Kathleen Pender writes about Hedgestreet in today’s San Francisco Chronicle:

It’s not practical yet, but if and when it reaches critical mass, consumers could use it to hedge their financial risks the same way companies use the futures markets to protect themselves against adverse price swings.
…
Because of their short maturities, Hedgelets are not yet useful for making long-term bets on housing. As volume grows, HedgeStreet plans to add more cities and longer-dated contracts.

Why not offer useful hedgelets first and as volume grows experiment with less practical contracts (if at all)? Perhaps HedgeStreet considers itself in beta and wants to avoid taking off until the appointed time. Seems crazy to me.

Another crazy thing: making your product unlinkable.