Last night, we saw history in the making as Barack Obama won the race for the White House and became the first African-American person to become President of the United States, after a long and arduous campaign that the NYT calls "near-flawless".
Although consistent hard work, strong organizational skills and an uncanny ability to stay cool under pressure, all played a big part in his win, I suspect that one of the core qualities that brought him so far so fast is his ability to bridge differences and to bring people together, even over heavily-divisive issues. [e.g. check out these articles from Slate magazine, about his work at the Harvard Law Review and his position on abortion. ]
Enough politics! Let's get to technology - well, the technology of politics, at any rate. Specifically, about applying the Wisdom of Crowds, with all the attendant risks, to predict the outcome of the Presidential race.
Professor Sam Wang of Princeton has been tracking WoC data to do just that. Although I don't understand the mathematics of it, his final predictions were very good - check it out!
Other prediction markets also correctly forecast Obama as the eventual winner.
Oh, and good news for Twitter fans - the service stayed up, even as it got backlogged, during record-breaking activity on its site on election night.
Let me end with this elegant quote from President-elect Obama's acceptance speech: "America is a place where all things are possible".
It great news that Obama is new president of white America,and important is that surveys and predictions are really accurate.
Posted by: junaid | November 19, 2008 at 10:20 AM