.

[inbox]

.

[1715649762]

1715649762

[1715649762]

1715649762

[1715649762]

1715649762

[1715649762]

1715649762

[sethsethseth]

Is this the largest and highest profile merchant to accept bitcoin to date?  This is huge.

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

Amazing!!!

[Polvos]

He he! A year and a half here and I think I'm not prepared to what seems is coming in the Bitcoin world. Massive adoption and advertising, viral spreading... wow

[jwzguy]

Awesome!

[BitcoinINV]

Fanfuckintastic 

[peepee]

[ChrisKoss]

[Rick James]

[Technomage]

This is the biggest news EVER. Holy shit.

[knight22]

Too big to hold
I think I'm getting a heart attack!

[HostFat]

Waiting for slashdot

[BitMonkey]

Freakin Awesome, Unbelievable.

[hazek]

Oh man, exciting times are ahead!

[peepee]

People will be buying subscriptions. Which means repeated cycled payments. Which means future long time bitcoiners.

HIP HIP

HOORAY!

[jimbobway]

Okay everyone, let's upgrade our WordPress sites!

[World]

looks very easy to use cool
BTCprice go up

[johnwhitestar]

WOW!

[BitMonkey]

Yes anyone with a use for wordpress, needs to use wordpress w/ bitcoins.
Although the true #'s are going to come from people just finding out its an option strictly to circumnavigate restrictions. They would of otherwise never known of bitcoin. I'd say this is the beginning... finally.

[Polvos]

Here we have the answer for the big buys of BTC in fastcash4bitcoins the last days

[FlipPro]

Great news!

Very excited to hear.

[FlipPro]

I am going to rain on this parade a little bit, but WORDPRESS really? It is awesome that they are accepting bitcoins, great exposer, but wordpress isn't that great of a company. Plus they launched a small part of that, they should have waited until the can launch there bundles with bitcoins. They claim is due to technical issues, so why not wait the month or two until it is setup.

Yeah it's only like the 22nd largest site in the world..

[herzmeister]

Finally.

[niko]

source: http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2012/11/15/pay-another-way-bitcoin/

Pay Another Way: Bitcoin

At WordPress.com, our mission is making publishing democratic — accessible and easy for anyone, anywhere. And while anyone can start a free blog here, not everyone can access upgrades (like going ad-free or enabling custom design) because of limits on traditional payment networks.

Today, that changes: you can now buy WordPress.com upgrades with bitcoins.

PayPal alone blocks access from over 60 countries, and many credit card companies have similar restrictions. Some are blocked for political reasons, some because of higher fraud rates, and some for other financial reasons. Whatever the reason, we don’t think an individual blogger from Kenya, Haiti, Cuba, or Iraq should have diminished access to the blogosphere because of payment issues they can’t control. Our goal is to enable people, not block them.

This is good news, but: How exactly is this target group supposed to get hold of bitcoins? Oh, right. There are no bitcoin exchanges in Kenya, Haiti, Cuba, or Iraq. I am not being sarcastic, but genuinely concerned about this problem.

[2GOOD]

LOL This news will pump up the price a little and help the whole economy, maybe the first from the big fishes. Anyway this only presents brighter future for the currency.

Great news.

[hazek]

but wordpress isn't that great of a company.

It's the richest company to ever accept bitcoins yet! http://allthingsd.com/20120425/automattic-grows-up-the-company-behind-wordpress-com-shares-revenue-numbers-and-hires-execs/

WordPress now powers 70 million sites, up from 35 million sites a year ago. Almost half of the biggest blogs in the world are hosted by WordPress.com or run on their own versions of the open-source WordPress platform.
The company is profitable, and expects to bring in $45 million in revenue this year, according to CEO Toni Schneider and founder Matt Mullenweg.

[Bitcoin Oz]

I hope tumblr and posterous follows suit.

[bbit]

I just shat in my pants!

[hazek]

I honestly don't care about richest company. It isn't like they are pumping the money into bitcoins anyway and after a little bump in the price of bitcoins, I doubt it will stay there. I want substance, that is a disappointment here.

I'll be nice and explain it to you just this once:

The reason most of us are so excited about this is not necessarily because we hope to see a significant increase in the exchange rate or immediate general use but because a giant rich company like that actually announcing to the world that they think Bitcoin is a legit option is a huge nod of approval which will be heard loud and clear by everyone else on the sidelines indecisive perhaps about jumping in. In other words we are mostly excited for the PR effect this move will have that will eventually hopefully lead to more Bitcoin users and a higher exchange rate!

I hope that was clear enough.

[Daily Anarchist]

I honestly don't care about richest company. It isn't like they are pumping the money into bitcoins anyway and after a little bump in the price of bitcoins, I doubt it will stay there. I want substance, that is a disappointment here.

I'll be nice and explain it to you just this once:

The reason most of us are so excited about this is not necessarily because we hope to see a significant increase in the exchange rate or immediate general use but because a giant rich company like that actually announcing to the world that they think Bitcoin is a legit option is a huge nod of approval which will be heard loud and clear by everyone else on the sidelines indecisive perhaps about jumping in. In other words we are mostly excited for the PR effect this move will have that will eventually hopefully lead to more Bitcoin users and a higher exchange rate!

I hope that was clear enough.

Some people lack foresight... even in the Bitcoin community.

[paraipan]

This is awesome  

[Phinnaeus Gage]

I am going to rain on this parade a little bit, but WORDPRESS really? It is awesome that they are accepting bitcoins, great exposer, but wordpress isn't that great of a company. Plus they launched a small part of that, they should have waited until the can launch there bundles with bitcoins. They claim is due to technical issues, so why not wait the month or two until it is setup.

Yeah it's only like the 22nd largest site in the world..

I don't care if they were the 1st largest site, as I said great press but they limited what is being able to purchased. Plus when was the last time you saw a company blog powered by wordpress? Everyone is switching there blogs to tumblr, if you haven't noticed. Wordpress is just trying to copy tumblr now, kinda sad.

but wordpress isn't that great of a company.

It's the richest company to ever accept bitcoins yet! http://allthingsd.com/20120425/automattic-grows-up-the-company-behind-wordpress-com-shares-revenue-numbers-and-hires-execs/

WordPress now powers 70 million sites, up from 35 million sites a year ago. Almost half of the biggest blogs in the world are hosted by WordPress.com or run on their own versions of the open-source WordPress platform.
The company is profitable, and expects to bring in $45 million in revenue this year, according to CEO Toni Schneider and founder Matt Mullenweg.

I honestly don't care about richest company. It isn't like they are pumping the money into bitcoins anyway and after a little bump in the price of bitcoins, I doubt it will stay there. I want substance, that is a disappointment here.

WordPress completely dominates top 100 blogs Posted in Main on April 11th, 2012 by Pingdom

WordPress is no doubt a very popular web publishing platform for blogs and other types of websites. But just how popular is it?

We just completed a study and found that WordPress is in use by 48% of the top 100 blogs in the world. This is an increase from the 32% we recorded three years ago.

Plus, take a look at this page: http://en.wordpress.com/notable-users/

[Carlton Banks]

This is good news, but: How exactly is this target group supposed to get hold of bitcoins? Oh, right. There are no bitcoin exchanges in Kenya, Haiti, Cuba, or Iraq. I am not being sarcastic, but genuinely concerned about this problem.

Bitcoin has many "chicken and egg" type issues, this being one out of many. I wouldn't let it get you down, as the more that services build up that accept BTC, the more incentive there will be for people to set up exchange services of some sort in these countries.


I thoroughly applaud this move, we now have:

- highly significant competitor to electronics stores in the form of bitcoinblaster.com and bitcoinstore.com (and I'm really hoping the latter will continue to branch out into more of an amazon.com competitor, early signs of this already)
- digital locker hosting courtesy of Wuala
- significant acceptance among MMPORG sites, either directly or indirectly through forums
- online marketplace in Bitmit.net
- various merchants for precious metals and coins
- limited but growing foodstuffs and real life restaurants/bars (really looking forward to more growth in this area, everyday use products like food and toiletries are a vital link for any fledgling economy)
- several VPN providers now accept
- various payments and transaction services
- perhaps more gambling than sites than necessary (it was bound to happen though!)
- wordpress, one of the big players in blog hosting

Some of these businesses have the potential to really outcompete their fiat alternatives, and a name like wordpress stepping in will only put pressure on the more established outfits to look into Bitcoin. Quite exciting to contemplate, we are beginning to get a real momentum together.

[Littleshop]

Wow.  This is pretty big.  I just love this statement:

"PayPal alone blocks access from over 60 countries, and many credit card companies have similar restrictions. Some are blocked for political reasons, some because of higher fraud rates, and some for other financial reasons. Whatever the reason, we don’t think an individual blogger from Haiti, Ethiopia, or Kenya should have diminished access to the blogosphere because of payment issues they can’t control. Our goal is to enable people, not block them."

[Phinnaeus Gage]

This is good news, but: How exactly is this target group supposed to get hold of bitcoins? Oh, right. There are no bitcoin exchanges in Kenya, Haiti, Cuba, or Iraq. I am not being sarcastic, but genuinely concerned about this problem.

Bitcoin has many "chicken and egg" type issues, this being one out of many. I wouldn't let it get you down, as the more that services build up that accept BTC, the more incentive there will be for people to set up exchange services of some sort in these countries.


I thoroughly applaud this move, we now have:

- highly significant competitor to electronics stores in the form of bitcoinblaster.com and bitcoinstore.com (and I'm really hoping the latter will continue to branch out into more of an amazon.com competitor, early signs of this already)
- digital locker hosting courtesy of Wuala
- significant acceptance among MMPORG sites, either directly or indirectly through forums
- online marketplace in Bitmit.net
- various merchants for precious metals and coins
- limited but growing foodstuffs and real life restaurants/bars (really looking forward to more growth in this area, everyday use products like food and toiletries are a vital link for any fledgling economy)
- several VPN providers now accept
- various payments and transaction services
- perhaps more gambling than sites than necessary (it was bound to happen though!)
- wordpress, one of the big players in blog hosting

Some of these businesses have the potential to really outcompete their fiat alternatives, and a name like wordpress stepping in will only put pressure on the more established outfits to look into Bitcoin. Quite exciting to contemplate, we are beginning to get a real momentum together.

