Bitcoin

Spendabit: Bitcoin Search Engine!

Nigel Dollentas · @https://twitter.com/nigeldollentas | Jul 11, 2014 | 00:40

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Now with Bitcoin becoming adopted by more and more companies, people need an easy way to buy products that accept Bitcoin. That way is here, meet Spendabit.

1. What sparked the idea of spendabit?

I’ve long noticed a lack of quality Bitcoin directories. Traditionally, most of the directories have been sparse and/or outdated. The long-standing “Trade” page at the Bitcoin.it wiki was the best source for quite a while, but it has long since outgrown what one can do with a wiki. And it’s still hard to find a comprehensive list of places to spend your Bitcoins (though the situation has improved a bit on the “brick-n-mortar” side). I don’t remember when exactly I got the idea to do product search, but Spendabit was basically an attempt to take it a step further (than just another Bitcoin directory).

2. History of Development?

Development began as toying with an idea earlier this year, and I was both motivated and enabled to take it more seriously when I convinced a long-time friend of mine (Devan) to get involved. We’ve both been about half-time committed to the project since then (around March), him more on the strategy/business end of it, me more on development. Hopefully we can give it our full attention going forward.

3. How does the search engine work?

In terms of gathering the product information, we have done a lot of work to make this possible without direct data feeds from merchants, but we do have some of that as well (merchant relationships).

In terms of searching on the product data, I wouldn’t say we’ve reinvented the wheel, but we’ve got some algorithms that should help search results become more relevant in time. That said, we know we need to give more attention to the relevancy of results… I’m sure we’ll have to get more sophisticated as the Bitcoin economy grows!

4. I have a Bitcoin company that sells XXX product, how do I get my company on the search engine?

Expect a proper registration form on our website soon, but until then, people can let us know they’re interested via our feedback form (https://spendabit.co/feedback).

5. I see no ads of any kind, how is revenue made to keep service running?

Up to now we’ve been more focused on making a good product/tool. We have a few coals in the fire, including affiliate relationships, partnerships, and perhaps expanding into other areas of the Bitcoin sphere.

6. Current Status?

We’ve just done our first public unveiling, and we’ve been inundated with feedback and requests for new merchants and the like — time to get to work!

7. Future Development plans?

Lots. But the big ones right now are adding new merchants (especially as affiliates), improving the relevance of search results, and making the search-engine more cognizant of the fact that not everyone lives on one continent (localization).

7a. Do you plan on extending this to Litecoin, or some other major cryptocurrencies?

We haven’t much discussed this, but it’s something that’s been in the back of my mind. We will likely add support if the demand is there.

8. Anything specific to say to the readers?

Here’s to the Honest Money Revolution. :-)

For more information: https://spendabit.co/