Hmm. I just had a look over the code again, and it seems that one of the modifications i made to re-use duplicate torrents has gone a bit awry. I have removed the offending code until I have it working correctly.

The site is working perfectly fine as of now, except if you try to add a torrent already added by someone else. In which case you will get to the status page, and it will show 100% complete, but will not move on and give you the actual download link. It will just keep refreshing.

In the unlikely even that anyone experiences this problem (or any other for that matter) while I am trying to squash these bugs, it is a simple issue to fix through directly through the database, so please do not hesitate to reply in this thread, PM me, or email me through the contact page on the bitcointorrentz.com website.

I usually respond instantly to emails.

This is probably occurring because the exact torrent you have selected has been recently downloaded by someone else already. The server serves up the file that has already been downloaded, rather than downloading it again. I am aware of the refresh glitch, I will have that fixed in the next live update. It is safe to go ahead and download whatever torrent you selected.

@dancupid: I like your suggestion a lot! Adding a deposit account for members might be a really good idea, and save regular users on transfer fees. You are right, it should be quite easy to implement. I will see if I can get something together for the next update too.

@Bitcoin Swami: Thanks so much for your support mate. Really appreciate it.

@molecular:

With regards to the advertisements. I think I agree, but it could earn a potentially good income stream. I have thought about it, and I really don't want to devote any space to banners, but a small button 117x30px (the size of the image in my sig) could be placed somewhere with only minor annoyance to end-users. I don't think this should turn people away, most people just skim right over them anyway. And it would not be in a highly prominent area.

I'm not saying that I will do it, and I fully agree that advertisements on a fee paying website are not appropriate as I already mentioned above. But at the same time... it's just a tiny little advertisement, and any revenue generated would be passed along to shareholders as a dividend!

I am still considering it.

And with regards to numbers, as of right now, there have been 71 downloads, paying an average fee of 0.05657 btc each (some paid more, some much less, and some paid while prices were double what they were). That's an average of about 6 downloads per day. My initial business projections assumed a growth rate of +1 daily download/two weeks. This assumed an average of only 1 download per day until week 3, when it has in fact there has been an average of about 6 downloads per day.

The service really is exceeding my expectations.
Here's hoping that it keeps growing and that peoples interest in this service continues!

I love your avatar!

Just a quick THANK YOU to whoever sent the 0.5 BTC donation just now!
I don't know if you'll see this message, but if you do, you have my sincere gratitude.

Yeah, the reception has been better than I had even imagined! I'm monitoring my Google Analytics stats obsessively! 3,776 page views since the site went online, 620 unique visitors total. And it's growing every day.

Also, I have added a Facebook Like and Google+1 widget to the top-right of the website header. If you like the site, why not share the link with your friends and circles!

And for interested shareholders, the service has generated total earnings of 4.01679 btc since launch (12 days ago).
This is WAY above my initial growth targets, so we are well on track.

I like the suggestion of using advertising revenue to subsidize free trials of the service. Very interesting indeed. I may put up a listing on operation fabulous, where advertisers can bid for ad-space though their platform, saving me from having to implement a whole section of the website for potential advertisers.

I don't like the idea of having too many gaudy advertisements on a fee-paying website though.
But like you said, you could remove the ads for registered users.

Thanks once again HostFat! You are full of good suggestions.
I will get out my calculator...

I just saw your link, I thought you were kidding!

Now that I think about it, a good idea for a new service could be a bitcoin-accepting adult live video-cam website. I wouldn't touch it it with a barge pole myself (no pun intended) but maybe somebody out there has the balls to do it (pun intended this time).

How many confirmations did she make you wait for before proceeding with 'business'? The waiting would be a real buzz-kill.

I guess whoring yourself out is ONE way to earn bitcoin...
Can you do discount if we buy your pics too?  

Thanks for pointing it out to me mate!

On another note, I have started are rather vigorous Operation Fabulous advertising campaign. Not sure how OF stacks up against other advertising platforms. Thought I'd give it a shot anyway, since they accept bitcoin!

I have also made some new banners for the affiliate program, which will be uploaded to the members area soon. These are the current banners that I am running on the operation fabulous campaign.

