Yahoo's new currency--the Yootle
![zd-defaultauthor-dan-farber.jpg](https://www.zdnet.com/a/img/resize/7a46472de14e7cdb67d372a5c496156ef36d0759/2014/12/04/24ebf345-7b65-11e4-9a74-d4ae52e95e57/zd-defaultauthor-dan-farber.jpg?auto=webp&fit=crop&frame=1&height=192&width=192)
David Pennock of Yahoo Research gave a presentation at the company's headquarters as part of an evening “confab” with a number of experts in the prediction market field. As part of a virtual environment called Yootopia, Pennock said the Yahoo has created a currency, called the "Yootle," for prediction markets or for buying favors from other people on the network. A Yootle research paper, "Group Decision Making with Yootles," complete with proof theorems, describes the currency as follows:
Yootles, just like with government currency, work because of mutual agreement. And just like with any currency, the whole economy is nothing but a score keeping system for favors owed. Participants simply owe or are owed yootles. All yootles transactions, debts, and balances are tracked in a ledger system.
"You can use it to make group decisions," Pennock said. "We try to make it as easy as possible for users with a Web interface, email and an SMS interface. You can bid on where to go for dinner, and friends bid and then we run a decision auction that figures out where to go to dinner and the payments. You get compensated if you don't get the restaurant you want."
![yootel.jpg](https://www.zdnet.com/a/img/2014/10/04/5a65e1e5-4bcc-11e4-b6a0-d4ae52e95e57/yootel.jpg)
Pennock said that Yahoo Research is working on an entire Yootle economy with prediction markets inside, as well as other forms of auctions, group decision-making and friendly wagers. It's not hard to imagine Yootles and group decision making mechanisms baked into the Yahoo's virtual social network further down the road. When you have half a billion connected users as Yahoo does, making friendly wagers can be a compelling social application.