Well I know personally I'm spending too much time on here lately and not getting enough work done!

   Well the technology is in place, now we just need the marketing!

I might setup a bounty for a vBulletin mod.  I'll think about the specs this weekend.

I don't think they force small developers, but I think they may be forcing big developers like Zynga.

I guess the reason a developer would cave to Facebook's demand of 30% is to gain access to a market of more than 500 million people.

Facebook is quickly becoming the de facto internet for some segments of society.  I just read how teen girls spend more time on Facebook than on the rest of the web combined.

Yes, I agree this is the 'killer app' for bitcoin.  In fact I emailed Kachingle about it weeks ago and received no response.

Kachingle, Flattr, Rewrd, all of them are doing the same thing (dividing up a predetermined monthly donation).  None of them offer the flexibility of bitcoin.

A html widget that can be pasted anywhere, and modules for Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal, and bitcoin modules that work like points/thank you modules for vBulleting, SMF and other forum systems are products that leverage bitcoins micropayment advantage over all other popular accepted methods.

I feel bitcoins big advantage in the marketplace isn't the anonymity as much as its miniscule transaction costs.  Building on that is the possible path to widespread, mainstream use.

Unfortunately I don't have the skills to build any of this stuff. 

An interesting article that talks about Facebook's domination over it's app developers and how it is expected they will go from zero to $1 billion in the next 6 months.  All while taking a 30% cut.

Zynga is already doing $1 million/day in virtual currency transactions.

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/09/facebooks-virtual-currency-takeover-hints-at-micro-payment-battle/

Wow, that was one incoherent article.  Either Time is getting desperate for readership and will print any scandalous story to bring people in, or the lamestream media is in panic mode trying to derail the Tea Party express.

Anywhere in the history of the planet has hyperinflation ever been created by the lowering of taxes?

I do find it curious though that almost everybody is worried about hyperinflation.  Why are all the economists, analysts and pundits (including Tea Partiers and Ron Paul, whom I otherwise respect) saying hyperinflation is just around the corner?  The only guy I know of who thinks the real threat is deflation is Robert Prechter, and I tend to agree with him.

Credit and assets are being destroyed much, much faster than the Fed is 'printing' money.  Therefore the money supply has contracted dramatically over the last couple years, and is likely to continue doing so.

Or if everyone on the forum because a bitcoin retailer for face-to-face transactions in their city, that might help too.

Some thoughts and questions:

Was the e-gold guy buying/selling e-gold, or was he just matchmaking?

I believe MTGox doesn't buy and sell bitcoins.  He just matches buyers and sellers.

Does anyone know if that is a relevant distinction?

What if MTGox franchised his exchange so that we could have an MTGox located in each country, making it easier to get money in and out by direct bank withdrawl?

I have thought that requiring Facebook login would be one way to cut down on fraud.  By using various Facebook facts about people you could make it more difficult for scammers:
  -require a person have X number of Facebook friends
  -require a person be referred by a Facebook friend who the exchange has already dealt with
  -require a person to have been on Facebook for X number of weeks/months
  -require a potential client to 'befriend' the exchange operator, who can then examine their Facebook profile for real-life activity in the newsfeed, photo gallery, etc.

Not a perfect solution, but might help.

Tell the TSA what to do with their airport scanners:

http://www.prisonplanet.com/drudge-stirs-national-debate-on-tsa-abuse.html

And spread the word by joining and sharing here:

http://www.facebook.com/optoutday?v=wall

Okay Macho, help me understand more clearly what you are saying.

Are you saying that you believe speculation and sweatshops etc. are 'morally wrong', and you are spreading your viewpoint that they are morally wrong and that is all?  Are you saying that you would never support governmental prohibitions on these activities, just moral suasion?  Are you saying you would actually oppose a government who attempted to ban speculation?

If that is what you are saying, then I apologize for my early posts linking you to those tyrannizing moralizers of the 20th century, Communism and Fascism.

I fully support your right to free speech, including the right to persuade others of one's opinions, no matter how wrong-headed those opinions are.  If, however you do support the use of force (ie: the state) to impose your 'morality' on others, then we're back to square one.

Look, if person A freely sells his Bitcoin to person B, and the value of Bitcoin subsequently skyrockets, person A did not get screwed.
If person A buys Bitcoin from person B, and the value of Bitcoin subsequently drops in half, B did not screw A.

You cannot decide what the value of something is.  "Stuff" is not necessarily better than speculation.  Does the world really need more SUVs?  More television sets?  More designer clothes?

