Imagine finally answering the question; is our collective social consciousness a better predictor of the actual outcome of future events than our own personal guesstimates? Well, imagine no more. Enter ZiiTrend - the Social Prediction Community, a site that endeavors to answer that question for us, and provide us with the collective social probabilities of the occurrence of certain events. Hat tip to Profy.com for bringing it to my attention via their blog.
Now, we can all imagine the power of such a tool in terms of aiding us with making better decisions ... it almost goes without saying. More people = more perspectives = better predictions (maybe?). So, lets look at this from a different perspective, and try to find the potential of such a tool from a marketing perspective. How can I (as a business owner) utilize this tool to help increase site traffic and/or sales and/or profitability?
Actually, there are a number of benefits, and in particular:
a) the link in your profile is DoFollow (yeah!)
b) the links in the 'Social News' section are DoFollow
c) its an opportunity for further social networking
d) when strategically done, you can generate some interest in your own site/blog or at the very least position yourself to be noticed by certain others.
Let me illustrate point d with an example in action. I think we'll all agree that ShoeMoney and John Chow are big names in our space. Many of you will also know that ShoeMoney and John Chow have a competition (see here and here) raging for the month of October; whoever gains the most RSS subscribers in the month, gets bragging rights and a link on the other's site (ShoeMoney ... its looks like John has a slight lead at the moment ... 502 vs 380 at the moment).
So, lets post the competition on ZiiTrends and see what happens. I know John Chow was asking for odds.
At the current time, the site hasn't reached the critical mass necessary for any statistically significant predictions, but its an interesting twist, and one I'm sure will gain momentum over time. Go see for yourself and cast your votes.