This post sucks, for I'm only preparing a conference/expo/retreat to accommodate about 200 bitcoiners/techies: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=124314.0

[franky1]

amazing


the start of getting bitcoin recognised legitimately so here's a round of applause from the big man himself

[justusranvier]

This is good news, but: How exactly is this target group supposed to get hold of bitcoins? Oh, right. There are no bitcoin exchanges in Kenya, Haiti, Cuba, or Iraq. I am not being sarcastic, but genuinely concerned about this problem.

Remittances and donations should be more than sufficient. Most bloggers from these countries have family abroad who do have access to bitcoins, and if they have any international audience at all it's shouldn't be hard to get enough bitcoins from their readers to pay for the services.

[cypherdoc]

Whatever the reason, we don’t think an individual blogger from Haiti, Ethiopia, or Kenya should have diminished access to the blogosphere because of payment issues they can’t control. Our goal is to enable people, not block them."

me too!

[paraipan]

@gweedo can you STFU? Please

[nobbynobbynoob]

This is good news, but: How exactly is this target group supposed to get hold of bitcoins? Oh, right. There are no bitcoin exchanges in Kenya, Haiti, Cuba, or Iraq. I am not being sarcastic, but genuinely concerned about this problem.

Remittances and donations should be more than sufficient. Most bloggers from these countries have family abroad who do have access to bitcoins, and if they have any international audience at all it's shouldn't be hard to get enough bitcoins from their readers to pay for the services.

I managed to get a friend in Botswana into Bitcoin. He doesn't have a lot of BTC right now but he's clearly keen on its potential.

It's these little acorns...

[Phinnaeus Gage]

I honestly don't care about richest company. It isn't like they are pumping the money into bitcoins anyway and after a little bump in the price of bitcoins, I doubt it will stay there. I want substance, that is a disappointment here.

I'll be nice and explain it to you just this once:

The reason most of us are so excited about this is not necessarily because we hope to see a significant increase in the exchange rate or immediate general use but because a giant rich company like that actually announcing to the world that they think Bitcoin is a legit option is a huge nod of approval which will be heard loud and clear by everyone else on the sidelines indecisive perhaps about jumping in. In other words we are mostly excited for the PR effect this move will have that will eventually hopefully lead to more Bitcoin users and a higher exchange rate!

I hope that was clear enough.

*facepalm* I clearly said that in my very first post here, the exposer will be great for bitcoin community so yeah.

I am going to rain on this parade a little bit, but WORDPRESS really? It is awesome that they are accepting bitcoins, great exposer, but wordpress isn't that great of a company. Plus they launched a small part of that, they should have waited until the can launch there bundles with bitcoins. They claim is due to technical issues, so why not wait the month or two until it is setup.

Yeah it's only like the 22nd largest site in the world..

I don't care if they were the 1st largest site, as I said great press but they limited what is being able to purchased. Plus when was the last time you saw a company blog powered by wordpress? Everyone is switching there blogs to tumblr, if you haven't noticed. Wordpress is just trying to copy tumblr now, kinda sad.

but wordpress isn't that great of a company.

It's the richest company to ever accept bitcoins yet! http://allthingsd.com/20120425/automattic-grows-up-the-company-behind-wordpress-com-shares-revenue-numbers-and-hires-execs/

WordPress now powers 70 million sites, up from 35 million sites a year ago. Almost half of the biggest blogs in the world are hosted by WordPress.com or run on their own versions of the open-source WordPress platform.
The company is profitable, and expects to bring in $45 million in revenue this year, according to CEO Toni Schneider and founder Matt Mullenweg.

I honestly don't care about richest company. It isn't like they are pumping the money into bitcoins anyway and after a little bump in the price of bitcoins, I doubt it will stay there. I want substance, that is a disappointment here.

WordPress completely dominates top 100 blogs Posted in Main on April 11th, 2012 by Pingdom

WordPress is no doubt a very popular web publishing platform for blogs and other types of websites. But just how popular is it?

We just completed a study and found that WordPress is in use by 48% of the top 100 blogs in the world. This is an increase from the 32% we recorded three years ago.

Plus, take a look at this page: http://en.wordpress.com/notable-users/

Did you read the first article posted? Most of the wordpress blogs are self hosted so yeah they will ignore the bitcoins since this only applies to wordpress.com hosted blogs. But twitter, canv.as, Intsagram, and many more use tumblr as a blogging platform. Plus when was the last time you read a NYT blog post, I never even knew they had a blog.

If not now, then later will one be able to upgrade via Bitcoin to a self-hosted blog:

Bitcoin should be accepted for all purchases within two or three months.

[2GOOD]

How can people always find some bad side of any good story... this is crazy c'mon think positive, once again this is great news  

[hazek]

It's these little acorns...

That's how bottom up works 

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Take a gander at some of the comments below the announcement: http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2012/11/15/pay-another-way-bitcoin/

[FreeMoney]

This is good news, but: How exactly is this target group supposed to get hold of bitcoins? Oh, right. There are no bitcoin exchanges in Kenya, Haiti, Cuba, or Iraq. I am not being sarcastic, but genuinely concerned about this problem.

I have a lot of bitcoins, I don't use exchanges. Many people in those countries have skills that someone somewhere in the world might pay for.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

How can people always find some bad side of any good story... this is crazy c'mon think positive, once again this is great news  

We're fucked! The world ain't ready for Bitcoin yet. We need to stop this madness. Can those over at The Bitcoin Foundation put a stop to all this acceptance stuff, starting with having Wordpress change their policy?

Somehow, I feel that BitPay is behind this. We need to have a sPammer tag in place to deal with these rascals.

~Cackling Bear~

[Phinnaeus Gage]

@gweedo can you STFU? Please

Why? cause I disagree that wordpress is the almighty blogging platform. I just don't like wordpress company, plus they said this is half ass launched, they should support anything they sell in bitcoins, and do it right, instead of just half or pick and choose. Sorry my opinion is different and I forgot this isn't a forum for discussions.

For what it's worth, I respect your opinion and wasn't dissing you by posting comments/replies to your posts. (I know your post above wasn't directed toward me, but I wanted to go on record, nonetheless)

[Steve]

Take a gander at some of the comments below the announcement: http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2012/11/15/pay-another-way-bitcoin/

My favorite comment: "This is fantastic! With a place to spend Bitcoins, we can now begin accepting them from our readers. Thanks, WordPress!"

[paraipan]

@gweedo can you STFU? Please

Why? ...

Meh, because bitcoin...

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Take a gander at some of the comments below the announcement: http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2012/11/15/pay-another-way-bitcoin/

My favorite comment: "This is fantastic! With a place to spend Bitcoins, we can now begin accepting them from our readers. Thanks, WordPress!"

Mine:

This is very interesting. I didn't know of Bitcoin… thank you!

Image of the day:

[Bitcoin Oz]

This is good news, but: How exactly is this target group supposed to get hold of bitcoins? Oh, right. There are no bitcoin exchanges in Kenya, Haiti, Cuba, or Iraq. I am not being sarcastic, but genuinely concerned about this problem.

Remittances and donations should be more than sufficient. Most bloggers from these countries have family abroad who do have access to bitcoins, and if they have any international audience at all it's shouldn't be hard to get enough bitcoins from their readers to pay for the services.

https://bitcoinnordic.com/  I think they offer services in Africa and the middle east.

[giszmo]

I don't remember. Who was next?

google.com
facebook.com
youtube.com
yahoo.com
baidu.com
wikipedia.org
live.com
twitter.com
qq.com
amazon.com
taobao.com
linkedin.com
blogspot.com
google.co.in
yahoo.co.jp
sina.com.cn
google.de
yandex.ru
msn.com
wordpress.com
google.com.hk
google.co.jp
bing.com
ebay.com
google.co.uk

[paraipan]

I don't remember. Who was next?

google.com
facebook.com
youtube.com
yahoo.com
baidu.com
wikipedia.org
live.com
twitter.com
qq.com
amazon.com
taobao.com
linkedin.com
blogspot.com
google.co.in
yahoo.co.jp
sina.com.cn
google.de
yandex.ru
msn.com
wordpress.com
google.com.hk
google.co.jp
bing.com
ebay.com
google.co.uk

Reddit?

[bitlizard]

[DoomDumas]

Fantastic...  BTC will became widely used, maybe faster than most of us think !

I Like the press coverage that follows, and all this may just make a snow ball !

That news make my day

I like the artice from Douglas French about acceptance of new currency, well written, well reashershed.  A must read, kinda related..

http://lfb.org/today/currencies-of-the-future/

[justusranvier]

Anyone else notice how the official announcement from Wordpress has subtly changed since it was originally posted?

[Herodes]

I always tought bitcoin was a great concept, from the first time I learned about it. I am glad more people, and esp. people who actually amounts to something realizing this. Wordpress is huge. As more and more 'bigger' entities follow, then more will follow. This will have a snowballing effect. And the more merchants and companies that adopts bitcoin, the harder it will be to justify 'regulating' it to death.

I haven't been too active in the bitcoin community the last few months, so actually seeing things like this, makes me very happy and give me even more renewed confidence in that bitcoin will succeed big. When wordpress now accepts bitcoin, other sites will be thinking "Hm.. wordpress takes bitcoin, then we should too". Then the boss of some larger retailer sees that wordpress, and site x, site n and site b takes bitcoin, and it should amount to something, and before you know it, you can buy on newegg.com with bitcoin, then comes amazon... and so on....  

Cheers for freedom to the individual and for a great payment solution !

[dree12]

Anyone else notice how the official announcement from Wordpress has subtly changed since it was originally posted?

I noticed the change from Cuba and Iraq to Ethiopia.

[helloworld]

This is indeed great news.

But while we're all jumping up and down praising Wordpress, let's give a little credit on the side to BitPay shall we? They've probably made things easier and smoother for everyone.

[kokojie]

This is actually pretty big news, not "wikipedia accepts bitcoin" big, but big nonetheless.

[enkrates]

It's refreshing to have a big, prominent company coming out and supporting Bitcoin. It does a lot of good to have something to contrast with SR. Especially when WordPress.com goes sout of its way to point out the quasi-censorious nature of PayPal.

