where they can pose it themselves.
For example, here are a few forecasts available as of this writing that speak to Twitter’s future:
These figures are aggregations of lots of individual amateur predictions. Why trust them?
First, the theory: as the economists Justin Wolfers and Eric Zitzewitz explain, prediction markets work because they provide: “1) incentives to seek information; 2) incentives for truthful information revelation; and 3) an algorithm for aggregating diverse opinions.”
They also have a strong track record. Research has shown that prediction markets predict election results better than Gallup polls, for example. They’ve accurately predicted movies’ box office performances, matched the accuracy of professional economic forecasters, and even done a better job than analysts or oil markets in predicting the U.S. invasion of Iraq. (“Prediction polls,” which also ask participants to make forecasts but don’t use a market, have a similarly strong track record.)
Prediction markets aren’t perfect. They’re only as good as the wisdom of their participants and the information those participants have access to. And, like any market, they can be vulnerable to manipulation without oversight.
Nonetheless, they’re a valuable tool for journalists and a complement to other sources. Reporters can use them the way financial journalists use other markets: They can be a source of news as well as one source among many explaining what’s going on.
The Economist has shown what this can look like by asking seasoned forecasters at Good Judgment Inc. to make predictions for its annual “The World Ahead” edition. The issue still includes the magazine’s traditional reporting as well as forecasts from the Economist Intelligence Unit, the company’s research arm, and predictions from big names in politics and business. The inclusion of Good Judgment’s “superforecasters” — who were selected based on their accuracy forecasting on open platforms — is an addition, not a substitute for traditional journalistic sources.
“The bigger picture here is that data-driven approaches are becoming popular in all kinds of journalism, and predictive/forward-looking journalism should follow suit,” said Tom Standage, a deputy editor at The Economist who edits The World Ahead. “That is why we partner with Good Judgment, and also why The Economist builds its own predictive models for elections, and why we often cite prediction markets too.”
Here’s a quick tour of the crowd forecasting landscape:
The big difference between these platforms and a publication like FiveThirtyEight, which also makes predictions and also has a strong track record, is that they depend on the collective judgment of their users rather than on statistical modeling. That allows them to make forecasts on topics where there’s less data — like the fate of Twitter.
Citing these platforms in stories is a good first step for journalists. The next step is for publications to ask their readers to participate. That’s what I’ve been doing with my newsletter: Each week I write about an economic or business story and ask readers to make a forecast. Over time readers see how their forecasts turn out, learn from each other, and hopefully improve their thinking. This process formalizes something most journalists already recognize: Your audience collectively knows much more than you do.
Walter Frick is the founder of Nonrival and a contributing editor at Harvard Business Review. He was previously an executive editor at Quartz and a Knight visiting fellow at the Nieman Foundation.
Will Twitter survive Elon Musk? Readers are Googling this question and reporters and columnists are working hard to provide an answer. But journalists are neglecting one of the most promising sources for answering it: prediction markets and forecasting platforms.
Prediction markets have been around in one form or another for decades and have already made inroads into journalism during elections. 2023 will be the year they become a source for other types of stories, simply because there’s now too much activity in the crowd forecasting world to ignore. For almost any question you can think of, there are online crowds making predictions. And if journalists do think of a question that isn’t yet being forecasted, there are platforms where they can pose it themselves.
For example, here are a few forecasts available as of this writing that speak to Twitter’s future:
These figures are aggregations of lots of individual amateur predictions. Why trust them?
First, the theory: as the economists Justin Wolfers and Eric Zitzewitz explain, prediction markets work because they provide: “1) incentives to seek information; 2) incentives for truthful information revelation; and 3) an algorithm for aggregating diverse opinions.”
They also have a strong track record. Research has shown that prediction markets predict election results better than Gallup polls, for example. They’ve accurately predicted movies’ box office performances, matched the accuracy of professional economic forecasters, and even done a better job than analysts or oil markets in predicting the U.S. invasion of Iraq. (“Prediction polls,” which also ask participants to make forecasts but don’t use a market, have a similarly strong track record.)
Prediction markets aren’t perfect. They’re only as good as the wisdom of their participants and the information those participants have access to. And, like any market, they can be vulnerable to manipulation without oversight.
Nonetheless, they’re a valuable tool for journalists and a complement to other sources. Reporters can use them the way financial journalists use other markets: They can be a source of news as well as one source among many explaining what’s going on.
The Economist has shown what this can look like by asking seasoned forecasters at Good Judgment Inc. to make predictions for its annual “The World Ahead” edition. The issue still includes the magazine’s traditional reporting as well as forecasts from the Economist Intelligence Unit, the company’s research arm, and predictions from big names in politics and business. The inclusion of Good Judgment’s “superforecasters” — who were selected based on their accuracy forecasting on open platforms — is an addition, not a substitute for traditional journalistic sources.
“The bigger picture here is that data-driven approaches are becoming popular in all kinds of journalism, and predictive/forward-looking journalism should follow suit,” said Tom Standage, a deputy editor at The Economist who edits The World Ahead. “That is why we partner with Good Judgment, and also why The Economist builds its own predictive models for elections, and why we often cite prediction markets too.”
