Talk:Strategy for Information Markets/Micropayments

micropayments and digital currencies
These are two different areas, but they overlap a lot so putting both on this page might be a good idea.
 * Micropayments are just small payments-these used to be very difficult but seem to be becoming more commonplace.
 * Digital currencies are anything from MMO game money to Facebook credits to Bitcoin. These are odd because they are parallel currencies, with different amount of legitimacy and usefulness. TDang (discuss • contribs) 23:46, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

TDang review May 2012
I'm reviewing this version. I'll likely be more critical than complimentary, because (a) that's the way I am and (b) that's what will help improve things. Please don't take the criticism-over-compliments to mean I have a wholly negative view.

Make sure to check the all-purpose review thoughts as well.

TDang (discuss • contribs) 17:18, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Make sure you use your signature on a talk page like this one and not on the actual book page.
 * Don't use all-caps for section titles, just capitalize the first letter of the title (or any proper nouns in the title).
 * When you feel done with the content, give a careful read for composition. This needs some cleanup of grammar and some overlong sentences.
 * "Economists like to consider the internet as a public good." That's very arguable, so would need a good reference. (There is some public-goods nature to the internet, but it's not clear-cut.)
 * What happened to micropayments? This page now begins with an introduction to micropayments and then almost immediately drops that to discuss Bitcoin. Really, Bitcoin should be handled mostly separately from micropayments (see note above on "micropayments and digital currencies"), but in any case, this page should talk some about micropayments, since that's what it claims to be about.
 * "See Freakonomics discussion" isn't useful. If there are useful ideas in the Freakonomics discussion, they should be used here (carefully, so as not to plagiarize), then that can be referenced, but not just "go look somewhere else").
 * "also other fiat currencies world wide"--better to use an expression like "national currencies" than "fiat currencies"
 * How do you make money (bit coins)?
 * "mining"--the first time "mining" is used it should be in quites, since this is obviously different than real-world digging for minerals.
 * There are two different things happening, and so this should be separated into two sections. The first section should describe carefully how bitcoins are created or enter the economy in the first place (via mining, are there any other ways?) The second section (probably combined with other parts of the page) is how bitcoins can be used in transactions.
 * If a small descriptive quote from the creators of Bitcoin can be used here to describe the motivation behind mining, this would be a good spot for it (properly referenced).
 * The description leaves a lot of questions about mining:
 * Is mining useful work or just arbitrary work to limit the number of Bitcoins?
 * Is mining done via human labor or automated (e.g. tracking how long in minutes it takes a person to do something, or how many CPU cycles it takes the computer to to something?)
 * "BC network can control the amount of bitcoins it releases"--check on this some more and elaborate (I don't think it's quite right, given a quick scan I just did.)
 * "but in the past months financial institutions have been criticized"--This should be part of a book that people can read for a number of years, not a newspaper article. So nothing should be described as so "timely" that it will be wrong when someone reads the book 5 years from now. Either leave out time-critical stuff, or if you think it will still be important in years to come, describe it in more general terms ("In early 2012..." or some such).
 * I agree that it is an open network, but it is clearly sponsored by the founders of Bitcoin who have worked and continue to work, to try to see it succeed.
 * "The use of BC is a multi-sided platform network just like the US dollar and any other countries currency."--Think about this one some more.
 * You might be right that BC is the same kind of network as any other currency, and you do make an argument that a currency is a multi-sided network.
 * I would describe a currency as having single-sided network externalities, where the choice for someone in using a particular currency has as much to do with how easy it is to get the money, and how easy it is to spend the money. A merchant wants to receive dollars because they want dollars to pay their electric bill, employees, and rent. This is different than a credit card network like Visa, where the merchant joins the network explicitly as a merchant and doesn't necessarily pay their rent with Visa.
 * So, the question is-is Bitcoin more like dollars ore more like Visa? I believe the goal is to be more like dollars, just another currency, in which case, I would argue it's a one-sided network. However, if consumers are treating Bitcoin like a specialized debit card (acquiring BC just to spend at merchants, who then convert their BC into dollars instead of using them to pay the bills), then it's more like Visa, and so a two-sided network.
 * "As more users begin to use BC as a mean of exchange of goods and services there exist the possibility for economies of scale"--This isn't at all clear.
 * The network externalities are real (the more people use a currency, the more useful that currency is to each user) and this is demand-side economies of scale.
 * It's not clear that there are supply-side economies of scale. There may be so, and that may or may not be important, but if you just say "economies of scale" that implies supply side economies of scale, and it needs to be described much better.
 * "Because Bitcoin is still in the beginning stage"--again, this is too timely. Something like, "As of this writing in mid-2012, Bitcoin is still in its beginning stages, so..."
 * " there is no specific data showing the amount of individual users that have joined or possible projection of people to join."--really? That's a surprise! I haven't checked myself, but unless you've searched very hard already, I suggest searching some more.
 * "Saturation for the use of BC..."--You're using the idea of saturation wrong. I'd just leave it out.
 * Pros section
 * I don't see how most of these follow as benefits over using a credit card. Lower fees (if true) is a benefit. BUt credit cards are just ways to spend a national currency, and the national currency is a non-virtual currency which allows "Purchase of virtual and physical goods".
 * '"Cons section''
 * This section is just enough to whet the appetite. All of these things are going to be very important for whether a project like Bitcoin can succeed, or how it might fail. They should be elaborated. In fact, I would suggest that this section get the most focus for more development.
 * References:
 * Try to do your references by the Wikibooks method, then the numbers are included automatically and it works a lot better. See the link on "See Feakonomics discussion" for an example.
 * I'm not sure where in the text you use the reference to https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Real_world_shops, but any wiki isn't a good reference, since it can keep being changed.
 * Most of your references are from the Bitcoin organization or from another organization which profits from Bitcoin. You have two good journalistic sources. Try for an academic source as well, try searching on [http:scholar.google.com Google Scholar], maybe a search like this: