Everyone probably already knows the clear winner of last week’s US election, it was a resounding victory for analytics over “intuition” and “expertise.” New York Time blogger Nate Silver, who uses statistical models to analyze polling and economic data, correctly projected which candidate would win each of the fifty states (and District of Columbia). Conversely, not one expert (often referred to as pundit) came close to predictably as accurately, the election. Moreover, many missed by a huge margin while mocking Silver before the election. This is the second consecutive Presidential election where Silver was uncannily accurate (he predicted 49 states correctly in 2008), showing he was not just lucky. As you may have noticed, I have long been a fan of Silver’s and incorporated his RSS feed into this blog over a year ago.
Silver and Moneyball
What happened in the political arena mirrors the lessons from Michael Lewis’ Moneyball that I have written about several times (my original Moneyball post and my follow-on when the Oakland A’s made the playoffs). Continue reading “Moneyball, politics and social gaming”
The Business of Social Games and Casino 