Six weeks ago Bitcoin was at $266. Then it wasn't. Then it was $60. Last Thursday it was $120. We keep enjoying the ride. Bitcoin 2013 had just wrapped in San Jose. The whole conference was called "The Future of Payments". Gliph launched there with Bitcoin built into their messaging app.

eToro hosted "Israel's first Bitcoin hackathon". 48 hours, 45 people, their offices at Ramat HaHayal in Tel Aviv. Bring an idea, pitch it in 3 minutes, form a team, build a prototype, present Saturday evening. Everyone votes.

eToro wasn't just providing a room. Yoni Assia had been writing publicly about Bitcoin and programmable money for years. This is a company that actually believes in this.

Thursday night, Moran Shaked pitched ₿uy The Way.

The idea: you're walking past a store, see a 2-for-1, message your friends with the details and a payment request. The ones who want in click the button, Bitcoin is sent, you buy two. No IOUs. The mechanic wasn't the payment - it was the ask. Initiating a request tied to a real-world opportunity. Movie tickets for the group. Splitting a meal. A flash sale your friend would have missed.

"Where friends & money are even for a change."

We teamed up. Spent the next 36 hours building a POC. We wanted the demo to show the flow end-to-end: spot an opportunity, create a request, share it, collect payment.

This was Moran's first hackathon. She'd been following Bitcoin since early 2012 but isn't a developer. She came with an idea and the ability to make a room understand why it mattered.

Programming money feels different from programming anything else - you write code, real-world assets move. No bank in the middle.

Saturday at 18:00, each team presented. The crowd voted on three criteria: contribution to Bitcoin promotion, creativity, how finished the product was.

₿uy The Way won.

2 BTC + $1,000 eToro balance each.

Social payments exist. What doesn't yet is the ask that starts with a buying opportunity - you see something, you pull friends in, payment clears before you buy. No more asking your friend for that money back.

Now wondering how long before WhatsApp just adds a "₿uy The Way" button.

Google+ automatically combined several stills of Footer into an animated GIF, and to top it off, automatically tagged it with #BlackCat.

I still haven't had a chance to really enjoy the Oculus Rift so far, simply due to lack of time. I've heard a lot of games already have support for it (can't wait to try Half-Life 2).

However, the coolest thing I've experienced with the Rift so far is a hack developed by Luca Siciliano that puts you inside a Google Street View scene (GitHub repository).

To experience it, you have to run a small piece of code that takes the Rift sensors data and streams it to a WebSocket, and then browse to oculusstreetview.eu.pn

My favorite places so far: Heron Reef (it just started there, didn't even know you can dive underwater), standing on top of the Eiffel Tower, Times Square, Grand Central, and just outside the tracx office in Tel-Aviv.

Between Aug 1 - Sep 1, 2012, 9,522 people (including me) backed the Oculus Rift Kickstarter project, raising $2,437,429—975% of the $250,000 goal.

After seven months and #33 project update emails, a surprise package arrived in the mail today!

I had the honor to be interviewed for Michael Minelli, Michele Chambers and Ambiga Dhiraj's book "Big Data, Big Analytics: Emerging Business Intelligence and Analytic Trends for Today's Businesses" (also on amazon).

Here is an excerpt (pp. 31-34):

Empowering Marketing with Social Intelligence

We also spoke with Niv Singer, Chief Technology Officer at Tracx, a social media intelligence software provider. Niv had quite a bit to say about the big data challenges faced in the social media realm and how it's impacting the way business is done today - and in the future.

30 minutes of rare live and behind-the-scenes footage of NIN from 1994-1997. Originally compiled as bonus footage for the unreleased Closure DVD. Includes backstage footage, live performances, music video shoots, in-studio footage, and performances from Woodstock '94. The first part of this feature, with footage from 1989-1991, can be found here.