Topic: [Campaign] Bitcoin Trumpet - Give Bitcoin to your friends in your social network (Read 1384 times)

The purpose here is to emphasize that Bitcoin is a easy to use micropayment system across multiple website.



I think so.


It is exactly the point of this campaign: Teach them how to use Bitcoin. And even better, when they spend Bitcoin, it can give chance to their friends to try. It may result more people have hand on experience of Bitcoin. I am sure 80% of them will not touch Bitcoin anymore in the same year.

But suppose they face a problem later, then they will take Bitcoin as a possible solution. In your example, if both hammer or skew driver can solve a problem. I am pretty sure they will choose hammer because they already know how to use it.


Yes, but in most case the problem is only one facet of the whole picture. It is just like
* Paypal chargeback my money! Ok, I move to Google Checkout because they are much fair.
* Bank take too much time to process my transfer! Ok, I use credit card for it instead.
* Identity theft of credit card! Ok, I move back to Paypal.
* Bitcoin take much lower fee than paypal? You are lying. The exchange fee is very significant for small payments unless I earn it directly.
* Bitcoin allow transfer of any amount across border instantly! Well, unless you never exchange it back to the currency.

Bitcoin does solve multiple problems at the same time, but the chance that a single persion encounter more than two of them is vanishingly small. We have to admitted that most of the benefit are only for the people who already have Bitcoin. Buying Bitcoin in exchange just cause them the same trouble.

A very unique feature is that Bitcoin can be used across multiple website easily. Again, the premise is that they own Bitcoin. Again, no one will buy Bitcoin for this purpose only. Now, there are way for them to earn Bitcoin such as Feedzebird. What I want to do is to bootstrap such usage pattern, and then refer them to earn those Bitcent if they are interested.



If anyone give me few Twollar of Twitter, or facebook credit, etc, for free. I will just spend all of them. I dont understand them and I dont want to learn any details unless I decide to put real money in it.

Our focus is the micropayment aspect across website, so casual user need not care any details as well as it work! It is just like the business model for most free flash game, they attract many people to play it but only a tiny of them will take it serious and pay money. Bitcoin need a large amount of casual user and some will take it seriously because it solve their problem.

That is why I do not recommend any friends to buy Bitcoin.

I disagree.  There's no need to explain cryptography and blockchains to people, but they will have some preconceptions from Paypal.  You need to explain these things or they'll end up angry and never want to touch Bitcoins again:

• There are no chargebacks.
• If you lose your wallet or password, it's gone forever.
• The value (and therefore the price of goods) fluctuates much faster than most fiat.

By the time you've explained those things, they'll be wondering why you think this is a good idea, so you need to keep explaining:

• Unlike PPUSD, your BTC are truly yours, and can't be "frozen" by some surly bureaucrat
• You can spend them freely - across borders, to unpopular causes
• Anyone can use it without signing a huge contract
• The fees are extremely small

... But that's a heck of a lot to explain just to send someone a little money to play with.

I think of Bitcoin as a tool that has enormous enormous potential and already plenty of good uses.

If you take a hammer to someone and explain how it pounds nails and how people are going to be able to use it to make cabins and tables and so much more they aren't usually going to care much. But if you know they need a picture hung, there's your chance.

If you can solve problems with it and offer it at the right time in the right way I predict big success. People are trained to ignore campaigns and new money stuff so you are really fight an uphill battle unless you can help them somehow.

I am not sure how to register a domain, and I dont know what other contents I want to add.

There you go, bud. Still far from perfect, but improved, nonetheless. Feel free to register that domain. It's a gift.

Thanks for the name. My writing is poor and now it should be better organized.


Buying gifts using Bitcoin certainly help Bitcoin economy, but your friends may not know it and they are not interested.

How do you give Bitcoin to them and do they spend all of Bitcoin? I would say that most of friends ignore Bitcoin except some geeks because most think it is too complicated. So I would like to make everything simple to maximize the friends to try Bitcoin. The plan is to guide them to instawallet and send Bitcoin to them, and then ask them to spread to other friends or make donation.

Another part of the campaign is to ask friends to spread Bitcoin to their friends, i.e. to propagate it to one further layer. If my friend of friend is also your friend of friend, this co-occurrence in the same date will greatly raise their interest to get Bitcoin from us. This collative behaviour is what I want to create.

My friends already know.  Me giving them Bitcoins would look like desperation.  Some have said that I would help Bitcoin succeed because it will make the ones I own more valuable.  How about we just use Bitcoins to buy Christmas gifts?

First, it needs a name so that you can market the idea more effectively. The first thing that came to my mind is this:

Bitcoin Trumpet or BitcoinTrumpet at bitcointrumpet.com

In my opinion, your overall idea is sound, put readers may be turned off by it, nonetheless. Reason? The first two words in you post is a put-off. Why, you may ask (and if you did ask yourself why, mentally, then I feel we have a deeper problem)? Spelling and grammar.


Note you didn't capitalize Bitcoin and opt to place the article 'the' in front of it. If you would have started the sentence simply with the word Bitcoin, you would have had less readers losing interest, that is, I'm afraid, till they get to the third word--have. Now you've lost more readers. What if you would have penned the beginning of the first sentence as follows:

Bitcoin started with cryptographers, then...

Reads a hell of a lot better, doesn't it?

