Facebook wants you to predict the future

Will the price of gold exceed $2000 per ounce in 2020? Which candidate will win the presidential general election in Texas? Will the NFL begin its regular season on schedule? It’s tough to predict the future, but it seems that Facebook is aiming at just that with its new Forecast app. It’s a community for crowdsourced prediction, which is kinda interesting, actually.

Forecast is a brainchild of the Facebook NPE team (NPE stands for “new product experimentation,”) and is in an invite-only beta phase at the moment. Apparently, users will be able to ask questions and make predictions about hot topics with points they earn in the app.

“Forecast is a place to ask questions and use in-app points to make predictions about the future. All questions are submitted by the community and then moderated for clarity, using Forecast’s moderation guidelines and Facebook’s Community Standards.”

The pilot topic of this experiment is COVID-19. Facebook will invite people in the health, research, and academic communities to make predictions about the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the world. If you want to join the project and participate in this clairvoyance of sorts, you need to request access to Forecast Beta Testers Facebook group, download the app on iOS, and wait for an invitation. Meanwhile, you can check how predictions are shaping up at Forecast’s official website.

Source: Phonearena