If you recall, I wrote a short post on Hubdub, the news prediction game. Nigel Eccles worked with three other people to create it, then later launched “PunditWatch,” keeping tabs on the predictions of journalists and pundits, and seeing if their predictions are correct. Simon Owens conducted a phone interview with Eccles recently on PunditWatch and on how the pundits are tracked. Eccles:

“So we decided that instead of inviting them on, let’s follow their predictions and record it on Pundit Watch. We did that through stealth for a month, and then at the end of the month we launched it and said, ‘Hey, we’ve been following your predictions, and here is your performance.’”

Read the full article at Bloggasm.

Hubdub is one of the most unique web ideas I’ve seen in awhile. If you’re into the news, or your conversations are usually about current events or the likes, Hubdub is a cool website you may like. Ranging from sports to entertainment to science to politics, Hubdub covers everything in a really cool way.

News stories with follow-ups that haven’t happened yet, found by users, are put in a poll-like fashion. For instance, “Who will be the next President of the US? or “Will Twitter go down during WWDC?“. You can choose your answer, and then bet virtual Hubdub dollars on your answer. If you’re correct, you gain a profit and it’s added to your “bank.”

Hubdub is free, you can sign up at Hubdub.com. I discovered Hubdub via a plurk by Ted Winder.

Google recently released a new section of themes for the iGoogle homepage: artist themes. Since I use iGoogle as my homepage, it was nice to see a lot of new themes to choose from. As Google says:

Now you can put the work of world-class artists and innovators on your personalized Google homepage.

They’re cool themes, and you can check them out here.