[hazek]

Anyone else notice how the official announcement from Wordpress has subtly changed since it was originally posted?

I noticed the change from Cuba and Iraq to Ethiopia.

I guess they didn't want to go all the way balls to the wall on the freedom issue.. 

[Herodes]

It's refreshing to have a big, prominent company coming out and supporting Bitcoin. It does a lot of good to have something to contrast with SR. Especially when WordPress.com goes sout of its way to point out the quasi-censorious nature of PayPal.

Haha, I loved that. I guess PayPal will be thrilled when they see that! I would not be surprised if their knee jerk reaction was: "Remove bitcoin from your site, or else we will freeze your PayPal accounts". I hope Wordpress are upstanding Guys and won't cave to PayPal or anyone else. Giving the nature of their business, I would think so.

[hazek]

It's refreshing to have a big, prominent company coming out and supporting Bitcoin. It does a lot of good to have something to contrast with SR. Especially when WordPress.com goes sout of its way to point out the quasi-censorious nature of PayPal.

Haha, I loved that. I guess PayPal will be thrilled when they see that! I would not be surprised if their knee jerk reaction was: "Remove bitcoin from your site, or else we will freeze your PayPal accounts". I hope Wordpress are upstanding Guys and won't cave to PayPal or anyone else. Giving the nature of their business, I would think so.

Or better yet, give them the middle finger and go Bitcoin only!  Well one can dream, right? 

[Daily Anarchist]

It's refreshing to have a big, prominent company coming out and supporting Bitcoin. It does a lot of good to have something to contrast with SR. Especially when WordPress.com goes sout of its way to point out the quasi-censorious nature of PayPal.

Haha, I loved that. I guess PayPal will be thrilled when they see that! I would not be surprised if their knee jerk reaction was: "Remove bitcoin from your site, or else we will freeze your PayPal accounts". I hope Wordpress are upstanding Guys and won't cave to PayPal or anyone else. Giving the nature of their business, I would think so.

Or better yet, give them the middle finger and go Bitcoin only!  Well one can dream, right? 

Some day it will be Bitcoin only.

[justusranvier]

I would not be surprised if their knee jerk reaction was: "Remove bitcoin from your site, or else we will freeze your PayPal accounts"

A move like that would have a very high potential of backfiring.

Wordpress has a big soapbox, and PayPal needs Wordpress more than Wordpress needs PayPal.

[BoardGameCoin]

Anyone else notice how the official announcement from Wordpress has subtly changed since it was originally posted?

I noticed the change from Cuba and Iraq to Ethiopia.

I guess they didn't want to go all the way balls to the wall on the freedom issue.. 

I for one think its the right business call. For a mainstream business like WordPress, its important to not highlight reasons for potential enmity with powerful people. Often a lateral approach is the best way to bootstrap greater freedoms (see end of slavery in England for example)

[Trader Steve]

source: http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2012/11/15/pay-another-way-bitcoin/

Pay Another Way: Bitcoin

At WordPress.com, our mission is making publishing democratic — accessible and easy for anyone, anywhere. And while anyone can start a free blog here, not everyone can access upgrades (like going ad-free or enabling custom design) because of limits on traditional payment networks.

Today, that changes: you can now buy WordPress.com upgrades with bitcoins.

PayPal alone blocks access from over 60 countries, and many credit card companies have similar restrictions. Some are blocked for political reasons, some because of higher fraud rates, and some for other financial reasons. Whatever the reason, we don’t think an individual blogger from Kenya, Haiti, Cuba, or Iraq should have diminished access to the blogosphere because of payment issues they can’t control. Our goal is to enable people, not block them.

This is good news, but: How exactly is this target group supposed to get hold of bitcoins? Oh, right. There are no bitcoin exchanges in Kenya, Haiti, Cuba, or Iraq. I am not being sarcastic, but genuinely concerned about this problem.

Easy, all they have to do is accept bitcoin as payment for their goods and services. I'm sure they produce many goods and services that bitcoin owners would like to buy.

[ArticMine]

Anyone else notice how the official announcement from Wordpress has subtly changed since it was originally posted?

I noticed the change from Cuba and Iraq to Ethiopia.

Actually they do not have to go that far. There a millions of adults, more than the entire adult population of Cuba and Iraq combined, in the United States that cannot get a bank account, credit card or PayPal account due to poor credit.

[BitPay Business Solutions]

This is very exciting news.  i was in the middle of a 7 hour drive when the announcement broke, so I'm catching up on all of the news now.  It looks like the press is picking up the story so I would expect much more coverage on Friday.

We have been working with Wordpress for about 3 months on this project.  It is exciting to see it finally launched!

Tony

[Phinnaeus Gage]

This is very exciting news.  i was in the middle of a 7 hour drive when the announcement broke, so I'm catching up on all of the news now.  It looks like the press is picking up the story so I would expect much more coverage on Friday.

We have been working with Wordpress for about 3 months on this project.  It is exciting to see it finally launched!

Tony

Oh yea! What else have you been working on behind our backs, Tony? 

[proudhon]

This is very exciting news.  i was in the middle of a 7 hour drive when the announcement broke, so I'm catching up on all of the news now.  It looks like the press is picking up the story so I would expect much more coverage on Friday.

We have been working with Wordpress for about 3 months on this project.  It is exciting to see it finally launched!

Tony

Oh yea! What else have you been working on behind our backs, Tony? 

Amazon.  He's probably working on Amazon behind our backs.   

[BitPay Business Solutions]

Oh yea! What else have you been working on behind our backs, Tony? 

Amazon.  He's probably working on Amazon behind our backs.   

haha, I'm not telling.  Although we could have another big annoucement tomorrow, if the lawyers get everything approved.

[dancupid]

What's interesting is that it allows people with blogs to accept bitcoin donations and then use those bitcoins directly to pay for extra services.
It creats a closed economy for the bloggers.
A blogger from Iraq/Kenya/Cuba can get now hold of bitcoins simply by blogging.

[allthingsluxury]

Wow this is amazing news. This is going to bring HUGE awareness to bitcoin. Good job wordpress!

[Daily Anarchist]

Let's face it, Wordpress only mentioned Kenya and Etheopia as a P.R. move. I have no problem with that. The truth is that they can now start accepting payments with only a 0.99% fee charged by Bitpay instead of a 3% + $0.30 fee by paypal and credit cards.

Capitalism wins!

[smracer]

Go Bitpay!

[giszmo]

I don't remember. Who was next?

google.com
facebook.com
youtube.com
yahoo.com
baidu.com
wikipedia.org
live.com
twitter.com
qq.com
amazon.com
taobao.com
linkedin.com
blogspot.com
google.co.in
yahoo.co.jp
sina.com.cn
google.de
yandex.ru
msn.com
wordpress.com
google.com.hk
google.co.jp
bing.com
ebay.com
google.co.uk

Reddit?

My list is the alexa top 25 that was referred to in an interview by Tony. Reddit.com ranks at #132.

I'm sure, Tony will tell us tomorrow, who's next  

[sunnankar]

I would not be surprised if their knee jerk reaction was: "Remove bitcoin from your site, or else we will freeze your PayPal accounts"

A move like that would have a very high potential of backfiring.

Wordpress has a big soapbox, and PayPal needs Wordpress more than Wordpress needs PayPal.

This is extremely important. WordPress is synomous with freedom of speech. This allows us to reframe the Bitcoin debate from being used to buy drugs to ensuring our freedom of speech. We saw how fast the Internet rallied against SOPA, PIPA, etc. Bitcoin will get a lot more public support for freedom of speech. Coupled with the everyone with a soapbox using Bitcoin to pay for their soapbox ... I cannot really think of a more important propellant for public Bitcoin support.

PayPal recently fired 325 employees and 120 independent contractors. If they tried to freeze WordPress they would encounter a fury from the Internet like SOPA did. I imagine a lot of bloggers would boycott Paypal out of spite.

[imanikin]

"...Then you win." 

[Herodes]

PayPal recently fired 325 employees and 120 independent contractors. If they tried to freeze WordPress they would encounter a fury from the Internet like SOPA did. I imagine a lot of bloggers would boycott Paypal out of spite.

Or even better: PayPal threatens wordpress to remove Bitcoin. Wordpress rejectes and throws out PayPal and makes a press release about the bad business ethics of PayPal, and how much better bitcoin is. If this happened, damn - I would have a party arranged!

[proudhon]

Seriously though, if you're PayPal right now, this should be concerning.  It's not that this instance is going to have any noticeable effect on their bottom line, but, from PayPal's perspective, this isn't something you'd want to turn into a trend.

[Daily Anarchist]

If/when amazon accepts Bitcoin Paypal is finished.

And it wouldn't surprise me to see Amazon stand up to legal challenges either over accepting Bitcoin. I gained a lot of respect for Amazon after they boycotted states that instituted an online sales tax. California even backed down after they did that. It was awesome!

[Herodes]

If/when amazon accepts Bitcoin Paypal is finished.

And it wouldn't surprise me to see Amazon stand up to legal challenges either over accepting Bitcoin. I gained a lot of respect for Amazon after they boycotted states that instituted an online sales tax. California even backed down after they did that. It was awesome!

And just imagine how many people will have their first taste of bitcoin through wordpress. Now, this will probably also create opportunities for bitcoin exchanges in all these countries that PayPal blocks.

[proudhon]

If/when amazon accepts Bitcoin Paypal is finished.

And it wouldn't surprise me to see Amazon stand up to legal challenges either over accepting Bitcoin. I gained a lot of respect for Amazon after they boycotted states that instituted an online sales tax. California even backed down after they did that. It was awesome!

My joking with Tony aside, if that ever does happen, I suspect it'll be a looooong way down the road.  This isn't a judgment, but an observation -- Amazon is heavily entrenched in and dependent on the traditional financial system, and its providers probably have an interest in compelling a company like Amazon from getting involved with bitcoin.

[julz]

If/when amazon accepts Bitcoin Paypal is finished.

And it wouldn't surprise me to see Amazon stand up to legal challenges either over accepting Bitcoin. I gained a lot of respect for Amazon after they boycotted states that instituted an online sales tax. California even backed down after they did that. It was awesome!