Here’s a quick tour of the crowd forecasting landscape:
The big difference between these platforms and a publication like FiveThirtyEight, which also makes predictions and also has a strong track record, is that they depend on the collective judgment of their users rather than on statistical modeling. That allows them to make forecasts on topics where there’s less data — like the fate of Twitter.
Citing these platforms in stories is a good first step for journalists. The next step is for publications to ask their readers to participate. That’s what I’ve been doing with my newsletter: Each week I write about an economic or business story and ask readers to make a forecast. Over time readers see how their forecasts turn out, learn from each other, and hopefully improve their thinking. This process formalizes something most journalists already recognize: Your audience collectively knows much more than you do.
Walter Frick is the founder of Nonrival and a contributing editor at Harvard Business Review. He was previously an executive editor at Quartz and a Knight visiting fellow at the Nieman Foundation.
Jacob L. Nelson Despite it all, people will still want to be journalists
J. Siguru Wahutu American journalism reckons with its colonialist tendencies
Peter Sterne AI enters the newsroom
Rodney Gibbs Recalibrating how we work apart
Basile Simon Towards supporting criminal accountability
Anita Varma Journalism prioritizes the basic need for survival
Josh Schwartz The AI spammers are coming
Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau More of the same
Alex Sujong Laughlin Credit where it’s due
Ryan Kellett Airline-like loyalty programs try to tie down news readers
Jakob Moll Journalism startups will think beyond English
Ståle Grut Your newsroom experiences a Midjourney-gate, too
Amy Schmitz Weiss Journalism education faces a crossroads
Nicholas Diakopoulos Journalists productively harness generative AI tools
Pia Frey Publishers start polling their users at scale
Cassandra Etienne Local news fellowships will help fight newsroom inequities
Sarabeth Berman Nonprofit local news shows that it can scale
Sam Gregory Synthetic media forces us to understand how media gets made
Raney Aronson-Rath Journalists will band together to fight intimidation
Shanté Cosme The answer to “quiet quitting” is radical empathy
Sarah Stonbely Growth in public funding for news and information at the state and local levels
Alex Perry New paths to transparency without Twitter
Mauricio Cabrera It’s no longer about audiences, it’s about communities
Dannagal G. Young Stop rewarding elite performances of identity threat
Megan Lucero and Shirish Kulkarni The future of journalism is not you
Cindy Royal Yes, journalists should learn to code, but…
Ben Werdmuller The internet is up for grabs again
Matt Rasnic More newsroom workers turn to organized labor
Johannes Klingebiel The innovation team, R.I.P.
Tre'vell Anderson Continued culpability in anti-trans campaigns
Paul Cheung More news organizations will realize they are in the business of impact, not eyeballs
Eric Nuzum A focus on people instead of power
Cari Nazeer and Emily Goligoski News organizations step up their support for caregivers
Walter Frick Journalists wake up to the power of prediction markets
Masuma Ahuja Journalism starts working for and with its communities
An Xiao Mina Journalism in a time of permacrisis
Victor Pickard The year journalism and capitalism finally divorce
Amethyst J. Davis The slight of the great contraction
Kaitlyn Wells We’ll prioritize media literacy for children
Taylor Lorenz The “creator economy” will be astroturfed
Mael Vallejo More threats to press freedom across the Americas
Emily Nonko Incarcerated reporters get more bylines
Delano Massey The industry shakes its imposter syndrome
Sam Guzik AI will start fact-checking. We may not like the results.
Felicitas Carrique and Becca Aaronson News product goes from trend to standard
Gabe Schneider Well-funded journalism leaders stop making disparate pay
Jenna Weiss-Berman The economic downturn benefits the podcasting industry. (No, really!)
Karina Montoya More reporters on the antitrust beat
Tim Carmody Newsletter writers need a new ethics
Jim VandeHei There is no “peak newsletter”
Mario García More newsrooms go mobile-first
Errin Haines Journalists on the campaign trail mend trust with the public
Ariel Zirulnick Journalism doubles down on user needs
Peter Bale Rising costs force more digital innovation
Sarah Alvarez Dream bigger or lose out
Alexandra Borchardt The year of the climate journalism strategy
Simon Galperin Philanthropy stops investing in corporate media
Nicholas Jackson There will be launches — and we’ll keep doing the work
Andrew Losowsky Journalism realizes the replacement for Twitter is not a new Twitter
Jessica Clark Open discourse retrenches
Parker Molloy We’ll reach new heights of moral panic
Jaden Amos TikTok personality journalists continue to rise
Cory Bergman The AI content flood
Juleyka Lantigua Newsrooms recognize women of color as the canaries in the coal mine
Alexandra Svokos Working harder to reach audiences where they are
Hillary Frey Death to the labor-intensive memo for prospective hires
Ryan Gantz “I’m sorry, but I’m a large language model”
Khushbu Shah Global reporting will suffer
Zizi Papacharissi Platforms are over
Michael Schudson Journalism gets more and more difficult
Ayala Panievsky It’s time for PR for journalism
Tamar Charney Flux is the new stability
Jennifer Brandel AI couldn’t care less. Journalists will care more.
