trendaq

I did yet another presentation yesterday emphasising the importance of not sitting on your ideas waiting for them to be perfectly executable before you do something about them. (cf Ze Frank and braincrack.)

And now my bluff has been called.

A while ago I had, what I thought was quite a good idea. I called it trendaq. And I registered trendaq.com. Now someone's offered to buy trendaq.com off me and I'm not sure what to do. I really want my idea to happen but it's not something I can do on my own, and if it's not going to happen I may as well sell the domain. So I thought I'd stick the idea up here and see if anyone thinks it has any legs.

In a nutshell, it's a futures market for trend forecasters.

You'll all be aware of the value of predictive markets; the idea that lots of people placing bets on predictions about the future are really effective forecasting tools. Well, that seems to lend itself really well to the amorphous business of trend forecasting. That makes sense, right? But, more interestingly, I thought it might be a really good way of making some of these trend folk a little more accountable. So if you're claiming that 'pink is the new black' you can go to trendaq and back up that prediction with trendaq cash.

I can imagine it working it like this:

Someone (a trends person, a forecaster, a futurologist, whatever) speculates about some kind of trend and points to something measurable that will change as a result of that trend.

So, if they're forecasting that people are tired of online communities then they might use the diminishing rate of the creation of facebook and myspace accounts as a surrogate for their trend.

Or, if they're declaring that diverse musical fusion is the next big thing then they might point to downloads of tracks by Balkan Beat Box as your success indicator.

Or, for really quick things you might use tweetvolume, or google zeitgeist, or whatever.

I could even imagine that people who collect and distribute trend/attitude tracking data might want to get involved, they might want to volunteer their own data as the currency of predictions. This'd be a brilliant thing to do with TGI or Yankelovich data. Or media readership data.

And, then of course, other people could climb aboard and place bets on those trends, or against them.

So, at the end of that, you'd see:

1. who are the smart and effective trends people
2. what are the trends that 'the community' seems to believe in
3. whose data is useful for looking at and understanding trends

Does that make sense? Seem like a good idea? I think it's a good idea, but I have no idea how you'd do it. Is this something you could get off the shelf? Could I pay someone to do it? Would anyone like to invest?

And, of course, the big question - is someone already doing this?

UPDATE: In googling the word trendaq, I notice that I've already written about this. Aggh. And people have responded with some similar things. Oops. But nothing that's quite the same, so I still think there's something in it.

Comments

[Roop]

This is a brilliant idea. Do remember when I made certain forecast at the beginning of this year which actually turned out to be true. Am ready to volunteer.

It can become a great resource for corporations to dig into. Wish I had the money to invest.

[Rob @ Cynic]

SELL THE NAME, make some cash and know ...

1. This doesn't mean your idea [which I love by the way] can't happen ... it'll just be under a different name. [and if you can't come up with one, you need your backside slapping, ha!]

2. I/we will help you make it happen - infact I've been banging on about this issue recently so there is definitely a will there, ha.

[http://robcampbell.wordpress.com/2007/06/08/use-it-or-lose-it/]

[Ben]

Sell it.

Then at least we can all say we know someone who sold a url for a profit.

[Andrew Walkingshaw]

I'd love something like this. Seriously, prediction markets are fascinating (you read Sean Park at http://www.parkparadigm.com/ , yeah?).

The nearest thing to your idea's probably the Foresight Exchange at ideosphere.com, but it's way too nerdy to be successful in the kinda circles you move in, I reckon.

[Adam]

Still a fascinating idea.

My gut feeling is that the system would be easily 'gamed' so it's usefulness to business would be of secondary importance to people making money on bets. There would be no underlying asset (confirmed trend) backing the trades. Dunno, tricksy!

I commented on your original post linking to a speculative thefishcansing report (the previous link is/was dead).

Here's a lengthy copy and paste.

Mrs Smiths is head of Brand-Trend Intersecting at 625 Ltd, a company that specialises in Trend Marketing. Trend Marketing involves both monitoring social trends and helping brands get into line with them. Mrs Smiths’s job is to match the values of new trends with those of brands who subscribe to the service, and then explain to the brands’ trend alignment managers what they need to do.