I doubt it will happen any time soon. Amazon was very quick to deny wikileaks any service on dubious 'terms of service' claims.

[Herodes]

If/when amazon accepts Bitcoin Paypal is finished.

And it wouldn't surprise me to see Amazon stand up to legal challenges either over accepting Bitcoin. I gained a lot of respect for Amazon after they boycotted states that instituted an online sales tax. California even backed down after they did that. It was awesome!

I doubt it will happen any time soon. Amazon was very quick to deny wikileaks any service on dubious 'terms of service' claims.

Agree, I too think it's a long time till Amazon accepts bitcoin, but we can all agree that it's going the right way, and it will be very exciting so see which next site or business that accepts bitcoin. Wordpress is big, and it's a good selling point. The more bulletpoints we can put on the bitcoin pro list, the better it is.

So now, when somebody just says: "I heard about this bitcoin thing, it's just for criminals and for evading taxes right?". "No, that's not right, it's more like giving freedom to the individuals, and if you ever heard about wordpress, those are using bitcoin to enable exactly this, enabling business all over the world, PayPal already blocked 60 countries, so they used bitcoin instead!"

A lot of people and business are of the type "sit on fence and wait", so they see if bitcoin takes up, and if other business starts accepting it, then they start as well.

The saying has for a long time been: "We don't accept bitcoin, nobody else does", it will soon change to "We might consider it, we see several businesses accepting it, and we're monitoriing the situation" and then to "This bitcoin thing, everyone is accepting it these days, we must too!"

Then some years down the line, it's just as common as PayPal is today, or it could even happen faster, we don't know.

[Daily Anarchist]

I don't know, the nice thing about Bitpay is that it allows vendors the ability to not have to worry about holding Bitcoins. It's essentially just reducing their overhead from 3% with credit cards and paypal to 0.99% with Bitpay. What's to lose?

[Liquid]

Amazing News 

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Seriously though, if you're PayPal right now, this should be concerning.  It's not that this instance is going to have any noticeable effect on their bottom line, but, from PayPal's perspective, this isn't something you'd want to turn into a trend.

eBayers: Tired of taken it in the groin? Then consider Bitcoin.

[videos4btc]

Now let's not screw this up ok ?

edit: where can we see how many bitcoins they've received so far?

[jgarzik]

Amazon is heavily entrenched in and dependent on the traditional financial system, and its providers probably have an interest in compelling a company like Amazon from getting involved with bitcoin.

Sadly quite true.  Amazon (as Amazon Payments) spend tons of money and lawyer time registering themselves with each and every US state as a money transmitter, MSB or similar.

It seems likely that Amazon would jump on the bitcoin bandwagon after it hits major adoption.

[fimp]

This is good news, but: How exactly is this target group supposed to get hold of bitcoins? Oh, right. There are no bitcoin exchanges in Kenya, Haiti, Cuba, or Iraq. I am not being sarcastic, but genuinely concerned about this problem.

At Bitcoin Nordic, we have sold bitcoins to Iraq through CashU.

[Daily Anarchist]

Now let's not screw this up ok ?

edit: where can we see how many bitcoins they've received so far?

This is a good question. I can't speak for Wordpress, but for other businesses they probably don't want their earnings to be a matter of public record. Isn't that sort of a drawback to Bitpay, that they use a static Bitcoin address? Or have they figured out a way to create unique addresses for each customer?

[fimp]

Or have they figured out a way to create unique addresses for each customer?

That's standard procedure for pretty much any bitcoin-accepting merchant. How else would you know which customer paid what?

[Daily Anarchist]

Or have they figured out a way to create unique addresses for each customer?

That's standard procedure for pretty much any bitcoin-accepting merchant. How else would you know which customer paid what?

Good point. I guess I was just confusing it with the cards with QR codes on them. Those are static addresses, but people pay in person so there's no confusion.

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

Explosive news!

Now I'm starting to wonder just how much of Bitcoin's near-term fate rests in the hands of BitPay. Obviously excellent job on their part, but I feel like I know far too little about them.

[caveden]

My favorite comment: "This is fantastic! With a place to spend Bitcoins, we can now begin accepting them from our readers. Thanks, WordPress!"

Indeed! I also liked this one:

This is very interesting. I didn’t know of Bitcoin… thank you!

PS: How do we make a quote linking to a different site?

[dserrano5]

haha, I'm not telling.  Although we could have another big annoucement tomorrow, if the lawyers get everything approved.

Why tomorrow? Let this wordpress shockwave settle down a bit, then attack again with that second announcement .

[Daily Anarchist]

haha, I'm not telling.  Although we could have another big annoucement tomorrow, if the lawyers get everything approved.

Why tomorrow? Let this wordpress shockwave settle down a bit, then attack again with that second announcement .

No, I think the one-two punch is more powerful!

[Akka]

The best new about this is that Bitcoin finally has it's Mainstream "flagship". It will be much easier to approach big Sites to accept Bitcoin payments, if there already is one doing so.

That could be a real starting signal for BTC.

Also with the amount of readers, we can expect Millions of people to hear the first time of Bitcoin.

Oh man, I'm so exited!

[ingrownpocket]

https://news.google.com/news/search?q=bitcoin

[istar]

haha, I'm not telling.  Although we could have another big annoucement tomorrow, if the lawyers get everything approved.

Why tomorrow? Let this wordpress shockwave settle down a bit, then attack again with that second announcement .

Yes, hold it for a month

[Yuhfhrh]

Just takes one to get the party started.  Then it is just a matter of playing follow the leader.

[paulie_w]

WOW!

[bitfreak!]

Way to go WordPress. The big players are making their way into the game... had to happen sooner or later, the benefits of bitcoin simply cannot be denied.

[JackH]

Very good news indeed. I celebrated this by closing my paypal account for good.

[hazek]

In case people missed it the wordpress.com Bitcoin story is the 2nd hottest topic on r/technology which has over 2M subscribers!

[marcus_of_augustus]

I would not be surprised if their knee jerk reaction was: "Remove bitcoin from your site, or else we will freeze your PayPal accounts"

A move like that would have a very high potential of backfiring.

Wordpress has a big soapbox, and PayPal needs Wordpress more than Wordpress needs PayPal.

This is extremely important. WordPress is synomous with freedom of speech. This allows us to reframe the Bitcoin debate from being used to buy drugs to ensuring our freedom of speech. We saw how fast the Internet rallied against SOPA, PIPA, etc. Bitcoin will get a lot more public support for freedom of speech. Coupled with the everyone with a soapbox using Bitcoin to pay for their soapbox ... I cannot really think of a more important propellant for public Bitcoin support.

PayPal recently fired 325 employees and 120 independent contractors. If they tried to freeze WordPress they would encounter a fury from the Internet like SOPA did. I imagine a lot of bloggers would boycott Paypal out of spite.

The "bitcoin enables electronic freedom of the word press" angle on this that WP have gone out of their way to highlight kind of makes EFF lawyers look like yellow muppets for not getting out in front of ... maybe this will give them some spine?

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

Let's all get upgraded WordPress blogs!

Almost up to 300 points on reddit! Biggest news ever.

[Herodes]

The "bitcoin enables electronic freedom of the word press" angle on this that WP have gone out of their way to highlight kind of makes EFF lawyers look like yellow muppets for not getting out in front of ... maybe this will give them some spine?

+1000

[420]

Well bitcoin just got a BJ

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

I find following response appropriate for this occasion:

AWWWWWWWESSSSSSOME !!

[aurora]

The truth is that they can now start accepting payments with only a 0.99% fee charged by Bitpay instead of a 3% + $0.30 fee by paypal and credit cards.

Capitalism wins!

you cant compare paypal and bitpay like that. Bitpay charges almost 3% to have your funds in USD. ...SO its pretty close to paypal fees..
But there is company called Samplepay charges only 2.8% for cc transactions and no other fees just monthly

[flix]

This is very exciting news.  i was in the middle of a 7 hour drive when the announcement broke, so I'm catching up on all of the news now.  It looks like the press is picking up the story so I would expect much more coverage on Friday.

We have been working with Wordpress for about 3 months on this project.  It is exciting to see it finally launched!

Tony

Congrats!  You are changing the world!

[Benson Samuel]

Proud to be a Wordpress Blogger on Bitcoin.

[Herodes]

Very good news indeed. I celebrated this by closing my paypal account for good.

Great, you should send them an e-mail telling them that you have converted to bitcoin.

[RodeoX]

The crazy part for me is that my wife was buying from wordpress today. She is setting up a wedding website for her sister. She is sending them an email stating that their acceptance of BTC was the final persuasion.

Yes, this is big news. Other sites will follow wordpress and reddit.
Rally time?

[Phinnaeus Gage]

The truth is that they can now start accepting payments with only a 0.99% fee charged by Bitpay instead of a 3% + $0.30 fee by paypal and credit cards.

Capitalism wins!

you cant compare paypal and bitpay like that. Bitpay charges almost 3% to have your funds in USD. ...SO its pretty close to paypal fees..
But there is company called Samplepay charges only 2.8% for cc transactions and no other fees just monthly

But zero chargebacks. Plus, WP doesn't have to convert to fiat. I'm sure they always need stuff for their office. They can head on over to Memory Dealers and make purchases. I'm also pretty sure that they may have cash prizes for their employees as incentives. They can now award the winners with Bitcoin.

Since Bitcoin will only be a small part of their income at first, they can simply amass them until the value goes up, cashing them out latter, thus overcoming the vig. In fact, they win even if they don't cash out a single coin before the price plummets, because they have added subscribers without using a cent of advertising. Genius!

~Bruno K~

[Saturn7]

I guess this will also push Reddit to accept Bitcoins too.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

The crazy part for me is that my wife was buying from wordpress today. She is setting up a wedding website for her sister. She is sending them an email stating that their acceptance of BTC was the final persuasion.

Yes, this is big news. Other sites will follow wordpress and reddit.
Rally time?

Development on Squidoo started in 2005, launching a beta testing period in October of that year. The launch team consisted of Seth Godin, his book editor Megan Casey, former Fast Company employee Heath Row, Corey Brown, and Gil Hildebrand, Jr.

