Bitcoin Media Trends

I'm a self-admitted media junkie; perhaps that's why I enjoy blogging so much. Since I was first turned onto Bitcoin, the most exciting moments for me have been when I've discovered new articles about Bitcoin - I'm always curious to hear what others have to say.

There has been a lot of press, actually. Most of it's been directly related to Silk Road or to the hacks and coin thefts of the past summer, but there have also been a lot of stories written about Bitcoin itself, and whether or not it will succeed.

I decided to compile a list of every English-language Bitcoin article I could find that discussed the currency's potential and had an obvious opinion, even if it was neutral. I then pulled out the author's general opinion and compared it to the closing price of Bitcoin on the day the article was published.

One interesting result was that the media was for the most-part friendly toward Bitcoin until the end of May 2011 when Bitcoin's valuation took off like a rocket and the mainstream media got a little more interested. Since then, positive opinions of Bitcoin have been hard to come by, though that trend might be changing as we speak.

If you're interested in reading the articles, click the image below for links to each of them. I ignored articles that were focused on Silk Road or the Mt.Gox hack.

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Bitcoin to be Exposed to 13 Million TV Viewers

Bitcoinmedia brings us the exciting news that an episode of "The Good Wife" airing on January 15th will be centered around Bitcoin. The title of the Episode is actually "Bitcoin for Dummies."

The first two seasons of the show brought in 13 million viewers per episode. That will be a lot of exposure to a demographic that probably hasn't yet heard of Bitcoin, which continues to approach the mainstream...

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Bitcoin's Killer App is Here

What if there was an application that gave you a completely secure Bitcoin wallet, made downloading the client and blockchain a thing of the past, and required the computer skills of your average Facebook user?

Ladies and gentlemen, it's here. The app has arrived that will sweep the Bitcoin community off its feet: StrongCoin.

Features:

- Web-based e-wallet - no more client or blockchain downloads;

- Client-side private key generation and encryption - invulnerable to hackers as long as you choose a strong password for your wallet (as with your normal online banking). StrongCoin does not know your password and cannot access your wallet;

- Imports your offline-generated and encrypted private key, if you so desire;

- Printable paper wallet with encrypted private key for safe and secure backup;

- Address book;

- Send/receive Bitcoins;

- QR code generation;

- Encrypted keys are backed up every 24 hours to a fully redundant data storage infrastructure;

- Access your Bitcoins from any device, including Kindle.

What's the catch? A 1% fee, up to a maximum of 1 BTC, on all outgoing transactions. WELL worth it.

I think we all agree that downloading a client is not the way to go for most people. It's slow, difficult for grandma to install, and not secure unless you take the proper steps which can be very technically demanding.

Finally, we have an app that will open up Bitcoin to a whole new segment of society. This is exciting. The Bitcoin Trader is excited.

Edit: if you'd like to be walked through StrongCoin, click on "Simple Bitcoin Guide" at the top of the blog.

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Bitcoin's First Steps into the Mainstream

The importance of this development should not be overlooked. The famous pick-up artist, "Mystery," has decided to start accepting Bitcoin for his merchandise.

Mystery has been featured on every major TV network, various talk shows, and all over the Internet. He also had his own reality show on VH1. His forums have 27,000 members, though most of his traffic is anonymous. For example, at the time of this posting, there are 215 members and 3051 guests online on his forums. Let me re-emphasize: most of his traffic is anonymous. Do you see where I'm going with this? The kids who are buying his merchandise would rather not have people know that they're studying pick-up guides or reading advice online about how to win over girls. How better to cover your tracks than to use Bitcoin?

Mystery's site, Venusianarts.com, has an Alexa ranking of 82,809 in the US and 113,798 globally.

From the Reddit post:

"Hi everyone. Over at Venusian Arts we've taken notice of your new "Bitcoin" currency.
The $30 price point, reached earlier this year, was a little bit concerning to us, but now it seems to have leveled out, so I went ahead and added "Buy Now with Bitcoin" links to our sales pages for our ebook and our dvd set (hopefully the wild swings in BTC price are done, since our interest is in using it as a currency, not as an investment vehicle)."

I guarantee he's not the only merchant that feels that way. It makes you wonder how many businesses are holding off on accepting Bitcoin while they wait for the volatility to settle out. To accept Bitcoin now is significantly less risky, especially if you're holding onto the coins for a few hours or longer, than it was between June and as recently as last week.

"Thank you all for your efforts in bringing us a payment processor for the future, since everyone knows that merchant accounts suck balls."

They certainly do.

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