But here's a tidbit about Google's internal tracking that's pretty interesting, and I haven't seen it mentioned before: Someone at Google wrote a market-based prediction system (think Iowa Electronic Market) and internal people can buy/sell on internal Google milestones.

Here's the Google blog talking about their market-based prediction system...

Questions like Will Orkut have more than 1M users by June 30? can be tracked. In theory, if enough Google employees place their virtual money where their mouths are, the answers could be better than the product manager's powerpoint.

I don't know if that tool gets much use anymore, or if it's any good at predicting outcomes, but it's an interesting approach for a medium to large size company. I wonder how many other companies use anything similar?

Update: Reader Mike Linksvayer commented with a brilliant reference page to companies who are experimenting with prediction markets. Looking at the names, one thing comes to mind, however: Short 'em all and let god sort it out... ah, it's late...

¶ 6/12/2006