[nevafuse]

Too bad Peter Thiel isn't still in charge of Paypal.  Bitcoin seems right up his alley.  But Paypal has fallen pretty far from the tree.  I can see BitInstant or Bitpay totally replacing Paypal in the near future.  Maybe Peter should throw some money at one of those companies.  That's an investment I would get behind.  Bitpay or Bitinstant accepting investment money for ownership shares?

[flix]

Excellent Jon Matonis article on this:
What's Your Bitcoin Strategy? WordPress Now Accepts Bitcoin Across The Planet
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2012/11/16/whats-your-bitcoin-strategy-wordpress-now-accepts-bitcoin-across-the-planet/

I awoke to incredible news this morning. Leading web publishing service WordPress.com announced that they will begin accepting the nonpolitical cryptographic money Bitcoin as a payment method for various upgrades.

Then I remembered that WordPress is our online publishing platform. It’s also the blog platform for The New York Times, CNN, Reuters, Mashable, NBC Sports, GigaOm, TechCrunch, ELLE Girl, RealClearPolitics, TED, National Football League, General Motors, UPS, eBay, Sony, and Volkswagen.

[Isokivi]

Awesome. Now if only reddit followed suite:

[Gabi]

Great news! 

[Benson Samuel]

Payment companies seem to be the next low hanging fruit for Bitcoin.

What do they stand to lose by adding a Bitcoin wallet to their existing offerings?

Gives more visibility for Bitcoin and adds tremendous value to their product offerings as well.

[giszmo]

Why are people so eager about reddit? Who cares? Reddit users know about bitcoin and it's a "small" geeky group anyway.

The Wordpress-move itself is more interesting for why they did it than the fact that they did it. The press release weighs 100x more than any news about stolen bitcoins and some pot heads buying on silkroad. If silkroad is a reason to fight bitcoin, freedom of speech is a reason to support it.

What exactly would reddit accepting bitcoin add to this other than being a follower?

[niko]

What's interesting is that it allows people with blogs to accept bitcoin donations and then use those bitcoins directly to pay for extra services.
It creats a closed economy for the bloggers.
A blogger from Iraq/Kenya/Cuba can get now hold of bitcoins simply by blogging.

Excellent point, and a good answer to my concern below:

Pay Another Way: Bitcoin

At WordPress.com, our mission is making publishing democratic — accessible and easy for anyone, anywhere. And while anyone can start a free blog here, not everyone can access upgrades (like going ad-free or enabling custom design) because of limits on traditional payment networks.

Today, that changes: you can now buy WordPress.com upgrades with bitcoins.

PayPal alone blocks access from over 60 countries, and many credit card companies have similar restrictions. Some are blocked for political reasons, some because of higher fraud rates, and some for other financial reasons. Whatever the reason, we don’t think an individual blogger from Kenya, Haiti, Cuba, or Iraq should have diminished access to the blogosphere because of payment issues they can’t control. Our goal is to enable people, not block them.

This is good news, but: How exactly is this target group supposed to get hold of bitcoins? Oh, right. There are no bitcoin exchanges in Kenya, Haiti, Cuba, or Iraq. I am not being sarcastic, but genuinely concerned about this problem.

Thank you, dancupid!

[JackH]

Very good news indeed. I celebrated this by closing my paypal account for good.

Great, you should send them an e-mail telling them that you have converted to bitcoin.

Oh but what a dance on their grave I did. Trust me, Bitcoin got mentioned many times during their "but why did you leave our crap service?" questionnaire. I basically did a comparable chart for them nailing the benefits of Bitcoin to their service. I hope their CEO sees it, lol

[Isokivi]

This is good news, but: How exactly is this target group supposed to get hold of bitcoins? Oh, right. There are no bitcoin exchanges in Kenya, Haiti, Cuba, or Iraq. I am not being sarcastic, but genuinely concerned about this problem.

Iraq: nothing
Kenya: https://localbitcoins.com/postal_code/ken/nairobi/9999/?unit=km&listing_amount=10&
Haiti: none
Cuba: none

1/4 this should give you some hope.

[paraipan]

This is good news, but: How exactly is this target group supposed to get hold of bitcoins? Oh, right. There are no bitcoin exchanges in Kenya, Haiti, Cuba, or Iraq. I am not being sarcastic, but genuinely concerned about this problem.

Iraq: nothing
Kenya: https://localbitcoins.com/postal_code/ken/nairobi/9999/?unit=km&listing_amount=10&
Haiti: none
Cuba: none

1/4 this should give you some hope.

You didn't count the miners http://blockchain.info/connected-nodes

[Trader Steve]

I would not be surprised if their knee jerk reaction was: "Remove bitcoin from your site, or else we will freeze your PayPal accounts"

A move like that would have a very high potential of backfiring.

Wordpress has a big soapbox, and PayPal needs Wordpress more than Wordpress needs PayPal.

This is extremely important. WordPress is synomous with freedom of speech. This allows us to reframe the Bitcoin debate from being used to buy drugs to ensuring our freedom of speech. We saw how fast the Internet rallied against SOPA, PIPA, etc. Bitcoin will get a lot more public support for freedom of speech. Coupled with the everyone with a soapbox using Bitcoin to pay for their soapbox ... I cannot really think of a more important propellant for public Bitcoin support.

PayPal recently fired 325 employees and 120 independent contractors. If they tried to freeze WordPress they would encounter a fury from the Internet like SOPA did. I imagine a lot of bloggers would boycott Paypal out of spite.

The "bitcoin enables electronic freedom of the word press" angle on this that WP have gone out of their way to highlight kind of makes EFF lawyers look like yellow muppets for not getting out in front of ... maybe this will give them some spine?

LOL agreed...

[remotemass]

Will it be easier to have shopping carts with a bitcoin escrow system in wordpress sites?

[giszmo]

This is good news, but: How exactly is this target group supposed to get hold of bitcoins? Oh, right. There are no bitcoin exchanges in Kenya, Haiti, Cuba, or Iraq. I am not being sarcastic, but genuinely concerned about this problem.

Iraq: nothing
Kenya: https://localbitcoins.com/postal_code/ken/nairobi/9999/?unit=km&listing_amount=10&
Haiti: none
Cuba: none

1/4 this should give you some hope.

Wordpress!!! Guys, a blogger that tells his customers that they get an add free blog if they tip him, can get bitcoins by spreading the word! How awesome is that?

(yes, it has been implied earlier in this thread but some people seam to not read every single post in this awesome thread )

[dancupid]

This is good news, but: How exactly is this target group supposed to get hold of bitcoins? Oh, right. There are no bitcoin exchanges in Kenya, Haiti, Cuba, or Iraq. I am not being sarcastic, but genuinely concerned about this problem.

Iraq: nothing
Kenya: https://localbitcoins.com/postal_code/ken/nairobi/9999/?unit=km&listing_amount=10&
Haiti: none
Cuba: none

1/4 this should give you some hope.

Wordpress!!! Guys, a blogger that tells his customers that they get an add free blog if they tip him, can get bitcoins by spreading the word! How awesome is that?

(yes, it has been implied earlier in this thread but some people seam to not read every single post in this awesome thread )

I'm sure there are important blogs by serious journalists in countries that are facing the paypal/visa embargo who can now fund their journalism directly through bitcoin - pay for their vpn/vps, pay to update the tools they need to freely express themselves.
They can be supported by ordinary individuals and other journalists who care about what they have to say.

[giszmo]

Very good news indeed. I celebrated this by closing my paypal account for good.

… and so did I. Funny how you have to click 7(?) times on ok, continue, really close, really really close, i'm sure, … even after you gave them detailed info on why you quit. Oh, damn, I forgot to write "R.I.P. Paypal"

[freespirit]

That's great news!

NOW IS THE TIME to write (again) to all those merchants you would like to accept Bitcoins and tell them about Wordpress' announcement!

[elux]

PayPal alone blocks access from over 60 countries, and many credit card companies have similar restrictions. Some are blocked for political reasons, some because of higher fraud rates, and some for other financial reasons. Whatever the reason, we don’t think an individual blogger from Kenya, Haiti, Cuba, or Iraq should have diminished access to the blogosphere because of payment issues they can’t control. Our goal is to enable people, not block them.

So, let me get this straight... Freedom of speech shouldn't be limited to "the free world"?

That's a preposterous idea! WordPress? How very silly. More like WorldPress, I say.

God knows what these poor people will actually do given freedom of speech.

Freedom? In Haiti! Cuba!? Iraq!? My, what are these people thinking? It's not all rosy down there, you know.
If these people can freely share opinions and collaborate as we do in London, Paris and New York...
People might get angry, they might get upset, indeed, they could upset the very way of things.
You heard what happened in Moscow when technology stumped the censors, you saw what happened with the Arabs.
People were upset, they assembled in numbers, yes, whole governments crumbled in months. No, we'll never see the end to this. Tsk, tsk, tsk.
 

As the old saying goes: "Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one."

(Freedom of the press is now also available in Kenya, Haiti, Cuba, and Iraq.)

Empowered. By WordPress.

* (Paypal, Visa, Mastercard: not accepted.)

[foo]

Why are people so eager about reddit? Who cares? Reddit users know about bitcoin and it's a "small" geeky group anyway.

Yes, reddit is a tiny site, only used by nobodies like Barack Obama:

http://www.reddit.com/user/PresidentObama/submitted/

[gweedo]

Why are people so eager about reddit? Who cares? Reddit users know about bitcoin and it's a "small" geeky group anyway.

Yes, reddit is a tiny site, only used by nobodies like Barack Obama:

http://www.reddit.com/user/PresidentObama/submitted/

Over 3 billion page views is nothing of course

[BitPay Business Solutions]

its quite exciting because all week everyone was talking about Reddit, Reddit, Reddit.  And then Wordpress comes out of nowhere and drops the biggest ringing endorsement you could ask for.

[marcus_of_augustus]

its quite exciting because all week everyone was talking about Reddit, Reddit, Reddit.  And then Wordpress comes out of nowhere and drops the biggest ringing endorsement you could ask for.

Reddit are still "thinking about it" last I heard, maybe they'll be calling up EFF to ask for their permission?

[Seal]

I'm currently seeing no less than 16 articles in the press section covering the wordpress announcement. This is a massive promotional piece for both wordpress and bitcoin. I would expect google trends to be picking this up in search volume over the next few days.

