Yeah, it's still alive and kicking. I try use it when I can, it has a lot of nice properties. As an unregulated industry it is abound with scams and fraud, but if you use common sense, and avoid anything remotely "get rich fast" or "altcoins" you'll do fine. If you're interested in it, I'd highly recommend signing up with circle.com or coinbase.com and buying $5 or $10 worth of bitcoin to play around
