Topic: [FORTUNE] The clock is ticking on Bitcoin - page 3. (Read 10913 times)

and the "OMG"s ... pretty please ?

I think as long as reporters find these types of "mouthpieces" for bitcoin, you're going to continue to see these types of articles.  This one honestly isn't too bad, as far as tech journalism goes.  Anyone that thinks otherwise simply has not dealt with the media before.   I do agree it *is* a wake up call as to how inaccurate things are reported if you're first becoming exposed to this.  Bitcoin is being treated no differently than any other tech in that regards, however.

Honestly, after seeing the e-mail sent to this reporter by who appears to be the primary contributor to the story, I'm very surprised this article was as fair as it was.  We deserved worse, given that input.  Garbage in, garbage out - most people here should realize that.

Bitcoin definitely needs at least a few people who can be counted on to give professional, rational, and accurate responses/interviews to the media.  Those who cannot really should take a step back and consider the damage they are doing to the perception of Bitcoin, regardless of how technically "correct" they are in their paranoid rants.  A well reasoned and properly toned e-mail/conversation/interview goes a hell of a lot further than some idiot on the internet flaming a reporter in all caps.  You can be correct, but still horribly wrong at the same time.

My advice?  If you're talking to the media, pretend you're talking on behalf of an employer.  Is what your saying accurate?  Is it professional?  Will saying this get you fired?  Can you disagree with someone in a more reasonable sounding manner regardless of how idiotic or wrong their statements are?  Take the high road.

Remember folks, a US Senator has a hell of a lot more immediate trust instilled on the media and general populace than some otherwise well reasoned and respected person on the Internet.  It's not even a competition when it's against a few whacko-sounding net kooks talking in a disjointed, disrespectful, and completely embarrassing manner.

Also remember, the media will *always* try to contact the net kooks for stories once they become known, since they provide good antics and quotes to write about.  Hey, it's probably some of the only fun a reporter gets to have these days

To those whom presented themselves professionally in this piece - for what it's worth you have my thanks!

Just my .02btc, coming from someone who could care less about the speculation angle and wants this project to be an overall long-term success.

It would be fun to see if certain media outlets received marching orders from their bosses or if internal emails are available to shed light on a consistent theme among the latest spat of fluff reporting. Are they seeing Bitcoin as such an insignificant item or is this concerted with no attempt to backup inconsistent facts that these articles are relaying? Let's look back on previous articles by all the reporting for continuity and factual basis on previous subject matter. Only about 108 articles this past week... anybody got a lifetime to lend? HAHAHA.
Bahbra is gonna be rich someday.
- reposted from notable sources

pretty much, yes 

This. There is no way you'll be taken seriously if you give those kind of nitpicking rants as replies. Most of the "terribly misleading" statements are probably just worded that way to make sure they use terms their readers have some grasp with. They are not 100% accurate, but if you think this wasn't good enough you shouldn't bother giving interviews at all. Also, to claim that nobody uses bitcoins to buy drugs on Silk Road is just silly. I don't know anyone who uses Bitcoins to buy anything at all, does that mean it never happens?

Hey Bruce, would it kill you to lay off on the CAPs usage? Tbh you come off as kinda mentally retarded.. Especially replying to a reporter.

It is 100% accurate, it just leaves out information about what is possibly considered a major spike & correction

The same bit of information must be left out if you say it's going "up up up".

Bitcoins are going UP UP UP! Except when they're not, like right now.

There is absolutely no reference on TradeHill's site currently to this functionality. They may have allowed this at some point but they say nothing about it now, and even if it worked the way you described Amazon would still be collecting USD not BTC for your purchase which makes the authors statement completely factual.

I find reading anything in the media about BTC a very frustrating experience. Most media in general irritates the hell out of me!!

I think the most unfounded and agenda driven part of that article is actually the title and the conclusion.

(First impressions & last impressions are strongest. The stuff in the middle that was actually discussed, people won't remember.)

