[IDEA] E-mail campaigns.

[Herodes]

Ok, just got this idea, and thought I would share it. Sometimes as a bitcoiner I visit a website, and I think that bitcoin would be perfect for that website. I think some of your think likewise. So we write an e-mail and ask them to consider bitcoins. One e-mail doesn't help much, what if they received many e-mails over the duration over several weeks ?

I'm not talking about spamming them into oblivion, but what if foobar.com (this is just a random site) got on average 15 messages about bitcoin a week ? They'd start to notice! Of course the message would not come from the same e-mail, but from different real people, that would actually respond if they were contacted.

So the way it would work:

Say 1000 bitcoiners sign up on a website governing this project. You can use an anonymous e-mail account if you like (hushmail, or anything like that), or if you want, just use your private or work related e-mail.

Then somebody finds a good site for the cause (foocandy.com), and posts a suggestion on the project site, which is later approved by mods/admins.

Then, every day a certain amount of e-mails, let's say 25 are dispatched to members in the site-network, telling them briefly about this site that should accept bitcoin and asking them to send a brief message to a certain e-mail, or to enter a brief personal message into a contact form at the webpage. 25 respondents would never act every day, perhaps as low as 2-3 pr day would respond. But if this were kept up for say 3 weeks, the website owner certainly would notice.

This way, the site owner will get the impression that there's demand for bitcoin usage on his site, ie. selling products, getting money for charity etc. He will then be more likely to investigate bitcoin and set it up on his site. The more visitors that sees sites accepting bitcoin, the more they will be used to it, and some of them will actually start using it, so it's win win for everyone.

Perhaps linking to a brief video introduction, and a brief page about the benefits of bitcoin is a good idea too.

To give incentive for people to participate, there could also be some kind of payment if they actually sent e-mails to the targets. Not exactly sure what's the best way to track that, but I'm sure there's methods to do it. Perhaps bcc'ing the project site ? Or does anyone have a brighter way of tracking it ?

Then companies like bitinstant, bitpay, mtgox etc could donate some bitcoins to further the cause of bitcoin, and anyone that wanted to contribute could.

By letting it be personalized messages from real people, it would appear more legit. Also perhaps the algorithm for making it look more like real demand from real users could be tweaked. Perhaps it's a bit odd to get 10 requests for bitcoin the first day of the campaign.

What do you think, would this be beneficial ? The idea is that 1 person doesn't count much one way or another, but if 100 persons asks the same, then suddenly people starts to consider bitcoin.

Again, I don't have time for this project now, but I thought it was a good idea, and would like to hear other people's thought about it.

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[Raoul Duke]

I'm already imagining 1000 persons requesting some site to accept bitcoins and then only one of them buying. That'll impress them for sure.

[Herodes]

I'm already imagining 1000 persons requesting some site to accept bitcoins and then only one of them buying. That'll impress them for sure.

That wasn't very constructive, was it ?

I also thought of that. So that's why there would need to be mods/admins to approve the 'causes'. So a site selling spy-equipment, electronics, usb-sticks etc. could possibly be a good choice, while sites selling knitting kits for grandmothers would not be the best choice.

Also, for instance if partypooker or any other site started receiving lots of requests for using bitcoins, I'm sure they'd take notice, and things like that, you can trust bitcoiners would love it.

Effort needs to be intelligent, you can't aim and shot a random duck at will.

Obviously everything starts with a simple idea, and then it needs to be discussed in a constructive manner, in the end, we'll see if it was a idea that could morph into a real project, or if it wasn't a good idea at all.

Instead of just expressing a negative comment, why not express it as a possible obstacle, and then suggest a way to overcome it, if you've thought of it ? It's easy to find problems, but I rather like to look at them as obstacles. Sometimes the obstacles are too extensive, so the task should rather be dismissed, but a sound discussion never hurt anyone.

In general I don't get put off by comments that are not constructive, but I see far too many people with ideas being put down by others. While I'm a hardened internet person, others may not be, so at least try to applaude the initiative and creativity next time. If a man has 1000 ideas, and act on one of them, it could be enough to create something beautiful.

[Raoul Duke]

Ask anyone who sells stuff for bitcoins how much they sell.
Hell, just look at bitpay's stats: 2400 merchants, 10000 payments processed, so that's a whooping average of 4.16 payments per merchant. If I was the gambling type I would bet half of those 10k payments went to 10 or less merchants. Impressive 

[Herodes]

Ask anyone who sells stuff for bitcoins how much they sell.
Hell, just look at bitpay's stats: 2400 merchants, 10000 payments processed, so that's a whooping average of 4.16 payments per merchant. If I was the gambling type I would bet half of those 10k payments went to 10 or less merchants. Impressive 

Well, somewhere you have to start.

[knight22]

I like your idea but maybe the timing will be better in about 6 months

[StarenseN]

+10 OP

This is really a great idea. I often thought about this problem and I did not even think about this kind of solution.

I especially love it for two things:

1) Because whats is really lacking at the moment in "Bitcoin" is an economy using BTC that is slow to develop.

2) I also really believe like you that the big players would see the interest in making donations for such projects to stimulate the economy.

I know few people that are interested to do something big about Bitcoin, I'll keep them in touch about that idea.

[Herodes]

+10 OP

This is really a great idea. I often thought about this problem and I did not even think about this kind of solution.

I especially love it for two things:

1) Because whats is really lacking at the moment in "Bitcoin" is an economy using BTC that is slow to develop.

2) I also really believe like you that the big players would see the interest in making donations for such projects to stimulate the economy.

I know few people that are interested to do something big about Bitcoin, I'll keep them in touch about that idea.

To make it even less spammy looking, interested parties, could also be signing up at the project site, crossing off some interests if they'd like.

For instance those interested in gaming-related websites would get a notice when such a site is suggested for a campaign and those who's interested
in say electronics get's a notice when a electronics store is approached.

It could even be a side project by one of the major players (mtgox, bitinstant, bitpay) to raise interest.

[Akka]

In general I like the Idea, but I have to agree with psy here.

If a site was asked by 100 or 1000 people to accept Bitcoin, only to make only a handful of Bitcoin trades or even none at all after they accept it, would do Bitcoin more bad than good.

If you ask a website to accept Bitcoin, really use Bitcoin there as soon as they do.

Therefore I propose that we add some kind of pledge process to this project (like in the Bitcoin 100).

We could make a list of sites that we would like to accept Bitcoin and every member of the Site can state how many Bitcoin he would spend on the Site if they would accept Bitcoin.

As soon as one site reaches say 100 Bitcoin, the Mailing process starts. If the Site than really accepts Bitcoin the people who pledged are informed over a time of several weeks.

If about 50% of the people stand by there pledge the Site would get some real Bitcoin Business, seeing that it works, which in addition would possibly get more Sites to accept Bitcoin.