Looks like a match made in heaven. sequent.comFounded in 2010 and headquartered in Redwood City, California, Sequent Software is a leading provider of Near-Field Communication (NFC) software and systems. Our complete end-to-end software solution uniquely enables consumers to easily and securely download payment cards and other credentials to their mobile devices. Consumers use those credentials to make electronic payments, take advantage of offers, and access a wealth of information provided by mobile network operators, retailers and financial institutions.
Our mission at Sequent is to enable NFC services without significant changes to complex legacy infrastructures. Sequent focuses on being a neutral, technology-agnostic administrator that “fills in the blanks” between credential infrastructures.
Sequent offers a comprehensive NFC platform and on-device software as a hosted solution, which customers can license or deploy locally. Fueled by robust funding led by Opus Capital and SK Telecom Ventures, Sequent's Secure Element Management suite makes the promise of NFC a reality. At its beginnings, it looks like sequent.com was an IBM concern, but has since become its own entity. In fact if you use sequent.com's search box for IMB, you'll receive zero results. Yet, it's been own by the same entity since 1990. By using the archive.com, you'll see that back in the day IBM was plastered all over this site. Registration Service Provider: Hover, help@hover.com416.538.5498 http://help.hover.comRegistrar of Record: TUCOWS, INC. Record last updated on 09-Dec-2011. Record expires on 23-May-2017. Record created on 22-May-1990. Therefore, I'm wondering if IBM is stealthily jockeying for position to get into the smartphone payment transferring business. From reading their site, I also wonder if they're keen on embracing Bitcoin. ~Bruno~ (not Nick Bruno) |
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I've stated on another thread that there exist several business models based on users using Bitcoin and purposely directing others to view the blockchain, thus showing others that they've received and sent bitcoins. In this post, I'll briefly outline one such scenario, and welcome all other similar ideas on this thread, coupled with your suggestions or reason on why this, or any other idea, won't work.
YouTube currently has a Partner Program in place that pays out a percentage of the revenue Google earns by those ads you sometimes see on some videos. But what if a person either opt out of that program or supplement that revenue stream with an alternative Bitcoin program. The following is one example of how it could work. My name is Tom Arnold. I'm an avid hunter. I'm about to start taking videos of all my hunt outings and post those videos on YouTube. I may or may not join their Partner Program, but I will embrace Bitcoin as part of my business model. My user name on YouTube will be 1TurkeyBob1, a perfect fit for my brand Turkey Bob. 1TurkeyBob1 just happens to be the Firstbits to my vanity Bitcoin address 1TurkeyBob1ab3MEt5SFj74ZBcF2Mk97Aah4ac (not a real address). I will have this address on my website, my 100's of YouTube videos, as well as all the major social media sites. In a concise manner, I will describe what that address is all about and how viewers can tip me if they've found value in viewing my videos. Likewise, I will only favorite videos that I like which also use the same program and that I have tipped them with bitcoins. By viewing the blockchain, one will be able to see what I've earned and what I've tipped. If I've done the math correctly, after 10M views, and if on average everybody tipped 1/10 of a penny, I will earn $10K USD. I plan on tipping a dime ($.10 USD) for each video I favorite, because the videos I do favorite will be of value to me. C0017A is a YouTuber with 558 subscribers and 598,928 video views with 189 uploaded videos. Using the same calculations as above, he would have earned about $600 USD to date. I can envision his Firstbits as 1Coo17A. warrior412 has 6,271,214 viewers for this one stupid video alone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZmMwP5bELE Now, if his user name were 1Warrior1 or, at the very least, he displayed this as his tip address, I would have been inclined to favorite that video, but I'm on a mission to only favorite videos that I'm capable of tipping first-hand. There are some videos that I like so much, I'm going to contact them and let them know not only what I'm up to, but why. If you like this idea, please tip 1TurkeyBob1 (not a real address).
There you have it, folks. Only one example on how have Bitcoin transparency could play out. Thoughts? ~Bruno~ |
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I've been meaning to start this thread for a while now, and was even going to title it What I Learned Today, but opt for the better title with hopes of drawing in more users, thus possibly having more contributors. Each day, we all learn something new, no matter how mundane it is. Sometimes, we desire to share are new found knowledge on this forum with others, but most of the time we're unable to insert our discoveries in a post on some thread--until now. All I ask is that your find is genuine, not contrived, and that it somehow enriched your life, thus wanting to share your newly found gem to enrich others. My first contribution is the word 'svelte' (Google it) which I came across at the beginning of this lengthy article: http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/21/2789676/rim-blackberry-mike-lazaridis-jim-balsillie-lost-empire I don't believe I've ever encountered it before, but after looking it up, I'm surprised I haven't seen it more often. Your contribution doesn't have to be a word, and it can relate to anything. What have you learnt today? Please share! ~Bruno~ (not Francisco Bruno Neto) |
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As if the title of this thread needs an explanation.