"The clock is ticking on Bitcoin
With recent exposure bringing the online currency to the attention of wary lawmakers, expect to see Bitcoins disappear."

ending with..

"..expect Uncle Sam to keep the average American consumer from ever getting to make that choice."

None of this is substantiated or discussed properly. It's just assumed. Agenda driven!

This is how they do it. They just state things. And people suck it up in their millions.

It's not 100% accurate, because you're leaving out the fact that on its way to the current price it achieved a high just over DOUBLE the current price.  I don't think you can just ignore the fact that a week ago people thought their 100 btc were worth $3000 in their pocket, and today that could only be $1500 in their pocket.

Bruce,

You came off as a bit fanatical in your last email to him and not as factual as you could/should be.  I think your corrections got buried in a load of pro-bitcoin propaganda.

What do you think people who bought bitcoins at $31 think about the current price?  Would they consider it a crash? 

What about from $8-->4? 

Crash is a tricky word, but you certainly can't insist it only goes up up up when it's currently trading at <50% of it's high from a little over a week ago.  It is a *highly* volatile market and you can only say factually that it has gone from $.005 to it's current price of ~$14 for a 200k%+ increase.  That is 100% accurate and incredibly compelling.

Hope he corrects some of the more erroneous points in his article but I doubt he cares at this point since his version is a bit more sensationalized...

The way he phrased it is INACCURATE.   Change one word.... and the whole sentence is untrue.

"....users can see the entire history of the coin's use, including every user that bought or sold it...."  IS ABSOLUTELY UNTRUE on several levels.


AMEN!


And AMEN!

bruce, this IS accurate, please try to fact check a bit...

here is the history of my bitcoin roadtrip donation address: http://blockexplorer.com/address/1Dj1SocbbH9Lbb9aTdqSHB9AAjhdxNNZha

you can click on any of the transactions to see where they came from and where they went. true, they are bitcoin addresses, not names. but, just because no one has made a blockchain miner to dig out juicy info doesn't mean it's not there.

We need a section of this forum entirely dedicated to Public Relations

There, we can discuss media articles about Bitcoin, identify where the biggest dangers and misconceptions lie, deconstruct these misconceptions and come up with some snappy rebuttals.

For example, I thought in Jeff's CBS interview the line "bitcoins are slightly less anonymous than cash" worked well.

And we need to smash this association between Bitcoin and Silk Road at birth, or we'll never shake it. Something like "Bitcoins has no more to do with Silk Road than Ben Bernanke has to do with your local street dealer". Whatever.

A barrage is coming our way, and we need to be ahead of the game.

Scary thing is that the smear campaign is just getting started.

The best two things that the main stream media can do to keep people away from Bitcoin:

1)  Pretend like it's really easy to get your wallet stolen (and it might be for the computer illiterate)
2)  Allude to a vague illegality regarding the whole thing.  We see that with this article that they are fear-mongering based on complete lies that "You have an ID and can be tracked" and "it will be illegal in the near future so don't even bother" with the clear insinuation that you might be going to prison.

Total fear-mongering.

But like I always say, the best money isn't even in creating money out of thin air; it's keeping people afraid.

the media  

oh. looks like that article already changed by a lot.
I referred to the current version.

All the other points were valid, but this one seems misplaced. I think this particular statement in the article is not wrong. It's certainly not "very misleading."  Bitcoin value has not been "up up up," and in fact it would be very misleading for a news article to claim that it has.

What do you expect from the ignoramus brigade?  Every article I've read as at least a handful of inaccuracies in it but wanna know something creepy?

They all were more accurate in the past month when this was starting to hit the mainstream media... so after a month all the reports on it are more misleading and more ill informed?  Seems backwards doesn't it?  How did the articles start out by being 90% accurate and now there are just blatant hit pieces with about 20% accuracy.  Well that's because the main stream media is owned lock stock and barrel by the same interests that have everything to lose by widespread BTC adoption.