I would like to participate in this reward offer.  I will convince ABUgames (www.abugames.com) to start accepting Bitcoin as one of their accepted payment methods.  Their site has a Google PR of 4.  They sell Magic the Gathering trading cards, board games, and other gaming accessories.  MtG cards were one of the first products sold online in the early days of the web, so it seems fitting that it would be among the first products sold for bitcoin.

Please add my name to the spreadsheet.  My bitcoin address is: 1AgZgDq77Ahux1K7LdoYUJdYXT8fQanwn4

Whether I succeed or fail, I will announce it either way.

I have a client who has a network of 98 informational web sites for sale as a package.  Each site contains two pages and approximately 500-700 words of original textual content.  The domains cover a range of popular dentistry related keywords, have been registered for about 18 months, and many of them rank well on common search terms.

Revenue is generated using Google Adsense advertisements.  The sites are averaging a fairly steady USD$600/month in gross revenue.  My client is looking to sell for at least 2x EBITDA, which would be about $12,000 (figuring approximately $1200/year in domain renewal fees and hosting).  I suggested that we try to sell for bitcoin instead of dollars, and my client is open to that idea as long as the sale price in bit is roughly comparable to its value in USD.

The sale would include the domain names and the site content (HTML and images) for all 98 sites.  No cherry picking.  Some of the sites are probably worthless and others are probably cash cows, but we're selling these as a package.  We only have Adsense stats on the entire group anyway.

After taking possession of the domains through your own registrar, you would need to provide your own hosting and Adsense account.

If you are interested or have any questions, send me a private message with your best offer in bitcoin (and your e-mail address if you'd like to continue negotiations privately).

--Brad

Downloading the entire block chain when I first installed the client was a big hassle for me too.  It took several hours to get the whole thing.  I'd hate to imagine how long it might take for a new user to get started a year or two from now.  Hopefully we'll see some solutions to this in the near future.

Realistically though, I doubt the Average Joe will even be able to install the client.  He's going to need some kind of super easy to use web interface that would double as a bank to keep his wallet safe.  I guess it would be something sort of like mybitcoin.com, but with a much easier, simpler interface.

A more professional trading platform is going to be essential for widespread use of bitcoin.  I'm working with a group of investors on a number of web projects.  I pitched the idea of integrating bitcoin or building some kind of bitcoin-only services.  They were interested, but that interest dissipated pretty fast when they saw no effective way to convert between USD and BTC.  Mt.Gox certainly deserves credit for paving the way in this emerging market, but their site does not instill confidence as a financial institution should.  Even just improving the visuals would have a tremendous impact.  Right now, it looks like something some guy is running out of his basement.  I've got a bunch of money sitting on the sidelines that I'd like to put into bitcoin, but I'm going to wait until something more professional comes along.

What really saddens me as much as the potential for something like bitcoin to be made illegal is that we all see it as a very real possibility.  What has our government come to when we all expect it to eventually outlaw a brilliant new innovation just because it would be something that benefits the people at the potential expense of the banking industry?!  Imagine this discussion in another context, such as the invention of cars.

Driver: "Check out my new motorized buggy!"

Observer: "The government is going to outlaw that because it will let people travel easier and it will hurt the horse industry."

I see a lot of ways that if bitcoin became a standard form of payment, we could quite easily end up right back where we started with unreasonable banking fees and terms.  (The banks would be built on top of the bitcoin framework.  They'd issue credit cards, home loans, etc.)  The only difference would be that your fees would be charged in bit instead of dollars.  At least the emergence of this thing would give us some chance at breaking up the current banks' monopoly powers, at least for a while.  All human developments tend to end up the same.  Empires are built, they get out of hand, they collapse, then they're rebuilt.

Another comparison might be the Web itself.  In 1995, it looked like the WWW would give the little guy a level playing field to compete against the giants.  Here we are, not even 20 years later, and basically two companies own it all.

Hello fellow bitcoin users.  I first came across bitcoin a few months ago but dismissed it as a neat idea that would never go anywhere.  I then came across it again about a month ago when this latest burst of press hit, which lead me to look into it more closely.  I will admit that I am now completely fascinated by this concept and its enormous potential.

My primary interest is on the merchant side.  I work with an investment and consulting group whose primary focus is web based businesses.  The idea of an alternative to credit cards as a form of online payment has me really intrigued.  The big card companies (visa/mc/amex) essentially have a monopoly on internet payments and they've been using this monopoly power in ways that are becoming increasingly unfavorable to the merchant.

I look forward to discussing this emerging technology with this community.