I used to date a woman who now owns a Karaoke Bar in West Memphis Arkansas who I bet I can convince her to implement the following idea, albeit her husband doesn't learn that I used to do her.
Prior to a weekly karaoke contest, the host doles out exactly $1 USD or 1 BTC to everybody having a smartphone, which they pay the current exchange rate for. This may take an hour, but that'll be the host/emcee's job, nonetheless. During the course of the evening, those with smartphones vote with Bitcoin. At the end of the evening, the winner receives 50% of the total coins votes, all the other contestants get to keep 40% of what was voted for them, and the remaining 10% goes into a pool for the monthly/quarterly/yearly contest(s).
The beauty in this idea is that many times a regular terrible karaoke singer gets nothing for his or her efforts, yet they're the ones that patronize the establishments offering up a karaoke night the most. Hell, even if they only received an equivalent to a nickle, they'll feel as if they won something, tell their friends, and soon there'll be two shows a week.
Most the times, these shows are structured on the premise that the owners of the bars pay a karaoke DJ, and their tasks is to bring in and maintain a following. Sure, there's been karaoke contests before, but after a while, even these are perhaps becoming a tad stale. Ain't it about time to disrupt the current model?
~Bruno~ (not Bruno Calabrese)
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Groupon and its many imitators have been facing a rising tide of negative publicity over the past few weeks, the gist of which is that Groupons are terrible for small businesses. The stories are all pretty much the same: business owners sign up for a deal that would lose them money in the hopes of upselling and bringing customers back for full price purchasers. Instead, they find themselves overwhelmed by swarms of rude bargain hunters who crowd out full-price customers, refuse to spend anything beyond the face value of the coupon, and are never seen again. http://articles.businessinsider.com/2010-10-05/tech/30013393_1_groupon-businesses-sustainabilityBusinesses seek loyal customers, but from the looks of it, they're not able to convert new patrons into repeat buyers once they use their Groupons. Perhaps, a better business model to attract customers needs developed. Until a better name is derived, I'll refer to this idea as Foursquare on Rails, or FoR for short (apologies if FoR is a bad analogy for what I'm proposing). The following example is how it could work: A newly opened restaurant--Ombra--wants to attract a loyal customer base, but doesn't want to go the route of Groupon and its ilk. Enter Bitcoin and the yet-to-be-developed-APP FoR. Firstly, Ombra's must accept Bitcoin to enjoy all its benefits, some of which yet to be named and, let alone, developed. A Bitcoiner dines at the restaurant for the first time and pays full price for their meal with Bitcoin via a smart phone. A little code (boy, I hope codes are little) is activated, allowing the Bitcoiner a one percent discount off their next visit's tab. This percentage is doubled if they bring a guest(s) and is rung up as one tab. This offer is only available for one week, whereupon once the week is over, the Bitcoiner must pay full price again and restart the whole procedure. But this is only true for the first week. You see, each time the Bitcoiner returns to Ombra's, they're rewarded with an additional 1% discount, up to a max of 10% (20% with guest(s)). If on his 4th visit a Bitcoiner pays for his meal with Bitcoin, he's now at the 4% (maybe it's 5% now, I'm getting confused) discount level, but if for some reason he failed to dine at Ombra's within a week's period, he forfeits 1%. Each week, he loses 1%, then after 4 weeks, he'll have to start all over again, but if he restarts his visits, say he's at the 3% level, the added 1% discount starts there. Once at the 10% level (with a 20 visit minimum), a Bitcoiner can use this discount in conjunction with any other discounts that other patrons are able to enjoy: coupons (but not Groupons, which the restaurants won't have anyway), senior citizen discounts, etc. After 10 visits within any time frame, a Bitcoiner will always maintain a 5% discount and can easily regain his 10% status after 5 more visits which, of course, can be accomplished in 5 days opposed to 5 weeks. This fact is indicative of a first time user of FoR. After 10 visits in 10 days, a Bitcoiner will be at the 10% level. Now we have loyal customers being awarded for their visits, opposed to attracting new customers with a 50% discount that most of the time never return. As a restaurant owner, which would you rather have? What's great about this idea is that more women are probably prone to take up these offers using their smart phones than men. Thoughts? ~Bruno~ (not the Bruno Manser Fund) |
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Whether we know it or not, or whether you purposely do it or not, each time we incorporate a keyword or key phrase in our posts, it inevitably has the positive effect of having somebody stumble upon Bitcoin while they're searching Google for a completely unrelated term. For instance, in a post earlier today I purposely incorporated the names of two French restaurants located in the UK--Le Gavroche and Ratatouille. By doing such, I've increased Bitcoin's awareness by some fraction of one percent. For sake of illustration purposes, let's call it 1/1,000th of 1%. Thus, for every 1,000 posts on BitcoinTalk injected with a keyword or key phrase, albeit used naturally, has the added effect of increasing Bitcoin's awareness by 1%.