Mariana Moura Santos A woman who speaks is a woman who changes the world
David Skok Renewed interest in human-powered reporting
Jonas Kaiser Rejecting the “free speech” frame
Don Day The news about the news is bad. I’m optimistic.
Leezel Tanglao Community partnerships drive better reporting
Joni Deutsch Podcast collaboration — not competition — breeds excellence
Janet Haven ChatGPT and the future of trust
Andrew Donohue We’ll find out whether journalism can, indeed, save democracy
Priyanjana Bengani Partisan local news networks will collaborate
Wilson Liévano Diaspora journalism takes the next step
Nicholas Thompson The year AI actually changes the media business
Danielle K. Brown and Kathleen Searles DEI efforts must consider mental health and online abuse
Laura E. Davis The year we embrace the robots — and ourselves
Christina Shih Shared values move from nice-to-haves to essentials
Snigdha Sur Newsrooms get nimble in a recession
Rachel Glickhouse Humanizing newsrooms will be a badge of honor
Al Lucca Digital news design gets interesting again
Gordon Crovitz The year advertisers stop funding misinformation
Kaitlin C. Miller Harassment in journalism won’t get better, but we’ll talk about it more openly
Francesco Zaffarano There is no end of “social media”
Laxmi Parthasarathy Unlocking the silent demand for international journalism
Sue Cross Thinking and acting collectively to save the news
Michael W. Wagner The backlash against pro-democracy reporting is coming
Stefanie Murray The year U.S. media stops screwing around and becomes pro-democracy
Eric Holthaus As social media fragments, marginalized voices gain more power
Joanne McNeil Facebook and the media kiss and make up
A.J. Bauer Covering the right wrong
Elite Truong In platform collapse, an opportunity for community
Barbara Raab More journalism funders will take more risks
Molly de Aguiar and Mandy Van Deven Narrative change trend brings new money to journalism
Christoph Mergerson The rot at the core of the news business
Jessica Maddox Journalists keep getting manipulated by internet culture
Bill Grueskin Local news will come to rely on AI
Burt Herman The year AI truly arrives — and with it the reckoning
Lisa Heyamoto The independent news industry gets a roadmap to sustainability
Sarah Marshall A web channel strategy won’t be enough
Ryan Nave Citizen journalism, but make it equitable
Brian Stelter Finding new ways to reach news avoiders
Julia Beizer News fatigue shows us a clear path forward
Jarrad Henderson Video editing will help people understand the media they consume
Moreno Cruz Osório Brazilian journalism turns wounds into action
Upasna Gautam Technology that performs at the speed of news
Kerri Hoffman Podcasting goes local
Jennifer Choi and Jonathan Jackson Funders finally bet on next-generation news entrepreneurs
Nikki Usher This is the year of the RSS reader. (Really!)
Joe Amditis AI throws a lifeline to local publishers
Kavya Sukumar Belling the cat: The rise of independent fact-checking at scale
Anika Anand Independent news businesses lead the way on healthy work cultures
Richard Tofel The press might get better at vetting presidential candidates
Bill Adair The year of the fact-check (no, really!)
Doris Truong Workers demand to be paid what the job is worth
Anthony Nadler Confronting media gerrymandering
Mary Walter-Brown and Tristan Loper Mission-driven metrics become our North Star
Surya Mattu Data journalists learn from photojournalists
David Cohn AI made this prediction
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Well-being will become a core tenet of journalism
Mar Cabra The inevitable mental health revolution
Alan Henry A reckoning with why trust in news is so low
Dominic-Madori Davis Everyone finally realizes the need for diverse voices in tech reporting
Esther Kezia Thorpe Subscription pressures force product innovation
Kirstin McCudden We’ll codify protection of journalism and newsgathering
S. Mitra Kalita “Everything sucks. Good luck to you.”
Sue Robinson Engagement journalism will have to confront a tougher reality
Eric Thurm Journalists think of themselves as workers
Eric Ulken Generative AI brings wrongness at scale
Joshua P. Darr Local to live, wire to wither
Sue Schardt Toward a new poetics of journalism
Jesse Holcomb Buffeted, whipped, bullied, pulled
Daniel Trielli Trust in news will continue to fall. Just look at Brazil.
Gina Chua The traditional story structure gets deconstructed
Martina Efeyini Talk to Gen Z. They’re the experts of Gen Z.
Dana Lacey Tech will screw publishers over
Emma Carew Grovum The year to resist forgetting about diversity
Brian Moritz Rebuilding the news bundle
Anna Nirmala News organizations get new structures
Julia Angwin Democracies will get serious about saving journalism
Kathy Lu We need emotionally agile newsroom leaders
Janelle Salanga Journalists work from a place of harm reduction
John Davidow A year of intergenerational learning
Larry Ryckman We’ll work together with our competitors
Sumi Aggarwal Smart newsrooms will prioritize board development
Susan Chira Equipping local journalism
Jim Friedlich Local journalism steps up to the challenge of civic coverage