If I get a rush out of playing the stock market, who are you to say that is not worth as much as a new pair of shoes?  There's a good argument to be made that more stuff on this planet would be immoral.  Yet that is what you are advocating.  More immoral stuff.  Shame on you.

I can't believe I'm responding to this, but the compulsion to say something is just so strong.  Must be ocd.

Slavery has nothing to do with capitalism.  You do understand that capitalism is about the free dealing of free people, right?  Slavery is where one person imposes their will on another in a coercive manner. 


Again, do you not realize that releasing toxic waste into a river amounts to a subsidy?  This is not a free market action.  This is the action of someone imposing their will on another person's property.  This is the action of a fascist.


Again, burning down another person's property... oh why bother.
In each of your examples, the perpetrator (slave owner, subsidy-seeking waste dumper, mafioso) exemplifies the behaviour you are advocating.  The imposition of one person's will on another person involuntarily.  This is why your posts are so provocative.

You seem to be unable to differentiate between Fascist corporatism and capitalism.  Please see the Google monster for in-depth help with this. 


Apparently if people starve and die because some unspanked trust-fund pseudo-intellectual in a university comes up with a theory of how the world should work, that's A-o.k.


Well here is the heart of the matter.  You think the dichotomy is false.  The dichotomy isn't false, it is real.  You can have an economy of free people taking responsibility for their lives and their decisions and freely choosing to trade or not trade with one another.  Or you can have some self-righteous social planner make decisions for people  Those are your choices.  Everything else is a variation on one of those two options.  I know which option I choose, the one that is not responsible for the death of 100 million* people in the last century. 


*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Book_of_Communism

Macho, did you read anything noagendamarket said?

Honestly, your comments are so surreal in this day and age I'm beginning to think you're putting us on. 

Macho, you are absolutely out of control.  Your posts are the most dangerous things I have read on this forum.

This type of thinking, the idea that one can somehow 'know better' than the market, that one can somehow decide that speculators and financiers are immoral, that capitalism causes famine, this is the type of thinking that dominated the two greatest IMMORALITIES of the 20th century.  Communism and fascism.  I am appalled that this type of shallow thinking persists after all the world has learned.  Why does humanity have to be taught the same lessons over and over and over again!?

You talk about speculators driving up the cost of food.  What about all the farmers turning their corn into ethanol because some do-gooder much like yourself named Al Gore is imposing his 'morality' on the world, saying we need to 'get off oil'.  You think maybe that had something to do with the price of food?

Why don't you explain how it is that people starve in communist/state-directed economies all the time, but I have yet to hear of a famine in Switzerland, A COUNTRY COVERED IN SNOW HALF THE YEAR AND MOUNTAINS ALL OF THE YEAR.

Please tell us how speculation-free North Korea is such a bounteous land of plenty.

Explain how Cuba, not in any way subject to the whims of Wall St. bankers, exports desperate people clinging to planks of wood dying to reach oppressive Florida.

Remind us how those great instruments of state beneficence Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac set about to guarantee the mortgages of people who never should have had them guaranteed.  Tell us how that elitist plan turned out.

After the lessons of the 20th century, anybody who has the gall to think he knows better than the millions of decision-makers who make up the market really needs a humility transplant.

__________________

Getting back to the original post of this thread, I think that bit of speculative fever and some bubble action might be good for bitcoin in this way: it will bring a lot of attention and coverage that it wouldn't get otherwise.  That could very well expose bitcoin to some people who see it's practical benefits and will adopt it on that basis.

Nevermind, it's working now.

I don't blame him for taking a fee.  It's well worth it.

When I try to withdraw it says this:


Even though I'm withdrawing much less than $1000.

Oh great, now I'm going to have to pan for gold in the sewer system.


In any event, I don't think the USD is going to collapse any time shortly.  They aren't printing it fast enough to keep up with the crash in privately-issued credit, are they?

Bitcoinmarket is not accepting new registrations.

I obviously haven't been paying attention to the MTGox situation because I didn't realize it was so hard to get USD into and out of the system.  I had joined before the MTGox stopped accepting PayPal so I was already in the bitcoin economy.

So this thread prompted me to check things out.

This morning I setup a Liberty Reserve account to withdraw some USD from my MTGox account.  After setting up my LR account I went to MTGox to make a withdrawl and got this message:


Is this just a periodic thing, or have others experienced this frequently?