[FlipPro]

its quite exciting because all week everyone was talking about Reddit, Reddit, Reddit.  And then Wordpress comes out of nowhere and drops the biggest ringing endorsement you could ask for.

Reddit are still "thinking about it" last I heard, maybe they'll be calling up EFF to ask for their permission?

Lulz 

[helloworld]

What exactly would reddit accepting bitcoin add to this other than being a follower?

Momentum?

[helloworld]

If these people can freely share opinions and collaborate as we do in London

I seriously hope you're not suggesting London has a good freedom of speech track record. They love sending bloggers and twitterers to jail.

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

This is good news, but: How exactly is this target group supposed to get hold of bitcoins? Oh, right. There are no bitcoin exchanges in Kenya, Haiti, Cuba, or Iraq. I am not being sarcastic, but genuinely concerned about this problem.

Iraq: nothing
Kenya: https://localbitcoins.com/postal_code/ken/nairobi/9999/?unit=km&listing_amount=10&
Haiti: none
Cuba: none

1/4 this should give you some hope.

Wordpress!!! Guys, a blogger that tells his customers that they get an add free blog if they tip him, can get bitcoins by spreading the word! How awesome is that?

(yes, it has been implied earlier in this thread but some people seam to not read every single post in this awesome thread )

I'm sure there are important blogs by serious journalists in countries that are facing the paypal/visa embargo who can now fund their journalism directly through bitcoin - pay for their vpn/vps, pay to update the tools they need to freely express themselves.
They can be supported by ordinary individuals and other journalists who care about what they have to say.

Personalize this in a touching human story about one blogger who was enabled by Bitcoin and we'd have powerful PR . This kind of thing is perfect for Bitcoin's image, and is a perfect antidote to the "black market" and "money laundering" image.

[BitPay Business Solutions]

Personalize this in a touching human story about one blogger who was enabled by Bitcoin and we'd have powerful PR . This kind of thing is perfect for Bitcoin's image, and is a perfect antidote to the "black market" and "money laundering" image.

Search around the internet for some kids in Africa with a blog site on Wordpress.  Convince them to accept donations in bitcoins, a handful of us chip in, and with like 3 BTC they can upgrade and improve their blog.

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

This is like how reddit will find some person in need and shower them with donations and gifts. Some examples of this crowd philanthropy, which of course would be much easier in bitcoins: http://mashable.com/2012/05/24/reddit-social-good/

Bitcoin is a tidal wave of human interest stories just waiting to happen. If this were to catch on, when it comes time for the regulators to crack down there could be a huge public outcry.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Personalize this in a touching human story about one blogger who was enabled by Bitcoin and we'd have powerful PR . This kind of thing is perfect for Bitcoin's image, and is a perfect antidote to the "black market" and "money laundering" image.

Search around the internet for some kids in Africa with a blog site on Wordpress.  Convince them to accept donations in bitcoins, a handful of us chip in, and with like 3 BTC they can upgrade and improve their blog.

Thanks to your post, I discovered Heather Mansfield.

[Stephen Gornick]

Bitpay charges almost 3% to have your funds in USD. ...SO its pretty close to paypal fees..

Don't forget that when a merchant like WordPress receives PayPal payment from customers in other countries, they get charged "cross border fees" of an additional amount (~1% extra).
 - https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/?cmd=_display-xborder-fees-outside


This also lets WordPress customers take advantage of the frequent opportunity to arbitrage.  There will be instances where the price (in USDs) is more expensive to pay than if that customer were to buy bitcoins using the local rate for bitcoins due to exchanges not always being price efficient.

For instance, at this moment BTC/USD is $11.52.  So if I was making a $11.52 purchase from WordPress, I would be asked to pay 1.0 BTC.    At this moment the EUR/USD is 1.2727 and let's say the BTC/EUR was 8.7 EUR.  That would let the customer pay using bitcoins and see a discount versus if paying using EURs, as those 8.7 EUR would convert to $11.02 USD using the current EUR/USD exchange rate but they buy 1.0 BTC which satisfies the amount on the WordPress invoice.

These differences will normally only be a few percent but there are times (like today) where these opportunities to perform purchase price arbitrage are possible to the WordPress customer.

Additionally, WordPress (or parent Automaticc) likely pays freelancers for help and those freelancers will probably be among the first to realize that if WordPress is accepting bitcoins that WordPress might also be willing to send payment in bitcoins as well (versus whatever current method is used -- such as an expensive bank wire).    When that happens WordPress may just change their payout conversion settings so that some of the revenues are kept as BTCs.

It may already be that WordPress is paying for help (e.g., freelancers) with bitcoins, and now adding bitcoins as a payment method for its revenue stream gives them a cheaper method to acquire bitcoins than buying through an exchange.     That's probably not the case here with WordPress, but this undoubtedly will be the catalyst triggering much follow-on commerce where bitcoins are used for payment.

[cunicula]

Search around the internet for some kids in Africa with a blog site on Wordpress.  Convince them to accept donations in bitcoins, a handful of us chip in, and with like 3 BTC they can upgrade and improve their blog.

LOL. "Wanted Nigerian Scammer who accepts bitcoin" I can't wait to see that blow up in your face.

[BitPay Business Solutions]

Bitpay charges almost 3% to have your funds in USD. ...SO its pretty close to paypal fees..

Don't forget that when a merchant like WordPress receives payment from customers in other countries, they get charged "cross border fees" of an additional amount (~1% extra).
 - https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/?cmd=_display-xborder-fees-outside

~1% is just the extra fee, they also pad the rate.

For a $5 wordpress upgrade, collecting from any foreign country, PayPal will take 30 cents plus 3.9% plus their 1% margin on the exchange.  so in total, about 11% processing fee.

If those are the types of fees a company has been paying for the last 15 years, they would not bat an eye at our 2.69% all-inclusive fee.

[cunicula]

Bitpay charges almost 3% to have your funds in USD. ...SO its pretty close to paypal fees..

Don't forget that when a merchant like WordPress receives payment from customers in other countries, they get charged "cross border fees" of an additional amount (~1% extra).
 - https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/?cmd=_display-xborder-fees-outside

~1% is just the extra fee, they also pad the rate.

For a $5 wordpress upgrade, collecting from any foreign country, PayPal will take 30 cents plus 3.9% plus their 1% margin on the exchange.  so in total, about 11% processing fee.

If those are the types of fees a company has been paying for the last 15 years, they would not bat an eye at our 2.69% all-inclusive fee.

Are they offering any type of discount for bitcoin use?
If yes, what kind?
If no, why not?

[FreeMoney]

What sort of thing does a $5 (or any price) WP upgrade get you? I think I saw numbers of like $45 mil for WP last year, but I don't know if that is revenue or profit, are lots of people buying upgrades?

[Herodes]

Search around the internet for some kids in Africa with a blog site on Wordpress.  Convince them to accept donations in bitcoins, a handful of us chip in, and with like 3 BTC they can upgrade and improve their blog.

LOL. "Wanted Nigerian Scammer who accepts bitcoin" I can't wait to see that blow up in your face.

Just wait till the Somali pirates starts learning about bitcoin!

Perhaps we will see pirates with EMG weapons, and shippers will get this threat:

"Pay 200K bitcoins to 1asxddffsa3334r541234 within 12 hours, or expect all your ships passing woddoloddidoo waters to be incapacitated for the following week."

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

Are they offering any type of discount for bitcoin use?

Why would they give discount if they have to pay a fee to the BitPay similarly as they would pay to PayPal ?

Also, even if they processed the Bitcoins themselves, they would still have to convert BTC to dollars anyway, so there is another small loss in the process of exchange.

[cunicula]

Are they offering any type of discount for bitcoin use?

Why would they give discount if they have to pay a fee to the BitPay similarly as they would pay to PayPal ?

Also, even if they processed the Bitcoins themselves, they would still have to convert BTC to dollars anyway, so there is another small loss in the process of exchange.

Assuming that BitPay and Wordpress are well-managed (big assumption), BitPay is giving Wordpress a significant discount on its advertised processing fee, and Wordpress is passing part
of the savings on to customers.

 [It is also possible that the CC cartel interferes with this. Funny thing about bitcoin libertarians. They like cartels, but cartels fuck them anally. Does this mean libertarians are bottoms?]

If wordpress does not do this, then bitcoin will not be used by a meaningful number of Wordpress customers. If bitcoin is not used by a meaningful number of wordpress customers,
then bitcoin adoption will negatively affect wordpress' bottom line.

Payoff = Additional Margin from Bitcoin Payment vs. CC (negligible without volume) + Additional Customers who can only access bitcoin (absolutely negligible) - Adoption cost

This will be negative unless a discount is offered to increase the volume of BTC payments.

To sum up in different words. BitPay claims that the CC companies are taking 11% on some wordpress payments vs. ~3% via BitPay. Wordpress should introduce an incentive for customers to use bitcoins so that
it can earn larger margins. Otherwise, what is the point for Wordpress? Customers are not going to use bitcoin for the hell of it. I don't get any miles when I pay with bitcoin. Unless there is a discount, I pay with my card every single time.

[cunicula]

You want a company to be less greedy LMAO

No. I'm an economist. If the managers aren't greedy, I want the managers replaced.

It is possible that CC company greed is interfering with greed further down in the chain. If so, I blame the state for failing to adequately regulate CC companies.

[cunicula]

You want a company to be less greedy LMAO

No. I'm an economist. I want companies to be more greedy. If they aren't greedy I want the managers replaced with competent ones.

wait you just said you want wordpress to over a discount because they use bitcoins and don't have high fees, now your saying something else. They are greedy no discount will happen.

Have you heard of supply and demand? Or is this going to be hopeless?

[phr33]

Great news!

I won't be surprised if more and more sites will follow. Go bitcoin!

[Miles Bennett Dyson]

You can see an effect here: http://stats.grok.se/en/latest30/Bitcoin

[marcus_of_augustus]

[It is also possible that the CC cartel interferes with this. Funny thing about bitcoin libertarians. They like cartels, but cartels fuck them anally. Does this mean libertarians are bottoms?]

No. I'm an economist.

