After a few months of reduced development on the site, some new features and improvements have been implemented during the last month:

• Subscribe to markets
  A digest notification message is send to users periodically containing information on developments in markets to which the user subscribed. Subscription to a market is independent from making predictions.
• Short selling
  Expert mode users may bet against options. Players are able to predict that a certain outcome may not occur in their opinion, without the need to buy stakes on each of the other options.
• Track your invitations to Knew The News
  Whenever you send an invitation, you are now able to track the invitations state, and eventually resend the invitation.
• Improvements on market details
  Knew The News tracks the number of visits on a market page, and now allows more suitable news stories related to the market topic to be displayed on the page.

Right now, the GOP primaries are a hot topic in US politics. Follow the candidate nomination on Knew The News:
http://www.knewthenews.com/Tag/GOP

Coming up: The 2012 Formula 1 season. Will Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull) be able to win again?
http://www.knewthenews.com/Tag/formula+1

March Madness: NCAA Basketball will freak out!
http://www.knewthenews.com/Tag/ncaab

Long term: UEFA Soccer European Championship:
http://www.knewthenews.com/Tag/euro+2012

During the last several months, I have been busy relocating. As you may see, this is a very time consuming matter. Nevertheless, most of you may not even have noticed that I’ve been around less once in a while – which is a good thing! As you know, Knew The News aims to be self-organizing, and this goal appears to be met yet. In case you’d like to know: I’ve moved from Switzerland back to Germany, back to the city where I’ve lived before I went to Switzerland.

Time to introduce me to anyone who has joined the site recently. My name is Stijn (that’s dutch), I am the founder, owner and developer of the Knew The News site. You may know me already from the site: I am the user “kruijs” there.

First of all, I would like to thank you for joining the site and I hope you’re doing fine so far. I assume you already had the opportunity to make yourself familiar with how the site works to some extend but if not, please don’t hesitate to contact me using the contact page of the website (or post a shout on my profile page).

The website has been publicly available for a little more than one year now and I’ve been experiencing huge members efforts and contributions throughout the last year. Many people provided great feedback previously, but I think it would be appropriate to ask you directly for some thoughts.

Feedback from the users is something I highly appreciate. It’s the most valuable input I can get, and it allows me to directly address any problems or wishes from the users.

Therefor: Anyone who responds to this request with any kind of reasonable info will be awarded 1,000 virtual bucks on Knew The News.

Please take a minute to answer some or all of the following questions by sending me an email:

- What do you think about Knew The News, in general?
- To what extend do you think you understand the purpose and the functionality of the site?
- Have you noticed any problems while using the website? If so: What kind of problems?
- What functionality or features do you miss most on the site? What could be better?
- Is there anything else you’d like to let me know?

Thank you very much for participating,
Enjoy predicting!

As the year nears its end, it’s time to chose the most outstanding market of the last twelve months. Every member may propose markets in a public poll held in the forums section of Knew The News, and every member is invited to vote proposed markets up or down. On January first, we will know which market is considered Market Of The Year 2011.

Cast you votes here:
Market Of The Year 2011 Vote

During twelve months since go-live of the news prediction site Knew The News, the website reached a fully functional, reliable state – based on players’ efforts.

Based on massive input from the players community both on the mathematical part, which implement the market mechanisms used by the site, as well as the overall user experience, interface and appearance, the website could be improved drastically during the first months, and be stabilized during the last quarter of this year.

It is safe to say that Knew The News is no longer considered a Beta phase product and as the first anniversary of the website is celebrated, the occasion is used to reflect the stage of development by removing the word “Beta” from the site’s logo.

Knew The News is based on user contributions both in form of site content as well as efforts in regard to game administration. Experience shows that Knew The News runs well on this concept and will not change its in the future.

The game will also remain completely free. To cover hosting costs, donations are accepted though, and will be honored free Knew The News stickers. Players are encouraged to contribute on the site through repeated monthly actions and rewarded for their efforts in the form of special gifts, like Knew The News branded mugs.

Knew The News, the news prediction game site. Players trade virtual money on future events to compete with fellow players on several leadboards representing their individual expertise on topics such as politics, sports, business, entertainment, science and technology. Founded in 2010, the free online game is largely self-organizing: Both the site content, as well as the game mechanisms and rules are part of the community efforts, making Knew The News a unique prediction website.Online news prediction site “Knew The News” is the first to rely on the collective intelligence of its users to run and further develop the website. By doing so Knew The News goes beyond what similar websites offer. Each player is not only responsible for the questions that he or she creates, but ultimately for the entire website itself. The success of the website is a result of the collective intelligence of the players on the site.

On december 1st, Knew The News is online in Beta for one year. We will celebrate this day on Knew The News with extra decoration, extra presents for the visitors, and cake. Lots of cake.
Be sure to register to the event, so you will not miss it on facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/events/244929212234671/

Within the first year of existence, Knew The News has experienced tons of volontary support from its members. Without this, the site would not have been what it is right now.

Special thanks to (no particular order): growthy, Hendrik Annink, gotmick, kenneth1, uspais, hfl13, zvassil, bernardo, Elli, Theory, PitchedOutsideLeg, Orlin, charlesf, NormalPride, Kentoine Johnson. Big hugs for your extraordinairy efforts!