Same, I deleted Google+ last week so I don't have to look at it. I still use Google for Adsense, Analytics and search. I'm tempted to switch over to DDG, and explore one of the many alternatives for tracking analytics because quite honestly, I'm losing faith in Google to maintain my privacy. Adsense is tougher to replace, I use them for backup fill after selling direct advertising, but they're still one of the better networks.

I wouldn't be surprised if YouTube goes under in the coming years. Someone is going to create an alternative, and hit a homerun. YouTube is primarily about watching videos, and their video player is one of the worst available. Porn sites have offered much better video players for years, so what's holding up Google? It's been seven years, and they still haven't fixed it. Either it's not in their list of priorities, or they're incompetent. I don't care which one it is, they lose my support, and I'm ready to get behind the next alternative that's better in touch with the needs of users.

How would this work though? You have 4m worth of blacklisted bitcoins. What happens if you go to a legitimate store, like NameCheap, and buy a domain using those bitcoins. You're going to add NameCheap to the blacklist now, because these coins went through them?

Well, you could say NameCheap wouldn't accept those coins in the first place, but can you really expect every store and person to be using this list?

What happens if you take those 4m worth of bitcoins, send 3m to your own wallets, and distribute 1m to random wallets of strangers? How do you know which wallets to blacklist? All of them? You're just going to put tens of thousands of people in the dark, and say their bitcoins are now worthless and blacklisted, because they received a random payment?

> distribute 1m to random wallets of strangers

Hmm, I didn't realize you could send money to people without their consent. That would make blacklisting more difficult. But if receiving the bitcoins was indeed unintentional on their behalf, you could just temporarily blacklist them until they returned the stolen bitcoins to the original owner.

In theory this could lead to attacks where small amounts of stolen bitcoins are continually deposited in victims' accounts, but that could be avoided if the exchanges themselves enforced the blacklist and refused to process transactions from blacklisted accounts (except back to the theft victim).

> Well, you could say NameCheap wouldn't accept those coins in the first place, but can you really expect every store and person to be using this list?

It would certainly require a cultural shift in bitcoin use, yes. I just find it funny that the entire transaction history is public record, yet bitcoins can still be stolen!

> I didn't realize you could send money to people without their consent.

I think the point of blacklisting would mean that miners wouldn't include transactions from those addresses in blocks. Once the transaction is in a block then there's not much that can be done, so blacklisting will require cooperation among a majority of miners.

If you already have the BC you have no need for exchanges to send someone money, all you need is their public address.

Ideally NameCheap would refuse the transaction by sending back the coins to the address it came from.

Valve can squeeze all these stores out any time. Right now they're driving sales, distributing the game, and doing a large part of the work for zero profits on outside sales. This isn't going to work long term, and they're going to flip the tables. How? I have no idea, but here's an example.

Developers set the global price for their game. They can also set a unique price per store. All sales go through Steam, referral codes send a commission back to the store making the sale. For example, you're a developer with a game on Steam, $9.99, and you want to sell it on the Humble Store for a 24 hour sale, at $4.99. You set the Steam pricing coming from the Humble referral links at a 50% discount. Now, users browse the Humble Store, see the game at 50% off, click to buy, and get forwarded to Steam, or go through a Humble checkout that uses the Steam API. Valve takes the money, distributes a percent to the developer, and a commission to Humble. If Humble wants to send a part of their payment to charity, that's up to them.

Valve wants to encourage more user stores selling Steam games in the coming year. I imagine a new payment system will be announced in mid/late 2014 to accompany these changes.

Germany has a freelance visa that'll allow you to stay in the country for a year or longer. It's not the easiest to obtain, but do a quick search on Google and you'll find information on the process.

Thanks - thats new to me - I'll investigate it. But I fear 1-2 years are not enough to be interesting for most people. Thats why those I know used the marriage trick.

What did you think of Istanbul? I just spent the last half year living and working in Europe, and I was thinking about returning next year, with Istanbul high on the list for a month or two.

Same, noticed the Facebook button and walked away. Show me some live examples, and include a how it works page, and you might grab my interest.

Please people, stop requiring users to login to learn about your application or service. Why are you putting a giant hurdle at the front door? Signing up should be the very last step. For example, let me setup a Webbify page, and if I want to save it, I need to create an account. At that point, I'm invested, I'm much more likely to register.

That's a steal. Buying at 4bn and earning 35m a year, it'll be paid off in a short 114 years. After then, it'll be smooth sailing.

Ha! I should have used larger made up numbers! How about $100/yr from 5% of their users? Anyhow, you know that the investors are betting that the numbers will grow.

My main point is, Snapchat has a lot of users who have formed the habit of opening the app and sending snaps, totaling hundreds of millions of snaps/day. Simply cloning the app in no way means that you can generate those kinds of numbers. The numbers are stellar, and the investors seem to think so as well.

Don't forget simply being new and fresh comes with a lot of benefits. Why do kids make top secret forts, no adults allowed? Why do people go to those little hole in the wall coffee shops and restaurants, where there is only one or two tables, and an old women behind the counter? The food? Sure, but even more so because the atmosphere feels unique and unspoiled by the mainstream. Why do people always search out new bands that no one else has discovered?

People like to be unique. They don't like to be grouped in with the rest of the world. This is especially true with teenagers. You don't have to make a better Facebook, you just have to make a new Facebook. It needs that feeling of being fun and exclusive, which Facebook is quickly lacking and can never gain.

Google+ will never succeed. Yes, they've invested countless dollars and time from some of the brightest minds available, but the name Google is simply too big, and too well known. It's boring from day one, there's nothing cool or hip about signing up on Google+.

It's simple, you buy the beach next door, and wait for the popular beach to implement any of the above changes. Then you advertise as the beach without ads, the beach without admission fees, or the beach where you can build free sand castles. Then when the people come, you sell your newly successful beach, and run.