sounds great. For thoseo f you wanting technical information, the yellow paper is probably your best bet.
That video does not do a good job of explaining Ethereum. It's described as a platform but that sounds so meaningless. What I understand about it is that it uses the same tech behind cryptocurrency, but uses it to power more than just money transactions, instead focusing on applications. Wiki talks about apps ranging from voting to financial contracts to domain registries. But I still don't entirely understand how the blockchain comes into play. Anyone who can explain? edit: the official site helps a bit. Still a bit vague, though, is it just about the smart contracts?
I vaguely understand how it's supposed to work for contracts. The idea is that when you create a contract you create certain terms for money and goods/services to be exchanged. The blockchain acts as a neutral and theoretically anonymous entity capable of taking action when conditions are met. Say you form a contract to sell widgets to ACME. You and ACME agree on the terms, and they put so much money into trusteeship of the contract, and the contract delivers some or all of the money directly to the account of your choice, upon delivery of the widgets, confirmation of shipping, etc. Other applications include smart properties that change full or partial ownership based on whose money is placed in trusteeship of the blockchain.
I may be completely wrong but that's how it was explained to me.
Potential service idea that could use this. Something like AirBnb but you take partial ownership of the property by smart-lease that includes a multi-conditional security deposit, and other features, potentially even like renters insurance or something.