[RANSOM] Bitcoin Weekly ransoming experiment

[kiba]

Bitcoin Weekly is ransoming the article Bitcoin for Individual-to-Individual Transactions and Community Trade by Vitalik Buterin for .50 BTC in a business model experiment. This is because the magazine have trouble raising enough revenues via publishing advertising to pay current expense, in the form of writers and cartoonists.

Donate .50 BTC to this address 1JYXS3dpHjk9MT7U6oXNKwfVeubW41iWkf

Time period and method for consideration of publication:

It will be checked via http://blockexplorer.com/address/1JYXS3dpHjk9MT7U6oXNKwfVeubW41iWkf

For me, If it is found to exceed or meet .50 BTC in the time period of 7:30 AM to 8:30 AM(time before I work), I will publish this article.

For the author of said ransomed article, if it is found to exceed or meet .50 BTC, he is authorized to publish it.

It will continues to be checked until .50 BTC are donated.

Implication for Success of Experiment:

If successful, then it will be on my agenda to start development of a fully automated ransoming system right after the completion of the comics section and the news service.

Also, donating to ransoms will be more attractive in the future.There may be discounts and prizes for donating certain level of bitcoin to the magazine. For now, I need to do this experiment to validates the business model and save Bitcoin Weekly from insolvency.

If you love Bitcoin Weekly's works and would like Bitcoin Weekly to continues publication, please consider a token donation.

Thanks in advance, for all your support and business.

[epii]

Just to be clear, you mean that the next article for Bitcoin Weekly has already been written, and will be published once your donations to that address exceed 0.50 BTC?  Sounds like a reasonable model to me so long as your site is able to keep people's attention from publication to publication.  (Didn't you do the same thing back when you first started?)

[kiba]

Just to be clear, you mean that the next article for Bitcoin Weekly has already been written, and will be published once your donations to that address exceed 0.50 BTC?  Sounds like a reasonable model to me so long as your site is able to keep people's attention from publication to publication.  (Didn't you do the same thing back when you first started?)

Yes, the article is already written and this is our first experiment in ransom in the three iterations of the publication.

Just to be clear, Vitalik Buterin is one of our finest writer and is behind the article that's being ransomed.

Here are some of his articles:

Bitcoin and the Goldbug

The Wasted Electricity Objection to Bitcoin Part 2

The Global Bitcoin Stock Exchange and Why It Matters

[Earthlite Organics]

I helped to pay it a bit. Enjoyed his other articles a lot.

Thanks

[kiba]

I see that we only received 1 bitcents in the last 24ish hours so far. If 49 people donate 1 bitcents, than we will reach our goal of .50 BTC.

[kiba]

There is no interest in this magazine?

I suspect Bitcoin Weekly does not have many fans.

[Vitalik Buterin]

I think the problem here might be not enough marketing. We've posted this on Reddit and on the selling forum, but when I thought of this I was envisioning something clearly visible on the top of the front page of the magazine so we could reach

I'd say keep the ransom offer up, but make the whole thing more prominent.

Come on guys, let's make the dream of earning a living making public domain content a reality!

[Vitalik Buterin]

And also, it's important to stress, just in case some people misinterpret the post, that you don't have to donate .50 BTC, or even .49 BTC yourself. You can throw in .1 BTC or even .01 BTC and we'll count it toward the total.

[kiba]

For today's check, there's no change in funds.

[thinkweis]

I think the site looks a little shoddy, are you running this on wordpress? maybe I could donate a redesign.

[epii]

Don't despair, kiba, I'm pretty sure you and your publication are well-respected in the community.  People are just distracted right now with the Mt. Gox disaster, and there has been a flood of newbies who aren't so well-acquainted with old-timers like yourself.  You might just want to wait until the market settles down and do a new advertising push.

If you're not in touch with the operators of bitcoinwatch.com, I'd look into it, because I (for one) read almost all of the articles they link to in their headlines section.  They've linked to four of your articles in the past, but the last one was on May 27th.

(I would donate a few bitcents myself, but the hard drive on my personal computer died, so I don't have access to my funds right now.  Fortunately I backed up my wallet.dat just a couple days earlier...)

[kiba]

No change in ransom amount...

[MadSweeney]

I've found Bitcoin Weekly articles interesting and have paid my bit for the ransom.

Last I checked, the balance is 0.081. Keep it coming, folks.

[kiba]

Current ransom level is at .181 BTC.

That means .319 BTC are required for the release of an article.

[gurcani]

Maybe a page that shows the beginning of the article with the bitcoin address to be donated at the bottom to see the rest would be a bit more effective?