Rewrite Innovation page

[saivann]

This pull req can be previewed live here:
(Merged)

Current Innovation page is incomplete and could be much improved to cover what is outstanding about the network and better explain it's real value and nature. I tried to produce good quality and fixed length texts covering most interesting quotes that have been used about Bitcoin and what has been observed in the last years.

[gmaxwell]

You can say a lot about bitcoin, but "highly efficient" isn't one of them. Bitcoin potentially reduces transaction costs by eliminating authorities who can use their authority to force themselves (or their friends) into the value chain where they can sit an extract rent. ... but the technology required to accomplish this is really inefficient, needing global flooding and such.

[saivann]

If we calculate the middlemens as a part of those systems, aren't they less efficients? For sure, the technology itself in terms of processing power / bandwidth usage is much less efficient, but current banking networks need more than just technology to process money transfer, they need a lot of inefficient human resources. I suppose that it's like comparing TCP/IP with old phone networks working with human operators, the later was much more simple and efficient only from a technological point of view. Or is my comparison incorrect?

[saivann]

I will take time to rework that page differently a bit later based on Gregory Maxwell and Mike Hearn comments.

[gladoscc]

I suggest rewording "Giving you control over your money". For one, users need to take proactive action such as encryption and cold storage backups in order to keep their Bitcoins safe, and this may give a user the false impression that it is secure out of the box. In addition, protection against transaction reversing requires a number of confirmations to be safe.

[mikehearn]

You know, I think this set of changes is good and should be merged, but I was thinking after reading some of the new comments by Lawsky that maybe we can even do a better job on an innovation page than this. His basic problem is he doesn't understand why anyone would use Bitcoin other than to be anonymous. So our message about innovation hasn't reached him. I'm not convinced he's actually read our website at all, but perhaps the journalists who question him on the matter will do, so it'd be great if we have a really convincing innovation section of the website.

What I'm thinking of is something with a different layout than a list of header+content sections as we have now, perhaps something more like the press center where there are images, videos, a more engaging layout etc. Something more memorable. I'd like to cover a lot of the research we've done in recent times:

• Capacity for superior dispute mediation
• Micropayments
• Crowdfunding a.k.a. assurance contracts
• Multi-signature accounts (like for a business that has multiple owners)
• Hardware wallets like the Trezor?

Let's stay away from some of the more exotic ideas or ones that are themselves subject to complicated regulation like peer to peer lending, it'd just be distracting. The stuff above is pretty non-controversially Good Stuff(tm) that no reasonable person could dislike.

Perhaps there could be a large-ish graphic or photo for each one, a brief description of the technology and why it's better than what we have today. We could even have a video, though I'm not sure what would work. The talk I gave last year in London has inspired a lot of people (I know this because they come up to me at conferences and say so), though it does cover in its later parts things like P2P bond markets and currency exchanges. But I guess the innovation page must also appeal to programmers and not just regulators ;)

[saivann]

@mikehearn : Actually I have already some of the texts merged together (locally) and I was about to focus on more concrete innovative use cases as you suggested. I can try something about the layout, and take some time to search and play with stock photos to see if I can put some life in here. If you have some suggestions about some nice graphical content from the community that we could use (Trezor is a potential one), please email me. Texts from you are also welcome, as you're very good on these matters.

[saivann]

I have just updated the page and the live preview, with many texts merged, dropped and added. Proofreading and suggestions are welcome. Fancy pictures will probably be added seperately.

[mikehearn]

A few things I saw:

Multi-signature accounts (not signatures, despite what would make logical sense - however in the text it is correct)

By lowering transaction fees, Bitcoin can process payments in the scale of a dollar <-- penny. Bitcoin can and routinely does do much less than a dollar. Existing payment systems just about manage to handle $1 payments if they strain really hard, so that's not a very compelling comparison.

Bitcoin makes it possible to send tips locally or around the globe with a simple gesture. <-- not sure what "simple gesture" refers to here. Perhaps "just one click" is better.

For the micropayments section, how about this text:

"Bitcoin can process payments far smaller than any other system. Payments smaller than a penny are routine even today, and the community is developing new technology that allows for micro-billing of services. Imagine listening to internet radio paid by the second, viewing web pages with a micropayment for each ad not shown, or buying bandwidth from a WiFi hotspot by the kilobyte. Bitcoin is efficient enough to make all these possible. Learn more about the technology behind Bitcoin micropayments https://code.google.com/p/bitcoinj/wiki/WorkingWithMicropayments"

Donations and crowdfunding -> the text doesn't actually mention crowdfunding as I had imagined it :) How about:

"Bitcoin has proven to be a particularly efficient solution for donations. Sending a payment only requires one click and receiving donations can be as simple as displaying a QR code. Donations can also be visible for the public, giving increased transparency. Although not yet easy to use, Bitcoin can be used to run Kickstarter-style crowdfunding campaigns, in which individuals pledge money to a project that is taken from them only if enough pledges are received to meet the target. Learn more about the technology behind crowdfunding https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Contracts#Example_3:_Assurance_contracts"

Overall I still feel like this page is rather like an advert - it's hard to strike the right balance here between promoting the possibilities and giving enough technical depth to appeal to developers. Let's go with this one for now, and I'm going to have a crack at a new version when I have time.

[saivann]

New texts: Thanks! I adapted them to fit in the available space. I dedicated a seperate text to crowdfunding and donations, and dropped text about predictability.

Marketing: Dropped suggestive language (amazing, superior, better, change the world, etc.) and replaced one icon. If not perfect, I guess it should be "better than better than worse".

New version: Perfect. I will wait for these texts to be more stable before making them translatable and paying for stock pictures.

Micro payments: This one is subject to debate. Can transaction fees reasonably be expected to scale with price increase? Right now it seems like if bitcoin's price increases 10 fold next year, it would cost 0.13$ to send a 0.20$ payment. The "Developers" page has been recently updated to display a very conservative number for that reason: http://bitcoin.org/en/bitcoin-for-developers .

[saivann]

I plan to merge this pull request tomorrow. More reviews and proofreading are welcome.

[luke-jr]

More like a dollar.

[saivann]

Text from @mikehearn really makes sense only with pennies. So I modified his text to at least make it clear that this scale isn't garanteed to work in the future. (Will change "penny" to "pennies" though).

With journalists starting to focus on "non Silk-Road" use of Bitcoin, I think we shouldn't delay the publication of the page. Mike said he wanted to rewrite the page soon anyway and I pinged him about this.

If current text isn't good enough, perhaps the next revision could be similar to:

Bitcoin can process payments to the scale of a dollar and potentially much lower amounts.

[luke-jr]

It's not even a good idea now (pennies).

[mikehearn]

Gavin is rewriting how fees work exactly to avoid this problem of fee not scaling with exchange rate. So what I wrote is observably correct (just go look at the block explorer ...)