This week at the O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference, Yahoo! Search’s director, Gary Flake, delighted the geek crowd with the announcement of a new Tech Buzz Game. It’s a fantasy prediction market for high-tech products, concepts, and trends. The competition is co-sponsored by O’Reilly Media and powered by News Futures. Prizes include Apple products, O’Reilly conference passes and publications vouchers and subscriptions, and (of course) the ubiquitous T-shirts. Play consists of buying and selling virtual stock in the products or technologies you think will win out in competitions (like Internet Explorer vs. Foxfire). Hint from RL (real life): don’t bet on your personal favorites! The game ends at 5:59:59 PM Eastern Time on July 29, 2005. The sooner you join in, the more “money” you can make. Again, as in real life, the more you make, the more you have with which to make more money.

Here’s how it works: When you register for the game, you will receive a fantasy account where you can manage your fantasy stock trades and holdings. Each entrant receives an initial $10,000 in fantasy dollars for a “Fantasy Portfolio” with which fantasy stock trades can be made. If the value of your Fantasy Portfolio drops below $1,000 at any time, you may request that your account be re-charged to $10,000 fantasy dollars, but recharging your account will count against the value of your Fantasy Portfolio for scoring. Read all the rules before you start playing.

Send your fantasy stock tips to Georganna at Writer’s Edge.