Bitcoin Forum

I've searched and found nothing similar or certainly not posted recently so I thought I'd share what I'm doing to help this thing.

1) Ask your favourite online retailers if they plan to accept Bitcoin. No need to go into a spiel - many may be considering it already but the volatility might be a negative factor. See this is a simple registering of interest.

2) Tell your friends about Bitcoin. Don't be preachy, don't be techy. Just link to a plain English, non-biased (yeah I know!) explanation of what Bitcoin is and what it has done recently. Perhaps drop in the caveats "What goes up.." Past performance is not an indicator..." etc.

3) Get a friend of family member to buy 1 BTC - damn this now reads like a pyramid scheme. Perhaps just ask, don't force. Now all my family know about it. Even my Mum asked "Where can I buy them?" <- Bears you may now reply using the word bubble or crash as you see fit.

My Bitcoin news posting on social networking mostly tends to fall on deaf ears but a couple of the more smart friends have asked me to explain more, which I have done. Perhaps in a year or two I will retroactively become their best friend ever when they come to cash in their pet Bitcoin :)

Anything else anyone would like to add?

Create new services that accepts bitcoin or/and include even donate bitcoin button on your blog or whatever page you have so people get used to it.

Of course, yes. I currently take payments by PayPal via PhotoShelter. Although I can't accept Bitcoin on THEIR system I can ask them if they'd like to consider taking Bitcoin. PP's 3% fees they've earned from me over the last decade would have sent me on a nice holiday...

I can mention to people who want to pay me that I accept Bitcoin or Paypal in that order perhaps?

Propagate the slogan: "Do Business In Bitcoin".

Right now, bitcoins are being used mostly as a store of value and a speculative commodity purchase. We need to get bitcoin flowing in and out of businesses and consumers' hands so they get spread around. The more people use them, the more different people will hear about and want to use them and the less the government will be able to control them.

In particular, B2B commerce should be encouraged to use bitcoin because of its ease and speed of transmission and extremely low fees. This would allow vendors to offer discounts to their commercial customers for paying in bitcoin because it saves them money and there's no payment float time. There is even an argument for deep discounting early payments based on the expected price rise of bitcoin.

Right now the currency exchanges are a choke point and will soon feel the stultifying hand of US government regulation and oversight.

So offer to pay in bitcoin and accept it from direct customers.

Tell your friends about BTC

Wordpress.org + WooCommerce plugin (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/woocommerce/) + Bitcoin Payments for WooCommerce (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/bitcoin-payments-for-woocommerce/) = your own free online store to sell digital and physical products and use bitcoin along with any other currency and any other payment processor.

If buying bitcoins didn't make their spot price increase, would you guys still be telling everyone about bitcoin?

Yes but the reasons would be in a different order.

This is great, thanks for the heads up. I've only just installed Wordpress on one of my sites for the first time and am looking to do away with the current Photoshelter/ Paypal set-up which takes a big chunk of each sale I make.

Done.
Done.
Cannot be done. I feel so sorry for everyone I "offered the red pill" to around me.
Done, but very much deaf ears, I cant even spark up a debate.
Offer goods or services for bitcoin, tell your employer that you wouldn't mind accepting part of your salary in bitcoin.

I'm working on this one right now :)

I work for myself so am in a great position to try the second suggestion. I know I'd send my accountant's brain into meltdown by suggesting I pay myself in Bitcoin.

It's going to have to be considered though!

I have posted ads on craigslist where I say that I take bitcoins as payment but have had no successful transactions.

I just posted ads saying I was interested in buying/selling btc on the craigslist of my town so maybe there will be some newfounders in that way..  ::)

By way of an update:

I now accept Bitcoin for my photography business http://tonycoleby.com (http://tonycoleby.com).

My company is a Bitpay approved merchant as of this morning.

I got 2 more people interested at a party on Saturday and one is reading up all the links I sent him today with a view to buying (be quick dammit!)

One friend on Facebook admits she hasn't a clue what Bitcoin is but all my posting on the subject helped her score 7/7 on the BBC magazine quiz of the week.

I keep posting nice charts everywhere.

Doing my bit :)

We are launching a massive PR campaign for Bitcoin to help spread the truth :)

https://bitcoinstarter.com/projects/31