Google's Grand Central and Iowa Prediction Markets

Continuing the trend of two cool things...

1. Google's Grand Central is a new application offered by google. It's still in beta version (but hey, so is gmail) and requires an invite to join. It allows you to set up a local phone number in any U.S. location you choose. Then, people can call you on this number, and there are a million options you can set up. You can have that number forward to any phone(s) that you have. You can tell it to forward to a work phone from 9-5 and to a cell phone after 5pm. You build up a phonebook, and then you can tell it to do different things depending on who's calling. If it's your friend, you might have it forward to a cell phone, while a work person goes to your work phone, or a person you don't want to talk to goes straight to voicemail. The service comes with free voicemail - and you can record different emails for different phone groups - you can even personalize it for a specific number if you want. The voicemails are stored online in an email-like message inbox, and you receive an email anytime someone leaves a voicemail. Alright, there's tons more, but you can find it yourself by looking around the site. Let me know if you want an invite to join!

2. The Intrade prediction markets are a market-based system for predicting the presidential elections. They allow people to buy and trade shares representing the various presidential candidates, so buying shares for someone is like betting that they're going to win based on current information. It works like the stock market - people who are trading for a lot of money are doing better. It can be seen easily in graphical format, and reacts very quickly to real-time events. It's a cool, unique way to see what's going on in the presidential elections. A very similar prediction market is the Iowa Electronic Markets for Democrats and Republicans.