Homework assignment

29

October

2013

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I think one of the most important aspects of prediction markets is to guarantee that the outcomes are not manipulated, therefore my examples deal with solutions to stop prediction market manipulation.

The first example mention the solution that when prediction markets have the idea that there is some manipulation going on, future voters will be warned with a pop-up. How prediction markets investigates a manipulation is by monitoring the odds of similar overseas uncapped markets and search for some big differences in a short period of time. The strength of this solution is that people probably won’t see the manipulated odds as a real reflection of reality and therefore avoids the self-fulfilling prophecy where cheaters make use of.

The other solution which is brought up, is the fact that users of prediction markets can bet only a limited amount of money, but this solution doesn’t deal with the fact that big organizations can combine bets from individual users. 

To conclude it is hard to control and monitor prediction markets for manipulation and I think cheaters will always find new ways to manipulate, but there will be more tools in the future to monitor manipulation.

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Classes on youtube

2

October

2013

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http://jeugdjournaal.nl/item/464920-les-via-youtube.html

The link shows a video of a teacher who uses youtube as a platform to put on explanations of for example difficult math sums. The teacher in the video has his own internet page for the videos. The video is in Dutch, but I will explain the principle of the new methode of education.

In this case the school is a secondary school. All the students use their laptopts during a class and they can find clear explanations of theories and sums on youtube or the personal internet page of the teacher. For instance, the teacher explains in his video how to use several counting methods for mathematics or how to correctly use the present simple for English. A big advantage of this methode is that teachers only have to explain the course materials once and can in class give the students more personal attention.

I think their must be one central youtube channel or any other internet page where teachers or even students can post videos of explanations of any kind of course related material. The channel can be central because secondary school students follow many equal courses. Of course their must be some kind of control over the youtube channel, so it wil be protected from spam etcetera.

One disadvantage of this lesson methode is I think, that students will be distracted and pay less attention when the teacher wants to explain someting in class (because of the use of laptops).

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Ajax tickets market

25

September

2013

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Ajax (the professional football club from the Netherlands) found an efficient way to get the stadium every home game as full as possible. As a supporter you are able to purchase a season ticket, this is a ticket to visit every home game in the Dutch football league. Research has shown that not everyone with such a season ticket actually visits every home game, this may be due to several reasons. Because of this, the football club misses income, the supporters who have not come to the stadium are not able to buy for example drinks and snacks and of course the atmosphere in the stadium is less when it is not full.

Ajax has come up with an inventive idea to solve this problem and I have not seen this before by other Dutch football clubs before. The idea is that supporters who have a season ticket and are not able to make it to the stadium for some reason at a matchday, can offer their season ticket on the Ajax tickets market. Other Ajax supporters can in this way borrow these season tickets and borrow the seats that are bound to the tickets for a good price (of course you don’t actually have to lend your season ticket to the other supporter, because the other supporter gets an e-ticket). When the season ticket is sold at the tickets market the season ticket holder receives money back.

By this solution there are three happy parties. The season ticket holders receive money back, the other supporters have an extra opportunity to go to a match (when there are no tickets left for a home game there is a possibility that there are still empy seats in the stadium, because of the season ticket holders who for one time do not come to the stadium) and the football club theirself have extra income.

Unfortunately this part of the website is not in English, but here is the link.

http://www.ajax.nl/Tickets-Support/Ajax-Kaartenmarkt.htm  

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iTailor, create your own suits

25

September

2013

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To continue on today’s lecture where we discussed about making your own products, I’d like to mention a very interesting site to create your own suits, shirts, ties and shoes. The site is very user friendly, so it is easy to create, the price of creating your own clothing is very low (for example to create your own shirt you pay only 19,95 euro) and iTailor delivers worldwide. Some of my friends and me created shirts ourselves and we were very satisfied with the result and the quality of the clothing.

I think letting the consumers make their own choices in the way of creating their own suits, is a good mode to attract consumers. People want to feel special and in this case they are kind of the producers. For iTailor there are also some benefits, the consumers are in almost all the cases happy with their products, because they make it theirselves and iTailor can learn a lot from their consumers. For example what is the most popular color for ties and what kind of buttons do people like the most.

The next video illustrates how easy it is to create your own shirt.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60j-ErwS5Fw&list=TL2NAsmfzBqsYwuZGE-GwvI0E-ATwxO22S&feature=player_detailpage

www.itailor.nl

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