How about some context to go along with the pictures. I hardly know anybody in the photos or their story.

That's great to hear. Thanks Dario.

By the way, please also add counterparty coin XCP to your list of altcoins.

@Spartacuss: I'm going to assume you're part of the Gems dev team, and reply accordingly.

I run a small community news website in India. It's the only one in the community, so as a consequence I have a considerably large and dedicated audience/readership for it. However, most of my audience, about three quarters of it, can only access the internet on their phones. And most of them have small data plans with slow internet connections. As a result, most of the mobile users limit their use of the internet to social media, which here essentially means facebook and WhatsApp (twitter is a distant third). This fact about my audience has forced me to practically abandon my website, and turn my site's facebook page into the main site. I mean, there is no point in updating the website if nobody's gonna visit it, right?

[On a side note; most of them also don't have bank accounts, which is one major reason I feel bitcoin has a bright future in India. Once it catches on, it will spread like wildfire, I'm sure of it; presuming the government doesn't make it illegal or something.]

Now, any revenue model you can think of, like advertising or paid-membership, can only be implemented on a website. I am not aware of any model you can implement on a facebook page. I can't advertise on my page, facebook doesn't allow it; nor can I put up a paywall on it. So right now I have no way to make money off my work.

But now imagine, if there were a social networking platform, available on a mobile phone, which lets news providers like myself, or any kind of information provider for that matter, charge subscribers for receiving messages, then this problem of mine will be solved. And I feel Gems could be that social networking platform that I've been waiting for. 

By the way, do not think my situation is a special one. I'd like to quote a news article on the subject of internet users in India. According to this article: "70% of internet page views in India originate from mobile devices, while 87% of all Facebook users access the platform through mobile."
Link: http://www.business2community.com/world-news/india-243-2m-internet-users-106m-active-social-media-users-0934513#SxAzlwGkuU71jgpl.99

Here's an infographic from the article to illustrate my point:

Now would I run a page about GEMS? I have nothing to do with the project.

When I say news, I mean real-world community news that people pay money for, that kind of news.

But why are we so hung up on news. It could be any information with value which people would be willing to money for.

If what you wrote was in response to my message then; No, not like ads. News is not an ad.

This thread is too long to go through to be sure if this particular feature request has been made here or not, so I'll assume it hasn't and make my request.

It would be great if GEMS were to have a subscription feature. What do I mean by that? Well let me explain.

I run a news-like page on facebook. I have a sizable audience for it. The content I create for it takes time and money. But since there is no way for content creators to monetize on their work in facebook, the content is given away for free.

Since GEMS is supposed to be a Social Currency Network, I feel a content creator on the network should have a way to charge for his content. GEM account holders should have an option of enabling subscription.

CoinReporting is an awesome site. Just what I needed. Thanks Dario!

Edit: I forgot to mention earlier, it's sad to see Indian rupee (INR) is not one of the fiat currencies on your site. I'm having to convert all my INR amounts to USD at the time of entering my my trades. Which makes the process a bit tedious. Besides that, I love the site.

As far as I know the Australian igot is the only international exchange that accepts Indian rupees. I could be wrong, but that's been my experience.

I notice Zebpay made it onto YourStory.com today.

Congrats!

http://yourstory.com/2014/10/zebpay-bitcoin-transactions/

I recently stumbled upon a website called Counterparty (https://www.counterparty.co/). They claim to provide an innovative peer-to-peer financial platform that leverages the bitcoin blockchain.

Allegedly, it includes the ability to do the following, among other things:

- Token/Asset Creation
     - Create your own currency (coin)
     - Issue a crypto-equity (and easily pay dividends to shareholders)

- Decentralized Exchange (DEx)
     - Trade BTC directly for any Counterparty created asset

- Peer-to-Peer Betting
     - Binary bets
     - Contracts for difference (CfD)

All of this sounds very exciting to me. But the problem is, since I'm new to this whole crypto-based technology thing, I am not able to make an educated call on how seriously I should take this technology/service.

So can somebody with more experience in this field tell me what are the future prospects of Couterparty?

Since this is supposed to be a decentralized service based on bitcoin blockchain technology, can I expect it to be relevant as long as bitcoin is relevant, at least?

My main concern here is, if I were to issue a cryto-equity on a real business I own (it's just a blog, nothing too big), using counterparty, can I expect this thing to be around for let's say the next 5 years at least?

Your reply will be appreciated.

Regards,

KJBit

Oops. I didn't see that thread. Thanks.

Thanks for the reply Mahin. Now I understand.

Ha! Mission accomplished I suppose. 

Thanks for the detailed answer though.

I didn't see anybody share this bit of news on the forum, so I though I'd do it.

By the way, if someone here were to read it, I would appreciate a short review of the book here.

***

[Via The New Indian Express]
World’s First Bitcoin Thriller Launched in the City
Link to post: http://m.newindianexpress.com/chennai/373124

I like the fact Zebpay is giving away small amounts of bitcoins at sign up. The biggest hurdle in getting a new user to use bitcoin right now is to get him to buy a bitcoin. It just seems like a lot of effort for them to go through the process of buying a bitcoint to simply try it out once.

If we want to spread bitcoin use in India, we have to give away free bitcoins initially I feel.

So kudos to zebpay for adopting this strategy.

By the way, I've asked this on a different thread as well, but I'm going to ask it here again because this seems to be the right place for it.

How did you come up with the name Zebpay?

Hi Mahin,

Pleased to find out somebody is working on a bitcoin wallet in India. Can't wait for it to be launched.

By the way, just out of curiosity, how did you come up with the name Zebpay?

I don't see the point to this. Why does Reddit need to invent a new cryptocurrency. Are they too good for Bitcoin?

OK, I see. So it's not something for your average bitcoin user I take it. By which I mean, if I were to ignore it, I won't be missing out on anything important. Is that right?

I'm gonna be that guy and ask: What is a Block Explorer and how is it different from an Internet Explorer?

I've been using BTCxIndia for a couple of weeks now. And my experience has been good.

I like the fact the site requires a dynamically generated passcode to log-in, but I feel a password should still be required along with the passcode. I don't see any harm in having both. It's just an added layer of security.

The thing that sets BTCxIndia apart from others is the fact it is an actual BTC exchange with user to user trading, unlike other exchanges that only let you exchange with them.

Withdrawal and deposits are fast. I withdrew BTC recently and it took about 1hr.

And the best thing about BTCxIndia is its amazing customer support. I've written to them at mid-night and I've got a reply in like 5-minutes. Almost every change I've suggested for improvement has been accepted. Truly amazing customer support.

Though right now there aren't many people trading on the site, I feel BTCxIndia has a bright future.

BTCxIndia is a the best bitcoin exchange in India as far as I'm concerned.