Of course, this is not a new revelation, but my hope is that by sharing this information, users here who were not aware of this fact, coupled with users who are, will start consciously injecting popular, and even non-popular, search terms in their posts, knowing now that someday, somebody will discover Bitcoin when they were Googling, let's say, a baseball player by the name of Christian Haupt.
~Bruno~ (not Sacha Baron Cohen)
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I felt I needed to start a new thread on this very important subject. I didn't want to see it develop into a discussion on the thread I quoted the post from in case restaurant owners happen to visit this site and read that thread. I also opt to put this in Off-topic, opposed to Discussion, for the same reasoning. I hope I'm wrong with the below, but... Please stir me right in my thinking!!! I clicked the link and my head went into overdrive. I thought, "WOW! I could use this." (along with other great thoughts) Then it hit me--in like about 15 seconds. What if I were a restaurant owner. Perhaps I don't want others seeing my income. PayPal doesn't show others what I sell. My bank doesn't. My credit card provider doesn't. After a while, my competitor will be able to figure out exactly what I gross per year simply by extrapolating the data provided by blockexplorer or blockchain, like what meals and beverages sell the best, exact hour of the day I'm busy, the average check amount, etc. I've manage restaurants (Alabama), and know damn well on how great it would be to know what your immediate competition is doing. For those thinking that this is not important or, worse, impossible, all I need to see is 10 (20 max) sales on the blockchain and a menu of Meze Grill, and I'll show you the information I can glean from that data. I'll go one step further and tell you what color Bruce's shit will be and at what hour (+/- 2 hours, but I'll get the color correct). Though humorous, I hope, I'm not trying to be funny here. Only stating facts. Imagine what a competitor could do if they were privy to 50-100 transactions spread out over a month. As a competitor, they would be looking for such businesses that accept Bitcoin, but would stay away from using it themselves. And if the Bitcoin address isn't readily available, all they would have to do is go and dine there once and pay with Bitcoin, then check blockexplorer and glean the address. Please forgive me for playing Devil's Advocate, but felt it necessary to bring this to light. Please correct me if I'm wrong. If I'm not, then somebody needs to develop something to protect these businesses that are about to accept Bitcoin. ~Bruno~ |
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It's a Sunday. Expect big things! Only 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 more days until...(?)Today's the DaYYYYYYYYYYY!!!March 11, 2012.
Expect big things. You heard it here first.
Yesterday was the day! |
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Sometimes, my brainfarts are golden! This idea is about to take wings but, once again, I'll need a little help from this community, preferably from those that drink. Inspired from: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=63643.msg745813#msg745813Introducing a new cocktail called The Satoshi or Satoshi (whichever name you, the reader, decide is best for marketing). As bitcoinbitcoin113 so kindly has pointed out, it must have Cointreau (triple sec) as the/a main ingredient. Atheros was instrumental in suggesting triple sec.  To get your creative juices flowing (pun intended, or not), take a look at this website: http://www.cocktailmaking.co.uk/displayingredient.php/118-triple-secOnce the main ingredients are suggested, we'll move until how it should best be served: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straight_up_(bartending) Bear in mind, that I'm not trying to get drinking establishment into accepting bitcoins (that's down the road), but trying to bring further awareness to Bitcoin by having a fashionable drink named after our beloved founder. The built-in beauty with this drink is that after consuming too many, you'll no longer be able to pronounce it correctly, thus having the establishment that serves it, cut you off. I, for one, like the logo and color:  Once perfected, and I hope soon, I'll introduce it to fine cocktail lounges around the Chicagoland area. Perhaps, this cocktail may excite the ladies into wanting to learn more about Bitcoin. We can only hope. The main competition is the Cosmopolitan, Margarita and Long Island Ice Tea. ~Bruno~ Fake Edit: I can envision this cocktail served at fine Sushi Bars.  Thoughts? |
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I'll soon be trekking to Chicago to close the deal with Chicago Cabbie but, while there, I'm going to make forays to several eating establishments, in hope of interesting them into accepting Bitcoin. The list on the following site should be more than enough to keep me busy: http://chicago.metromix.com/restaurants/article/new-on-the-scene/163270/contentThe goal is by summer's end to have several businesses in and around Chicago accepting Bitcoin. To help pull that off, though, I'll need the help of this community. All I'm asking is for you to state that you'll frequent such establishments if they were to accept Bitcoin. I would love to see a formidable list below. I've taken the liberty and imported the list from the Chicago Cabbie thread to seed it. Simply state in this thread that you'll frequent a business that accepts Bitcoin in or around Chicago at least once, and I'll add your name to the list below. - Bruno