A 468x60 Banner: http://www.bitcointorrentz.com/images/btcbanner_468x60.png


A 125x125 Square: http://www.bitcointorrentz.com/images/bct_square_125_125.png


And a 117x30 Button: http://www.bitcointorrentz.com/images/bct_button_117_30.png

What screen resolution are you using?
I have made the navigation bar shorter, how does it look now?

I didn't deliberately put the logout link right below the donations tab for psychological reasons,
just to clear that up!

That should be fixed now, along with a few other minor bugs I found while browsing using firefox.
I have been using mainly Safari to test it at the moment.

Thanks for that mate. Will have a look at it.

I have made some significant changes to the BitCoinTorrentz code, that anyone who is interested should check out.

I have completely removed IP recording of new registrations, and combined user registration with affiliate registration. When users register, they get an immediate 20% discount from the base guest user rate. They then get a subsequent 10% discount off their fee for every further 20GB they download, until they reach a net 50% discount, at which point their fee remains static at this level.

If a user chooses not to register, they do not have to, but are charged the base guest rate of 0.05 btc/gb.

I have also created a new "Members Area" instead of the referral program page I had before. This page tracks (completely anonymously... of course) the volume of your downloads, your current discount rate and percentage, as well as your referral statistics. I have also added a convenient "Logout" button at the top right that you can use to clear your session.

Note: existing affiliates can log in with the same username (i.e. their email address) and password as before, to avail of the 20% discount, and monitor their referral statistics. All IP addresses that had been stored for affiliates have now been deleted from the database.

I have changed around the look a little of the site too, padded out the FAQ and did some major tinkering under the hood. I did lot of work today... I feel like I need a bloody holiday myself now! What is Korea like this time of year molecular?

So yeah, just have a look at the new layout, and if you have any, I would appreciate any and all feedback from both users and shareholders alike. The financial statistics feature is the next thing on my to-do list.

Maybe the manipulator is mtgox themselves!
They have copious dormant amounts of both bitcoin AND usd in their accounts.
And access to all the trade data in detail, which they only release the previous 24 hours of to the public, and in limited form.

dun dun dunnnnnn..

Right now, the files will be deleted after 7 days with a highly secure, 7-pass data overwrite. But now that you mention it, reducing the duration of this "download window" could indeed help prevent the distribution of the links on forums. Great idea!

As the service is not really designed for long term storage of files, I think perhaps a 2 day limit might actually be a good idea. It shouldn't take users more than 48 hours to download their files.

But then again, that might limit the number of high-filesize users interested in the service. If someone wanted to download an archive of 10gb+ say, it might take longer than 48 hours to download that, if they have a slow connection.

Maybe 3 is the lucky number?

I have decided to just go ahead and remove the remove the IP address recording of affiliates. I want this service to be truly anonymous, so if people use the site regularly enough to want a 20% rebate, while simultaneously promoting the site, I'm totally cool with that.

I will delete the IP address table in the affiliates database, and update the affiliate registration code to reflect this. It will be part of the next live update of the site.

And thinking along these lines, it might also be a good idea to introduce a sort of "subscription" service, where regular users of the site could register and get an ID # and a password, and avail of a higher-use, lower-fee based fee structure. Say, if a user downloads a total of 10gb, they would avail of a 20% discount in the future, if they download a total of 100gb they avail of another 20% discount of their current fee, etc.

Or something along those lines. Thoughts?


Yes, it is a very modest fee. Right now, the goal is to grow the business, and the best way to do that is to make it as inexpensive as possible. Once we have achieved sufficient volume, prices will determined at a level that the community and the shareholders agree on, and linked to the btc:usd exchange rate.

I have considered the possibility of the scenario you described; that users would redistribute the link. Right now, that isn't really a major concern, as the measures needed to implement an adequate solution would make the service less attractive to potential new users. I will reevaluate this if and when it becomes a problem that puts a large load on the server.

I'm glad to have been the one to pop your bitcoin cherry!

Hopefully someone will chime in saying that they spend their btc on bitcointorrentz.com!

At the moment, I am using my btc to invest in companies on the GLBSE, in addition to paying for advertising for my site. I haven't bought any tangible goods with them yet however. This is something I hope to remedy shortly.