Enginner and PhD student Minorman summarizes Bitcoin developments in 2012 with a blog post on SeekingAlpha.  Excerpts:

“[Bitcoin] gained 1400% against the USD last year - and this same currency is again - by far - the best performing currency.”
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“With block 210.000, 50% of all bitcoins to ever be issued are now in circulation. The next 25% will be issued over the next roughly 4 years.”
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“The bitcoin business space has also started to attract venture capital in 2012.”
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“Many, many more developments in 2012. Partial list [includes the] birth of provably fair gambling and Satoshidice, Bitzino and others.”

 - http://bit.ly/WdFzdN
 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=57.0 (Further discussion regarding speculation)

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In three, one-hour segments, Internet radio host and Libertarian Ernest Hancock (@FreedomsPhoenix) interviews BitcoinStore’s Roger Ver, Tuxavant, and Showlife.cc’s Jonathan Logan. 

 - http://bit.ly/VELbwS (Web page with Video)
 - http://blip.tv/file/6470447 (Video - Hour 1)
 - http://blip.tv/file/6470450 (Video - Hour 2)
 - http://blip.tv/file/6470453 (Video - Hour 3)
 - http://bit.ly/U3bY8z (MP3 - Audio podcast, Hours 1, 2 & 3)
 - http://BitcoinStore.com
 - http://ShadowLife.cc 

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A new post on Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine), which earlier this month underwent a change of ownership, clears up some misconceptions surrounding Bitcoin.  Excerpts:

“Bitcoin does not have a central organization or authority.  […] Rather than thinking of Bitcoin as a product released by a traditional corporation, it is more appropriate to think of it as a self-sustaining digital commodity, similar to gold.”
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“The Bitcoin price did NOT fall to $0.01 in June 2011. […] The root cause was a security mishap at a third party service.  Aside from the attacker, no human being was, at any point, willing to sell bitcoins at anything close to $0.01.”
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“Bitcoin is NOT (yet) seeing massive growth in usage to evade trade sanctions in Iran. […] The media took a single story of an Iranian earning bitcoins by selling music on CoinDL and wrongly extrapolated to a story about Iranians switching to Bitcoin en masse.”
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“Focusing on the black market aspect of Bitcoin is a popular habit of journalists.  [Trade for immoral goods or services] are NOT gaining significant traction.”
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“As public understanding of what Bitcoin is continues to develop, we will be seeing far fewer outdated or inaccurate claims in 2013, and with luck, Bitcoin will be free to rise or fall – but hopefully rise – on its own merits. “

- http://bit.ly/TyDT07
- http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=133919.0 (Further discussion of the article)

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The Bitcoin Foundation (@BTCFoundation) is soliciting grant proposals to further its mission to standardize, protect, and promote Bitcoin.  The first grant submission deadline is February 15, 2013.

In the first two months following its launch, the Bitcoin Foundation reached 200 individual members and 5 corporate members.  Various other donations were received, including a 500 BTC donation from venture capitalist Fred Wilson.

Being planned by the Bitcoin Foundation for the late spring 2013 in the San Francisco/Silicon Valley area is the “Bitcoin 2013: Future of Payments” conference.

 - https://bitcoinfoundation.org/blog/?p=58

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Zach Harvey (@ManchFu) describes what Bitcoin offers him as a small business owner with a global customer base.  Excerpts:

“After receiving numerous orders that were scam orders, I now can only accept PayPal and credit card sales to a small number of countries I know I won’t get many scam requests from.   So now I accept these orders from just about ten percent of the countries that I started out with.”
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“If you want to send or receive a wire for $10,000 or more, you may be looking at a form like [seen on video].  That’s just one page, and that’s for receiving $10,000.  With Bitcoin, the form [doesn’t exist].”
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“If there’s nothing between me and the consumer, then there’s no friction in the market.  There is no discrimination between formal markets and informal markets with Bitcoin.  Bitcoin simply doesn’t care.  [The transaction] doesn’t go through any organization where that question — is this a formal or informal market, needs to be answered.  [The money] just goes to where it is intended to go.”
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“Bitcoin opens up the market completely for any transaction for you as a business to go directly to your customers without any unwanted middleman, and that’s why I’m excited about it.”

 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cSG6uMM3q8#t=55s

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