Thursday, September 14, 2006

Can a Game Make You Rich?

I hope so. Today's mail brought word about Motley Fool Caps, a game that gets smarter about stocks as more people play it.

How does it work? You get yourself a free account and pick a stock. Predict what direction the stock's price is going and when. Your prediction is stored away and evaluated on an ongoing basis. The system shows players a summary of everyone's predictions, and each player is rated based on how prescient they are. As time goes on, players whose predictions are more accurate get higher ratings and their predictions are weighted more heavily.

So... over time, the system will show you the consensus of the best stock pickers, thus pointing the way for you to invest better.

It will be interesting to watch this. Will it turn into a vehicle for the bandwagon effect where lemmings run even faster towards the cliff? What complex behavior will emerge from this fairly simple game?

I'm getting an account. See you in Tahiti.

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