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If I can measure your priorities by viewing your site, it appears that your #1 priority is a certain look-and-feel (as dabeeeenster put it "photos of hot 19 yea

by mcherm 12y ago

If I can measure your priorities by viewing your site, it appears that your #1 priority is a certain look-and-feel (as dabeeeenster put it "photos of hot 19 year old girls on a beach"). Along these lines, you have also purchased "circle.com" - do you read Dave Eggers too? Your #2 priority must be investment, since the "Management", "Board", and "Investors" sections of the site are the only ones that contain any actual information.[1] You have some impressive backers and impressive funding. In my experience, companies that are more excited about how much funding they have raised are less likely to succeed than companies that are excited about the product they are building. To sum it up: I am unimpressed. [1] - Learning that you are "excited about bitcoin" isn't information. Because of that excitement have you decided to offer bank accounts denominated in bitcoin? To offer a tool allowing merchants to accept bitcoin for daily purchases? To create a new offering that will supplant bitcoin? Look -- we're ALL "excited" about bitcoin: it's an interesting innovation. Being excited about it isn't news.

mrb 12y ago
If you really want to understand how excited Jeremy Allaire (CEO of Circle) is about Bitcoin, I suggest you read the testimony he gave at the US Senate hearing on Bitcoin in November 2013. He was 1 of the 7 witnesses invited to testify: http://www.hsgac.senate.gov/download/?id=2369099f-b70d-42e2-bee1-ed977a8c8d1c http://www.hsgac.senate.gov/download/?id=2369099f-b70d-42e2-... I do agree though that the Circle.com website is vague. What they offer as of today is buying and selling bitcoins. I believe the website is vague because the company has multiple other products coming down the line (some speculation: payment processing like BitPay, a Bitcoin-backed credit card, etc) and Circle does not want to advertise itself as a Bitcoin-exchange-and-nothing-else company. From what I have heard from Allaire in the past year, they don't even seem to want to restrict themselves to the Bitcoin currency, but may work with alternate crypto currencies in the future. So how could they advertise themselves? "Crypto currency service provider"? The general public does not know what a crypto currency is. "Digital currency service provider"? This sounds almost as bad.
- mcherm 12y ago
  Amazon did an excellent job of this. They advertised themselves as an online bookstore. Then they began selling other items. They had the idea of selling everything, but they marketed themselves as a bookstore then branched out.
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notahacker 12y ago
Dave Eggers was my first thought when I saw the domain as well. I wondered from the brand whether it was some sort of promotional tie-in with the book (which I haven't read). After observing the so-hip-it's parody design and signup form in lieu of an explanation of what the site actually does, I concluded that was the most likely purpose behind the site.

by mcherm 12y ago

mrb 12y ago

If you really want to understand how excited Jeremy Allaire (CEO of Circle) is about Bitcoin, I suggest you read the testimony he gave at the US Senate hearing on Bitcoin in November 2013. He was 1 of the 7 witnesses invited to testify: http://www.hsgac.senate.gov/download/?id=2369099f-b70d-42e2-bee1-ed977a8c8d1c http://www.hsgac.senate.gov/download/?id=2369099f-b70d-42e2-... I do agree though that the Circle.com website is vague. What they offer as of today is buying and selling bitcoins. I believe the website is vague because the company has multiple other products coming down the line (some speculation: payment processing like BitPay, a Bitcoin-backed credit card, etc) and Circle does not want to advertise itself as a Bitcoin-exchange-and-nothing-else company. From what I have heard from Allaire in the past year, they don't even seem to want to restrict themselves to the Bitcoin currency, but may work with alternate crypto currencies in the future. So how could they advertise themselves? "Crypto currency service provider"? The general public does not know what a crypto currency is. "Digital currency service provider"? This sounds almost as bad.

mcherm 12y ago
Amazon did an excellent job of this. They advertised themselves as an online bookstore. Then they began selling other items. They had the idea of selling everything, but they marketed themselves as a bookstore then branched out.

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notahacker 12y ago

Dave Eggers was my first thought when I saw the domain as well. I wondered from the brand whether it was some sort of promotional tie-in with the book (which I haven't read). After observing the so-hip-it's parody design and signup form in lieu of an explanation of what the site actually does, I concluded that was the most likely purpose behind the site.