Whatever else you might be, you are clearly a filthy-mouthed, mean-spirited, little blow-hard who has no qualms leaving the refuse of your mind all over otherwise civil, well-meaning public forums.

[cunicula]

[It is also possible that the CC cartel interferes with this. Funny thing about bitcoin libertarians. They like cartels, but cartels fuck them anally. Does this mean libertarians are bottoms?]

No. I'm an economist.

Whatever else you might be, you are clearly a filthy-mouthed, mean-spirited, little blow-hard who has no qualms leaving the refuse of your mind all over otherwise civil, well-meaning public forums.

If you just go over to the left a bit, there is a button marked ignore. Mine is bright orange to help you find it. I suggest you click that button.

[Projects]

I think this news is great! We need more big players accepting bitcoins to make bitcoin mainstream.
Hopefully this is the first big player of many to accept bitcoins - I can already see the exchange rate has gone up since this announcement!

[kokojie]

I think this news is great! We need more big players accepting bitcoins to make bitcoin mainstream.
Hopefully this is the first big player of many to accept bitcoins - I can already see the exchange rate has gone up since this announcement!

I bet the next big deal will be wikipedia or reddit announcing acceptance of bitcoin.

[pekv2]

Nice to see more places to accept bitcoin. Bitcoin makes life easier, click send. Heard about this from hardocp.com hardocp news

[flix]

Search around the internet for some kids in Africa with a blog site on Wordpress.  Convince them to accept donations in bitcoins, a handful of us chip in, and with like 3 BTC they can upgrade and improve their blog.

LOL. "Wanted Nigerian Scammer who accepts bitcoin" I can't wait to see that blow up in your face.

Just wait till the Somali pirates starts learning about bitcoin!

Perhaps we will see pirates with EMG weapons, and shippers will get this threat:

"Pay 200K bitcoins to 1asxddffsa3334r541234 within 12 hours, or expect all your ships passing woddoloddidoo waters to be incapacitated for the following week."

LOL.

[bb113]

Are they offering any type of discount for bitcoin use?

Why would they give discount if they have to pay a fee to the BitPay similarly as they would pay to PayPal ?

Also, even if they processed the Bitcoins themselves, they would still have to convert BTC to dollars anyway, so there is another small loss in the process of exchange.

Assuming that BitPay and Wordpress are well-managed (big assumption), BitPay is giving Wordpress a significant discount on its advertised processing fee, and Wordpress is passing part
of the savings on to customers.

 [It is also possible that the CC cartel interferes with this. Funny thing about bitcoin libertarians. They like cartels, but cartels fuck them anally. Does this mean libertarians are bottoms?]

If wordpress does not do this, then bitcoin will not be used by a meaningful number of Wordpress customers. If bitcoin is not used by a meaningful number of wordpress customers,
then bitcoin adoption will negatively affect wordpress' bottom line.

Payoff = Additional Margin from Bitcoin Payment vs. CC (negligible without volume) + Additional Customers who can only access bitcoin (absolutely negligible) - Adoption cost

This will be negative unless a discount is offered to increase the volume of BTC payments.

To sum up in different words. BitPay claims that the CC companies are taking 11% on some wordpress payments vs. ~3% via BitPay. Wordpress should introduce an incentive for customers to use bitcoins so that
it can earn larger margins. Otherwise, what is the point for Wordpress? Customers are not going to use bitcoin for the hell of it. I don't get any miles when I pay with bitcoin. Unless there is a discount, I pay with my card every single time.

Just read their press announcement. The bitcoin option isn't meant for users like you. This is for people who have trouble using CC and paypal. If it truly is cheaper they would be smart to offer a discount paying with that option. Like you said there are probably other issues like their contracts with the CC company though.

[cunicula]

Just read their press announcement. The bitcoin option isn't meant for users like you. This is for people who have trouble using CC and paypal. If it truly is cheaper they would be smart to offer a discount paying with that option. Like you said there are probably other issues like their contracts with the CC company though.

Sounds like it is mainly for marketing reasons then. Bitcoin, apparently, is hip.

[kokojie]

Just read their press announcement. The bitcoin option isn't meant for users like you. This is for people who have trouble using CC and paypal. If it truly is cheaper they would be smart to offer a discount paying with that option. Like you said there are probably other issues like their contracts with the CC company though.

Sounds like it is mainly for marketing reasons then. Bitcoin, apparently, is hip.

lol, wordpress needs marketing? it's only like 90% of the blogs online uses it? it's unlikely for a user to know bitcoin, but unaware of wordpress. Bitcoin is far less well known compared to wordpress.

[lile]

Just read their press announcement. The bitcoin option isn't meant for users like you. This is for people who have trouble using CC and paypal.

Yep. I do not have a credit card, so I also can't have a paypal account. If I want to buy something online, I can either wire the money, or beg one of my friends to order it for me (or go to the bank and get a credit card, but I am way too lazy for that). Using bitcoin for me is a total no-brainer, and I'm sure I'm not the only having this problem.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Just read their press announcement. The bitcoin option isn't meant for users like you. This is for people who have trouble using CC and paypal.

Yep. I do not have a credit card, so I also can't have a paypal account. If I want to buy something online, I can either wire the money, or beg one of my friends to order it for me (or go to the bank and get a credit card, but I am way too lazy for that). Using bitcoin for me is a total no-brainer, and I'm sure I'm not the only having this problem.

Unless something changed most recently, anybody can open a LIMITED-USE PayPal account without giving a CC or any other bank info. They can even use a pseudonym (must at least look like a real name--Randy Folds may not cut the mustard).

[cunicula]

lol, wordpress needs marketing? it's only like 90% of the blogs online uses it? it's unlikely for a user to know bitcoin, but unaware of wordpress. Bitcoin is far less well known compared to wordpress.

Established brand names need marketing too. How do you think one stays on top. Here's an example. Why did Google leave China?

[Inaba]

Established brand names need marketing too. How do you think one stays on top. Here's an example. Why did Google leave China?

Because only Nixon could go to China.

[cunicula]

Established brand names need marketing too. How do you think one stays on top. Here's an example. Why did Google leave China?

Because only Nixon could go to China.

That wasn't what I was thinking of. But it is a very good answer.

[420]

Are they offering any type of discount for bitcoin use?

Why would they give discount if they have to pay a fee to the BitPay similarly as they would pay to PayPal ?

Also, even if they processed the Bitcoins themselves, they would still have to convert BTC to dollars anyway, so there is another small loss in the process of exchange.

Assuming that BitPay and Wordpress are well-managed (big assumption), BitPay is giving Wordpress a significant discount on its advertised processing fee, and Wordpress is passing part
of the savings on to customers.

 [It is also possible that the CC cartel interferes with this. Funny thing about bitcoin libertarians. They like cartels, but cartels fuck them anally. Does this mean libertarians are bottoms?]

If wordpress does not do this, then bitcoin will not be used by a meaningful number of Wordpress customers. If bitcoin is not used by a meaningful number of wordpress customers,
then bitcoin adoption will negatively affect wordpress' bottom line.

Payoff = Additional Margin from Bitcoin Payment vs. CC (negligible without volume) + Additional Customers who can only access bitcoin (absolutely negligible) - Adoption cost

This will be negative unless a discount is offered to increase the volume of BTC payments.

To sum up in different words. BitPay claims that the CC companies are taking 11% on some wordpress payments vs. ~3% via BitPay. Wordpress should introduce an incentive for customers to use bitcoins so that
it can earn larger margins. Otherwise, what is the point for Wordpress? Customers are not going to use bitcoin for the hell of it. I don't get any miles when I pay with bitcoin. Unless there is a discount, I pay with my card every single time.

Just read their press announcement. The bitcoin option isn't meant for users like you. This is for people who have trouble using CC and paypal. If it truly is cheaper they would be smart to offer a discount paying with that option. Like you said there are probably other issues like their contracts with the CC company though.

he doesn't even understand. news flash: bitcoin doesn't charge 23.99% APR on purchases

[cunicula]

he doesn't even understand. news flash: bitcoin doesn't charge 23.99% APR on purchases

I'm confused. Neither do credit cards if you pay your balance each month. Are you an undischarged bankrupt?

[420]

he doesn't even understand. news flash: bitcoin doesn't charge 23.99% APR on purchases

I'm confused. Neither do credit cards if you pay your balance each month. Are you an undischarged bankrupt?

why use his credit card if he could pay the fucker off. localbitcoins.com easier than buying bitcoins with a f'ing credit card

didn't know you were the one who made the original statement

Just read their press announcement. The bitcoin option isn't meant for users like you. This is for people who have trouble using CC and paypal. If it truly is cheaper they would be smart to offer a discount paying with that option. Like you said there are probably other issues like their contracts with the CC company though.

Sounds like it is mainly for marketing reasons then. Bitcoin, apparently, is hip.

totally hip

don't forget people who dont have credit cards but have laptops

[stochastic]

he doesn't even understand. news flash: bitcoin doesn't charge 23.99% APR on purchases

I'm confused. Neither do credit cards if you pay your balance each month. Are you an undischarged bankrupt?

why use his credit card if he could pay the fucker off. localbitcoins.com easier than buying bitcoins with a f'ing credit card

didn't know you were the one who made the original statement

Just read their press announcement. The bitcoin option isn't meant for users like you. This is for people who have trouble using CC and paypal. If it truly is cheaper they would be smart to offer a discount paying with that option. Like you said there are probably other issues like their contracts with the CC company though.

Sounds like it is mainly for marketing reasons then. Bitcoin, apparently, is hip.

totally hip

don't forget people who dont have credit cards but have laptops

Did they buy the laptop with bitcoins?  What ever happened to debit cards?

[420]

he doesn't even understand. news flash: bitcoin doesn't charge 23.99% APR on purchases

I'm confused. Neither do credit cards if you pay your balance each month. Are you an undischarged bankrupt?

why use his credit card if he could pay the fucker off. localbitcoins.com easier than buying bitcoins with a f'ing credit card

didn't know you were the one who made the original statement

Just read their press announcement. The bitcoin option isn't meant for users like you. This is for people who have trouble using CC and paypal. If it truly is cheaper they would be smart to offer a discount paying with that option. Like you said there are probably other issues like their contracts with the CC company though.

Sounds like it is mainly for marketing reasons then. Bitcoin, apparently, is hip.

totally hip

don't forget people who dont have credit cards but have laptops

Did they buy the laptop with bitcoins?  What ever happened to debit cards?

a comet hit the earth and made the debit cards extinct, remember? 1st grade stuff

[cunicula]

he doesn't even understand. news flash: bitcoin doesn't charge 23.99% APR on purchases

I'm confused. Neither do credit cards if you pay your balance each month. Are you an undischarged bankrupt?

why use his credit card if he could pay the fucker off. localbitcoins.com easier than buying bitcoins with a f'ing credit card

Hmm... Because the credit card company pays me to use its card, hoping that they can entice me into a usurious debt arrangement.

That is also a marketing scheme.

[Herodes]

lol, wordpress needs marketing? it's only like 90% of the blogs online uses it? it's unlikely for a user to know bitcoin, but unaware of wordpress. Bitcoin is far less well known compared to wordpress.

Established brand names need marketing too. How do you think one stays on top. Here's an example. Why did Google leave China?

Complacement is the enemy of any successful entity. There's no such thing as status quo. Either you regress, or you progress. There was a big car company in a nordic company that sold the most cars, and the management figured that everybody knew about them, so further marketing would be wasted. In less than 2 years, they lost their place as the most sold brand.

There's a reason why companies like Nike and Coca Cola uses so much money on marketing.

[thoughtfan]

More coverage on this story from American Banker and IEEE's Spectrum.  I particularly like Spectrum's analogy of the lonely school kid whose now hanging out with in crowd!

[kokojie]

lol, wordpress needs marketing? it's only like 90% of the blogs online uses it? it's unlikely for a user to know bitcoin, but unaware of wordpress. Bitcoin is far less well known compared to wordpress.

Established brand names need marketing too. How do you think one stays on top. Here's an example. Why did Google leave China?

Google left China because the Chinese government hate it, and actively ban its services, not because of any marketing reasons.

[nobbynobbynoob]

Google left China because the Chinese government hate it, and actively ban its services, not because of any marketing reasons.

There's still google.com.hk though, with google.cn linking to it.

[kokojie]

Google left China because the Chinese government hate it, and actively ban its services, not because of any marketing reasons.

There's still google.com.hk though, with google.cn linking to it.

The underlying services are still banned, no google cache or sensitive keywords, your connection will get reset by GFW.

[cunicula]

lol, wordpress needs marketing? it's only like 90% of the blogs online uses it? it's unlikely for a user to know bitcoin, but unaware of wordpress. Bitcoin is far less well known compared to wordpress.

Established brand names need marketing too. How do you think one stays on top. Here's an example. Why did Google leave China?

Google left China because the Chinese government hate it, and actively ban its services, not because of any marketing reasons.

Lol. Google refused to comply with the Chinese government. That refusal is marketing. You fell for it.

'If you want a free and open internet ...'

How do you think they get the American public to sign petitions that help google choose the rules?

[420]

sooo....i thought google helped China restrict the internet? they ended up not wanting to go along with all the chinese government's requests?

[cunicula]

sooo....i thought google helped China restrict the internet? they ended up not wanting to go along with all the chinese government's requests?

Yes, they did help out the Chinese gov't initially, then they changed their mind as the requests became more and more invasive.

[caveden]

sooo....i thought google helped China restrict the internet? they ended up not wanting to go along with all the chinese government's requests?

Yes, they did help out the Chinese gov't initially, then they changed their mind as the requests became more and more invasive.

Actually, they've changed their minds after they were attacked: http://googleblog.blogspot.fr/2010/01/new-approach-to-china.html

[Luno]

Actually, on slashdot a few months ago, Google announced that they made a filtering highlight add on that marked which search words that would trigger the great firewall. In that way Chinese will be able to circumvent the filtered keywords. Quite a bold move from a big company.

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

Actually, on slashdot a few months ago, Google announced that they made a filtering highlight add on that marked which search words that would trigger the great firewall. In that way Chinese will be able to circumvent the filtered keywords. Quite a bold move from a big company.

Yep, http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/06/01/1450204/google-highlights-censored-search-terms-in-china

Seems like Google seriously joined the fight against Internet censorship.

[cunicula]

Actually, on slashdot a few months ago, Google announced that they made a filtering highlight add on that marked which search words that would trigger the great firewall. In that way Chinese will be able to circumvent the filtered keywords. Quite a bold move from a big company.

Yep, http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/06/01/1450204/google-highlights-censored-search-terms-in-china

Seems like Google seriously joined the fight against Internet censorship.

This sounds nice, but it doesn't actually work. A huge number of common Chinese words lead to page errors (e.g. things like the character for river). Why? Because river happens to occur in the name of a political leader. There are so many key words to censor that even a commonplace search becomes infeasible. Moreover, everything is being filtered so pages take forever to load. This is different from censoring page results where they can just block out what they don't want you to see.

The Chinese government has essentially made google unusable in Chinese, causing all Chinese to switch to Baidu. English language google searches in mainland China work much better. The gov't doesn't care about censoring English language materials to anywhere near the same degree.

Again, Google's agenda here is marketing/PR in the US and Europe. While this is a nice gesture, it doesn't do anything effectual to help Chinese people use the internet.

[Luno]

Quote: "Actually, on slashdot a few months ago, Google announced that they made a filtering highlight add on that marked which search words that would trigger the great firewall. In that way Chinese will be able to circumvent the filtered keywords. Quite a bold move from a big company."

Well Cunicula, that cleared that up, I thought Google's trick worked.

Google should put up a Geo stationary wi-fi sat then.

[cunicula]

Quote: "Actually, on slashdot a few months ago, Google announced that they made a filtering highlight add on that marked which search words that would trigger the great firewall. In that way Chinese will be able to circumvent the filtered keywords. Quite a bold move from a big company."

Well Cunicula, that cleared that up, I thought Google's trick worked.

Google should put up a Geo stationary wi-fi sat then.

A VPN is the typical solution. Business needs 'em, so China can't block 'em.

[dancupid]

Just to get back on thread - wordpress is currently blocked in China (at least it is for me in Shanghai)

I can only see btctrading.wordpress.com if I use a VPN.

[Gabi]

sooo....i thought google helped China restrict the internet? they ended up not wanting to go along with all the chinese government's requests?

Yes, they did help out the Chinese gov't initially, then they changed their mind as the requests became more and more invasive.

Actually, they've changed their minds after they were attacked: http://googleblog.blogspot.fr/2010/01/new-approach-to-china.html

Wow, nice job Google! 

[kokojie]

lol, wordpress needs marketing? it's only like 90% of the blogs online uses it? it's unlikely for a user to know bitcoin, but unaware of wordpress. Bitcoin is far less well known compared to wordpress.

Established brand names need marketing too. How do you think one stays on top. Here's an example. Why did Google leave China?

Google left China because the Chinese government hate it, and actively ban its services, not because of any marketing reasons.

Lol. Google refused to comply with the Chinese government. That refusal is marketing. You fell for it.

'If you want a free and open internet ...'

How do you think they get the American public to sign petitions that help google choose the rules?

Give up and pull out from the 2nd largest economy in the world, for marketing? That doesn't sound right.

[fatman01923]

Man this is huge!!  Wow this will put a fire under Bitcoin's ass to start moving into mass adoption!!

[cunicula]

lol, wordpress needs marketing? it's only like 90% of the blogs online uses it? it's unlikely for a user to know bitcoin, but unaware of wordpress. Bitcoin is far less well known compared to wordpress.

Established brand names need marketing too. How do you think one stays on top. Here's an example. Why did Google leave China?

Google left China because the Chinese government hate it, and actively ban its services, not because of any marketing reasons.

Lol. Google refused to comply with the Chinese government. That refusal is marketing. You fell for it.

'If you want a free and open internet ...'

How do you think they get the American public to sign petitions that help google choose the rules?

Give up and pull out from the 2nd largest economy in the world, for marketing? That doesn't sound right.

It does if you know that the government plans to intervene to marginalize you anyways. You might as well make failure look like taking the high road.

[kokojie]

lol, wordpress needs marketing? it's only like 90% of the blogs online uses it? it's unlikely for a user to know bitcoin, but unaware of wordpress. Bitcoin is far less well known compared to wordpress.

Established brand names need marketing too. How do you think one stays on top. Here's an example. Why did Google leave China?

Google left China because the Chinese government hate it, and actively ban its services, not because of any marketing reasons.

Lol. Google refused to comply with the Chinese government. That refusal is marketing. You fell for it.

'If you want a free and open internet ...'

How do you think they get the American public to sign petitions that help google choose the rules?

Give up and pull out from the 2nd largest economy in the world, for marketing? That doesn't sound right.

It does if you know that the government plans to intervene to marginalize you anyways. You might as well make failure look like taking the high road.

Well then your point is invalid, you said they pulled out for "marketing", but now you are saying they pulled out because of the Chinese government, and marketing is just an after thought. Which seems to me you are agreeing with my original point that Google pulled out China because the Chinese government hate them and banned many of their products.

[legitnick]

[cunicula]

lol, wordpress needs marketing? it's only like 90% of the blogs online uses it? it's unlikely for a user to know bitcoin, but unaware of wordpress. Bitcoin is far less well known compared to wordpress.

Established brand names need marketing too. How do you think one stays on top. Here's an example. Why did Google leave China?

Google left China because the Chinese government hate it, and actively ban its services, not because of any marketing reasons.

Lol. Google refused to comply with the Chinese government. That refusal is marketing. You fell for it.

'If you want a free and open internet ...'

How do you think they get the American public to sign petitions that help google choose the rules?

Give up and pull out from the 2nd largest economy in the world, for marketing? That doesn't sound right.

It does if you know that the government plans to intervene to marginalize you anyways. You might as well make failure look like taking the high road.

Well then your point is invalid, you said they pulled out for "marketing", but now you are saying they pulled out because of the Chinese government, and marketing is just an after thought. Which seems to me you are agreeing with my original point that Google pulled out China because the Chinese government hate them and banned many of their products.

Not really agreeing with you, but not saying you are wrong either. Google could have complied, but likely would have been marginalized eventually anyway. Compliance is the most directly profitable approach, but acting like China's slave is bad for marketing.