But, lets say, for sake of argument, your audience continued to read further, thereby forgiving you for a few grammatical errors. They never reached your Overall Objective paragraph because, quite frankly, they got completely turned off after reading Bitcoin spelled with a lowercase 'B', not once, but twice more. Granted, there are times that you spell Bitcoin with a lowercase 'B', but the three times you did it, were not one of them. Example: I can't wait to add the first bitcoin to my Bitcoin wallet.

In conclusion, in my opinion, proper grammar, moreover the lack thereof, seems to be the bane of your project. Once the reader reads Bitcoin spelled incorrectly, they're off to another thread. Perhaps, even, the thread where Altas and Matthew are currently having a discussion on...wait for it...grammar.

Hope that helps. Most others here may not use their valuable time to help you out by penning what I have but, perhaps, they'll jump in now to aid you further, perhaps even correcting any of my mistakes or errors, perhaps.

Bruno

No one interest in it?

I think that the bitcoin faucet was a useful starting point for many people because they can test the bitcoin before understand it. Now, it our round to distribute more bitcoin to a wider people. Asking them to go the faucet themselves and give their email to an unknown website will demotivate most people. In my opinion, sending bitcoin to your friends directly in facebook is the most effective and convienent way for them to try. You are a much trustable source and you can give them guidances. If we can create environment for people to send bitcoin within friends just like playing game, then it is a success because they already know how to use it.

Because of the number of people joining the Bitcoin100, I would think that this campaign will be success as many people are willing to donate their bitcoin to charity. Here, you may also send the bitcoin to friends first and then ask them to send to the charity you want.

Anyone want to participate in it?

Bitcoin started with cryptographers, and then penetrated to libertarian and techies. Now, it is the time to move on to the next level and penetrate to more general users. Comparing with the geek people in this level, the next level of users should have no knowledge of Bitcoin when using it. It is very important to get their feet wet BEFORE forming any opinion of Bitcoin. A good target is your non-technical friends, and friends of friends.

Objective:
Increase number of Bitcoin acceptors by providing an opportunity for your friends to try Bitcoin. Focus are the easy to use as micropayment system

Action:
Ask who want Bitcoin in your facebook and Google+. Send Bitcoin to them and remind them to spend all Bitcoin

Date:
To be determined. A particular date, or a short period few months later

Details:
During the given time period, all participants create a post asking who want to try Bitcoin in their own social networking website such as facebook and Google+. Then you send 0.01 Bitcoin to each of your friends who post a Bitcoin address. The amount can be adjusted but it should be small to demonstrate the micropayment ability of Bitcoin.

The second part, and the most important one, is to make sure they spend Bitcoin. You may recommend them to donate those Bitcoin, say, to occupy wall street. Or you may recommend them to send to other friends. Some friends may want to collect Bitcoin you given away, so, as a motivation, the total Bitcoin you sent out should be large enough to buy some stuff, such as snack. With such condition, you will be able to create a discussion afterward.

To increase the willingness of your friends to accept Bitcoin in the future, it is best that their friends are also Bitcoin acceptors. So if your friends are happily spending their first Bitcoin, try seeking their help to spread more Bitcoin to their friends

The whole trials for your friends must be quick, easy and foolproof. No Bitcoin client. An online wallet is strongly recommended, such as instawallet. No discussion of Bitcoin. Most people won't waste time for any geek stuff, you will just scare them away. All they have to know is how to use Bitcoin and how easy it is for cross website.

Benefit for participants:
* Identify your friends in your social network that can accept Bitcoin
* Create usage within your social network such as an easy online debt system with your friend
* Bitcoin on your hand will worth more than the other owners because you have more place to spend
* Bitcoin given away in this campaign may be covered "exchange fee" in the future because there are no need to exchange it to dollar

Expected results:
* Your friends know how to accept and spend Bitcoin
* Your friends get the idea that Bitcoin is a very easy to use cross-website credit system
* Create local network effect and increase the number of acceptors, but NOT general users, miners, buyers or owners
* Create a usage bubble without price bubble

Notes:
* Avoid details explanation of Bitcoin: Similar to money, there is no need to understand it before using it. Remember that the targets are those people who are not going to spend time to learn Bitcoin, and we should show that Bitcoin is easy to use. If they are fascinated by the cryptography, decentralization, global currency, avoiding tax, chances are that they already know Bitcoin. Repeating it is useless and you just scare others away.
* Avoid discussing price of Bitcoin: It is much easier to ask them to spend if they think it is a virtual credit system at the beginning. Also, the large price fluctuation is also a negative signal for some people. Hence, exchange should not be used as online wallets in this campaign.
* Avoid trolling environment: The only purpose is to give Bitcoin to those non-technical people who haven't tried Bitcoin yet.
* DON'T ask them to buy Bitcoin: Otherwise, you will create another price bubble. More importantly, your friend will think you are scammer because of dropping price.

Maximizing impact:
* To increase the curiosity of other friends, it is best that some of your friends know Bitcoin before and post a Bitcoin address in a short time
* If you have spare Bitcoin, you may try to raise it in twitter and forum
* Spreading the word about this campaign to maximize the effect
* Introduce website that accept those tiny amount of Bitcoin for extra services
* Introduce a way to earn Bitcoin afterward, such as feedzebirds