When this practice was initiated ten years ago it would take months for brands to relaunch, but improved communications, transport and management structures mean that brands can now gain a competitive advantage by getting their new look and products out in a week. This is essential, because the big, slow six-month trends of the late 20th century have now been replaced by ‘mayfly’ trends – things that are popular for a day because of comms-waves caused, for example, by someone blogging it and everyone else linking to it. The importance of trends is now measured by how frequently they recur. Measuring the large, medium term and mayfly trends is so complex that only trained trend analysts like 625 can do it. And since all trends are potentially hip until they are appropriated by a brand, trend marketers are hugely important – only they know which trends recur too frequently and which are due to recur. That’s Mrs Smiths’s job – pretty important!

*What’s going on?*

Five years after the global ‘soft-riots’ by Microsoft staff protesting at the dehumanising aspects of ‘cubicle farms’, many companies have accepted the demand for individuated spaces. Each 625 employee can specify the environment in which she or he works best. That’s why there are offices decorated as bathrooms, treehouses, living rooms, car simulators and country streams. Mrs Smiths’s office is a café-bar in a hamlet in the Carpathians (see image, bottom left).

What sort of departments does a company like 625 have? Well, the usual. Trend Analysis, Mavens, Trend Alignment, Monitoring and Trace Eradication (getting rid of anything that might remind people of previous alignments).

Office maintenance is done by everyone on a rota basis. Some years ago psychologists identified Mason’s syndrome, a condition whose sufferers lost mental stability as a result of doing nothing other than interacting with screens and paper. Thanks to a Government initiative to revive and rethink the old concept of multi-tasking, your new office might be built by your colleague from Trend Alignment. One of the most successful ‘3D’ brand initiatives is the BBC water cooler (see image, centre). Not only does it run trailers for the coming evening’s viewing, it also dispenses water with various nutraceutical mixes to enhance mood and promote conversation. Like many companies, 625 uses only a number as its name, thus allowing customers to project their own image of the company. Naming companies is now seen as slow and hierarchical, and semirandom numbers – 625 was the 625th trend marketing company to be registered at Companies House – are preferred by forward thinkers.

Taken from...

Creativeworld: The Fish Can Sing's Guide to the New Creative Economy

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Creativeworld-Sings-Guide-Creative-Economy/dp/0955128005/ref=sr_1_4/026-4511432-7892426?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1176205173&sr=1-4

(Email me for a copy of the PDF)

There ARE some crowdsourced trends things happening but my lips are firmly zipped! (For now)

[Henri Weijo]

I think it's a fantastic idea and I would definitely use it myself.

If it becomes big enough, I guess it could mean that people who are in trend forecasting - or are looking to get into the field - would pretty much "have" to use to put their money where their mouth is (unless they're really big names).

You know it's a good idea when it works from a revenue standpoint but also seems like a useful service =)

[Jon Collins]

There's a basic principle here perhaps of reaping what is sown... sell the site, proffer the idea etc unless you're absolutely sure you're going to be able to do something with it yourself. Ideas have a half life, particularly if you sit on them.

[giles rhys jones]

fire, ready, aim and a nice little spread betting gig on the side

[Adam Atkinson]

Create it. Definitely. Get in touch with Paul Clarke who's the genius behind PopEx and other similar sites and see what he can do for you. It's the sort of thing that shouldn't require vast amounts of investment to get up and running.

[Tim]

Maybe you could use predictive markets to provide an answer by posing the question here:

http://inklingmarkets.com/

[Jim Dowling]

This is a great idea, but it's a shame. It'll take the sport out of stressing a trend specialist in a meeting by asking them, "so what have you actually predicted?"

It's no wonder they're first off the payroll when times get wobbly. Trendaq will be good news for them.

Launch it on July 1. I'll tell all my friends.

[hobart65]

I played the Yahoo Buzz game a couple of years ago which uses this principle, but was about technology trends:
http://buzz.research.yahoo.com
This was fun, and easily identified the real experts. The only flaw was that you couldn't enter new trends but could only trade with existing ones.

The yahoo site says it was powered by these people http://www.newsfutures.com who focus on this area of predictive markets. It might be worth talking to them.

[karim]

nice idea
don't sell it!
why not find a few people in different countries around the world who can take care of this
I can volunteer for Italy
let's all just think about how to do this...

[David MacGregor]

Russell, you haven't mentioned the sum involved. Not important, we don't need to know.

I am not so sure it's such a great name. But more importantly brands aren't their names - you know that.

Horrible neologisms made up of mis-spellings and phonetics are hardly going to be basis of an interesting conversation with your people.

Flog it - how many Adsense impressions will you need to make the equivalent amount of money?

[Charlotte]

Less blogging, more doing! Crack on