The Superbowl is in 17 hours, but many people reckon they already know who will win. The odds on betting site Betfair give the the Pittsburgh Steelers a 69 percent chance of winning versus the Arizona Cardinals. Both were seen as long shots at the beginning of the season, when the Steelers were given a 4 percent chance of winning the Super Bowl, and the Cardinals were only given a 1 percent chance. (See chart).

Betting markets like Betfair’s are a form of prediction market, so it looks like it is the Steeler’s game to lose. Then again, what do Brits know about American football? U.S. residents cannot legally bet on Betfair, which is based in London.

For what it is worth, the MVP favorites are: 33% Ben Roethlisberger (PIT), 18% Kurt Warner (ARI), 12% Willie Parker (PIT), 8% Larry Fitzgerald (ARI), 5% Troy Polamalu (PIT).

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Australian start-up VisualPin allows users to “geocode” their videos by adding a Google Map to each different location in a video, with the map appearing to the side of the video. Here’s one of the best examples on the site.

To be honest, I find the map somewhat distracting from watching the video but I reckon it could be useful when it comes to documenting travel, news or current events. The technology makes a virtual location table of contents, allowing the user to click on a marked location to find the corresponding video content.

This appears to be a variation of existing technology that embeds YouTube videos in Google Maps listings. Also Google Maps mashups became particularly useful for news media sites during the inauguration; CNN, Oprah.com and WashingtonPost.com all featured geocoded mashup videos from inaugural events in Washington D.C.

Perhaps NBC’s Today show could use this technology for its next Where in the World is Matt Lauer series.

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17.1% of all clickthroughs on web advertising are the result of click fraud – the act of clicking on a web ad to artificially increase its click-through rate – according to the latest report from Click Forensics, a company that specializes in monitoring and preventing internet crime. The level of clickfraud is the highest the company has seen since it started monitoring for it in 2006, dashing our hopes that it might hold steady in 2008. The company recorded a rate of 16.3% in Q1 2008.

Also alarming is the fact that over 30% of click fraud is now coming from automated bots – a 14% increase from last quarter and the highest rate Click Forensics has seen since it started collecting data. Click fraud for ads on content networks like Google AdSense and Yahoo Publisher Network was up to 28.2% from 27.1% last quarter, though that figure has decreased since Q4 2007, when it was at 28.3%. Outside of the US, Click Forensics reports that the most click fraud came from Canada (which contributed 7.4%), Germany (3%), and China (2.3%).

Click Forensics also notes that it has seen a reemergence with some ancient-hat tricks, like link farms. The company speculates that the increase may be tied to the poor economy, which has spurred a rise in activity like phishing and other cybercrime.

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This is only one data point. But at least the Wikipedia entry on TechCrunch doesn’t state that we sell corn and oat cereal, and it wasn’t written by someone whose bio simply reads “Troll“. Other than that, it’s pretty accurate.

So much for units of knowledge.

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Amazon has bought twelve year ancient Canadian company Abebooks (formerly the Advanced Book Exchange), the companies just announced. AbeBooks is an online marketplace for books focusing on used, rare and out of print titles for sale by independent booksellers – it currently has 110 million books for sale from 13,500 sellers.

The company has been around since 1996 and fills a niche for Amazon in hard-to-find or out-of-print books. Rather than hold its own inventory, it acts as a digital marketplace for established booksellers.

AbeBooks also owns 40 percent of LibraryThing (a social app for keeping track of your books and finding other like-minded book lovers). Whereas Amazon is an investor in Shelfari. Now Amazon will own a piece of both of those competing startups.

AbeBooks CEO Dr. Hannes Blum sent an email out to its booksellers today talking about the acquisition, saying the company would continue to operate as a stand-alone business. The email is below; the press release is here.

Dear Booksellers,

AbeBooks has reached an agreement to be bought by Amazon.com, Inc. This is a major landmark in the 12-year history of AbeBooks.

AbeBooks will continue to operate as a stand-alone business with all aspects of AbeBooks’ bookseller and customer experience remaining intact. AbeBooks’ headquarters will remain in Victoria, BC, Canada, and our European offices will remain in Dusseldorf, Germany. We will continue to support both our international marketplaces and our domestic marketplace here in Canada. I will continue to lead AbeBooks.

We expect this change to allow AbeBooks to expand its offerings and introduce new features and services to enhance the book buying and selling experience. Amazon is committed to further developing the AbeBooks brand and building upon the success of the past 12 years. This is not the first time AbeBooks has changed hands since being launched in 1996. Hubert Burda Media, a German media company, took a majority shareholding in 2003.

The bookselling community has been a vital component in our success, and we are grateful for your continuing support. We will be pleased to answer questions about our new ownership and what the future holds. A bookseller Roundtable will be held on Thursday August 7th at 2:30pm PDT/9:30pm GMT/7:30am AU where I and the Director of Sales & Account Management, Shaun Jamieson, will answer any questions you might have. In addition, the ‘Question AbeBooks a question’ folder will continue to be available for ongoing questions from the seller community.

We realize this is vital news for our community, and we are confident that this acquisition will greatly benefit AbeBooks’ sellers and provide us with many opportunities for future growth.

For more details please see the official release posted today.

Regards,

Dr. Hannes Blum
President and CEO
AbeBooks

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