I like to see BitShares as a platform for smart contracts. So OS metaphor works pretty well here, but it's not necessary have to be narrowed down to financial applications.

I definitely see your point. Why limit Bitshares to a single niche? But is it really wise to attempt creating an OS that does everything or is it better to focus on a niche? If Bitshares were architected from the ground up to cater toward finance, I think that would offer us a significant competitive advantage.

A metaphor is an important tool used to convey complicated ideas to the general public. Since the beginning of Bitcoin (and especially Bitshares) we've had a very hard time coming up with a simple way to convey the core essence of what is being created here. Is it a company, community, bank or a government? The truth is, Bitshares has the potential to be all of these things. So what do all of these things have in common? What is their essence?

ANSWER: They can all be described as types of operating systems.

I'd like to conduct a fun little experiment. Pretend like you're chatting with a relatively tech savvy person and he asks you "what is bitshares?" In your own words, describe Bitshares using the FinancialOS metaphor as your foundation.

I actually like the idea of others posting on your wall and it displaying in the client too.  Hmmm..

 

Quote from: kenCode on May 12, 2015, 03:06:33 pm

It takes MONTHS to get your alexa up.
We have so much to offer that doesn't require any media too, subjects like decentralized dns, or:
https://www.google.com/webhp?ion=1&espv=2#q=how+to+form+a+DAC
https://www.google.com/webhp?ion=1&espv=2#q=how+to+decentralize+my+company
https://www.google.com/webhp?ion=1&espv=2#q=why+should+I+decentralize+my+company
https://www.google.com/webhp?ion=1&espv=2#q=crypto+trading+without+government+risk
https://www.google.com/webhp?ion=1&espv=2#q=crypto+trading+with+less+government+risk
https://www.google.com/webhp?ion=1&espv=2#q=how+to+avoid+the+bail-ins
https://www.google.com/webhp?ion=1&espv=2#q=how+to+protect+my+wealth+from+bank+runs
https://www.google.com/webhp?ion=1&espv=2#q=how+to+financially+survive+without+a+bank
https://www.google.com/webhp?ion=1&espv=2#q=list+the+best+paying+savings+accounts
https://www.google.com/webhp?ion=1&espv=2#q=how+to+send+money+to+ukraine
https://www.google.com/webhp?ion=1&espv=2#q=are+my+crypto+coins+safe
https://www.google.com/webhp?ion=1&espv=2#q=how+do+I+save+for+my+kids+education
 
Our image SUCKS.
Nobody knows we exist.
 
We have 101 Delegates too! 101!!
 
I ran some reports on github. You've got like 10 really active Delegates coding in there. Yes, 10.
Another 30 Delegates appear to be off and on coding.
Fuzzy is his own beast, everyone knows he works his ass off.
That leaves roughly 60 people getting paid to do what for us? Run a node?
When their node is running, what else are they doing to entice a WHALE?
 
We need ALL HANDS ON DECK.
I REFUSE to show any wall street brokers, bankers or wealth protection firms BitShares right now. (you know, WHALES). Why?
 
Our image SUCKS.
Nobody knows we exist.
 
When you build a successful company, you hit the ground running and you grit your teeth and you fire your big guns every single day! You grab every body you  can, you put their asses to work and you show them the returns of their hard work.

Unfortunately, the grassroots volunteer initiatives by almost everyone dried up when the marketing delegate thing happened and when the bulk marketing discussion was moved off of bitsharestalk for so called privacy reasons.
People will naturally not work for free while other 'marketers' are being paid by the blockchain for their efforts.  This dichotomy has taken a toll on marketing numbers, we now expect a selected few marketing delegates to shoulder the load which has not worked out very well. We have little to no daily presence on bitcointalk or reddit, we have only a handful of related websites, no social media presence outside of the bitshares operated ones and the number of new account sign-ups per day has been going down since the beginning http://bitsharesblocks.com/charts/accounts. The one thing that partially motivated me as a 'volunteer' who has spent about $100 and over 100 hours developing two bitshares related domains was the referral system, which unfortunately appears abandoned except as a means to see how few sign-ups our 'marketers' actually get https://faucet.bitshares.org/refscoreboard.

Marketing delegates have never been paid (funds went toward advertising costs) which is why they all burned out. marketing.methodx is not controlled by me anymore and as far as I know the funds are being used to provide liquidity for metaexchange.

I've been trying to get a referral program taken seriously for almost a year.

 DAC + Referral Program = Viral Gold

Quote from: Riverhead on March 22, 2015, 09:04:42 pm

Quote from: Shentist on March 22, 2015, 08:02:24 pm

are you getting the funds already alocated or what happend to them?

They went to MethodX (it paid him 57200 every two weeks). What he did with them was buy ads on TOR, start nullstreet, etc. Our delegate account had about 30k BTS in undistributed pay which I have moved to the internal bot.

Method-x sent 291k BTS to me for LIME wallet and further development ... i'm escrowing funds for elmato & pablo!
He has done a lot for BitShares... so i'm thinking its not fair to say he's just gone…
I know the problem we had in past with marketing .. i'm aware of ..

Just came here to confirm all remaining delegate funds were sent to Cass for LimeWallet marketing. Before that a minor amount of funds were spent on Tor Ads and giveaways. If things cool down in regard to the marketing firm I run, I may return.

Operation Darkmarket:

Ah. I like "Operation DarkMarket" more than DarkNet.

let's not forget for one moment that darknet commerce includes weapons, prostitution, child porn and basically everything humanity has declared unfit for public consumption)

Do people actually think this!!?? Wow, no wonder there's such a knee jerk reaction to DarkNet adoption. Evolution and Agora are the two largest dark markets and you absolutely can't get child porn or prostitutes on them. If they did, nobody in their right mind would go near them. Dark markets are about open access to drugs.

I highly recommend you download Tor and go here: http://k5zq47j6wd3wdvjq.onion/login - sign up and see for yourself what dark markets are about. I know for a fact you're a big supporter of OpenBazaar. The only difference between OB and Evolution is the former is decentralized while the latter isn't. That's it.