- altuin
- bitcoinbitcoin113
- the joint
- kjlimo
- Herodes
- Yankee
- squirrelman
- DBordello
- pekv2 (for Portillos)
I'm going to be working in conjunction with Tony with Bit-Pay to help pull this off. I'm not sure if I'm at liberty to say this, but he's got a secret weapon up his sleeve, one I know will help in closing the deals. ~Bruno~ Short List: Portillo's- South Loop Club
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Idea inspired from this post: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=60045.msg741107#msg741107Attention botanist and/or chemist! Is there a way to tap/probe a tree, perhaps through electrolysis, to pull enough electricity to run a mining rig and generate at least one block of coins? If this could be document at least once, without using no other electrical source, the resulting video may have a chance of going viral. Everyone and their mother would click a link to see a real live money tree. Picture the headline(s): Money Now Truly Grows on Trees--No, Really! As if you needed a further incentive: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_tree_(myth) It was thought the coins emitted light, the coins guided the deceased, who would ride on a winged ram up the ceramic mountain to the bronze tree of paradise. These coins could also be plucked for needs on the journey from earth to the realm of immortals. Read the Wiki, for it seems the Chinese may still practice this myth. I'm wondering that if this could be accomplished, can the resulting block(s)/coin(s) be sold at a premium considering their source. Let's start the discussion to see if it's possible first, before leaping to the next step--building the money tree.  ~Bruno~ |
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I have a $5 USD bet on New England winning the Super Bowl with a friend here in Sandwich. Going to watch it over at his house and gave him $30 to buy dinner and cook it. That's how I have my evening planned tonight.
In other developments, I received a PM from some guy in Texas. Perhaps you all know him. He's back, using an a user name slightly older than you've thought. He told me to not tell anyone his user name. His main question was if I was still planning on attending the convention in San Antonio. Perhaps he's looking for allies. If he would have asked me to not mention that he contacted me, you wouldn't have been able to read this post, for there wouldn't have been one. That's all I'm saying.
On a slightly different topic, does anybody here know when the new and improved ATLASes are published by Rand McNally?
The main topic of this thread is who do you have in the Super Bowl: New York Giants or New England Patriots?
~Bruno~
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I just want to state here that I feel Matthew N. Wright stole my idea and is now in the process of re-branding it!Bitocin Think Twunk Tank: A place to express your brainfarts to the community with the hope that one day... An aluminum can recycling machine that pays out in local currency or BTC. Change the smiley face to the Bitcoin logo, and it's golden. The profit margin for these set-ups is handsome. Therefore, I suggest that if a user wants payment in BTC, he should get a slightly higher return than fiat. Kids could use it get some micro-bits so that they can bump Bieber stories on CoinSmack. It can be called 'Bits for Cans'. 
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Today is not my birthday.
It's mine, actually. Happy Birthday, BTCurious.  First Bitcoin Cake from WalmartMy real birthday is March, 4th, born in Chicago on Chicago's Birthday. |
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Taking for granted the reader is aware of Donate-a-Brick fundraising programs ( http://www.bricksrus.com), I offer up a similar plan with Casascius creating the key product. Forgive me for not going into greater detail, but I'm sure you'll figure out for yourselves the gist of this proposal. Key points: Casascius can make the coins and still enjoy a profit; fundraisers would enjoy a comfortable return; the donators have an opportunity to earn a return on their donation/investment. I like to refer to this aspect as making a donestment. You can't do that with a brick! http://www.volunteertv.com/state/headlines/Donations_needed_to_finish_Rutherford_WTC_memorial_137416673.htmlThe overall budget for the memorial has been estimated at $30,000. Because fundraising has been slow, nearly half of that cost has been met by donated time and supplies.
Dotson and Sgt. Jimmy Cassidy expanded their efforts by selling commemorative coins that depict the monument, which have sold better than the bricks.  ~Bruno~ |
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