Ignorance Is Not Bliss

by Ravi Jayagopal on 5/1/2013

You probably wouldn’t recognize a Monet painting if you saw it in my living room.

You probably can’t comprehend the other-worldly talent of LeBron James if you you weren’t a fan of Basketball.

You probably can’t appreciate the excruciating hard work that went into the 4-year training of an Olympic athlete.

So guess what happened when a world-famous violinist played a violin worth $3.5 million, in a NY city subway, pretending to be a street musician?

Sadly, greatness fades when surrounded by ignorance.

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Onion Goggles

by Ravi Jayagopal on 9/11/2012

Gotta get me one of these… wearing my swimming goggles hurts my eyes – and they get foggy too (imagine not being able to see what you’re slicing thru – oops!)


Onions have a defense mechanism. No, they don’t have impenetrable steel armor, or spikes, or adamantium skeletons. They rely, instead, on chemical weaponry. Now, before you go calling the Department of Homeland Security on your green-grocer, hear me out. Inside the cell walls of a typical onion are a collection of enzymes called “allinase” and “prensco.” Normally separated, once you start to cut an onion, those walls breakdown, and those enzymes create 1–propenylsulphenic acid, which further break down into propanethial S-oxide gas. Those gases waft outwards from the onion, eventually dissolving into the tears that coat your eye, turning them into a mild sulfuric acid! Your tear-ducts produce more tears to help dilute the caustic chemical. All that knowledge isn’t very helpful, though, when you’re eyes are burning, but it does help to protect you next time you’re chopping onions. If you know to keep that chemical out of your eyes, you’ll be just fine. These Onion Goggles fits snugly over your eyes, sealing them up and protecting you from those sulfurous fumes. Okay, maybe they’re not exactly the most fashionable kitchen accessory out there, but at least you don’t have to be afraid of chopping onions any longer! Don’t believe the old wives’ tales – breathing from your mouth, burning a candle, wine-cork between your teeth… none of that works. Onion Goggles do! No more tears!






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Caine’s Arcade

by Ravi Jayagopal on 4/19/2012

A 9 year old boy – who built an elaborate cardboard arcade inside his dad’s used auto part store – is about to have the best day of his life.

The most uplifting video of the year! Enjoy (be sure to watch it in full-screen mode) – and pass it along…

From Caine’s Arcade

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Happy Halloween!

by Ravi Jayagopal on 10/31/2011

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Where were you that fateful day?

by Ravi Jayagopal on 9/12/2011

Where were you on 09/11/2001, do you remember?

I was in NY.

My wife Veena and I were both working for a company called Prodigy Communications. We had just joined a few months earlier.

That unfortunate day, I was earlier than usual to work. I was just settling down at my desk with a hot cup of coffee, when I heard a lot of murmuring, and I stood up to see many people suddenly rushing towards the staircase going downstairs.

I thought it was either a fire – or something had happened to someone at the premises. So I followed suit.

Going down the stairs, I saw people gathering in the big community hall where we usually had our all-hands meeting.

It was the first time I noticed that there was a a small TV in one corner of the room. And I saw everyone huddling around it.

I went closer and saw a building on fire. Smoke billowing out of it like crazy. It was the first tower.

Don’t remember feeling much at that time. It was just that terrible feeling when you see a tragic accident. They were saying a plane had crashed into one of the world trade buildings. No one knew it as an actual large, commercial plane – it looked more like a much smaller training-plane kind of accident. No casualties had yet been reported. Luckily, it was still early in the work day – so hopefully the offices were still not too full. “Hopefully, it isn’t going to be too bad”, we all nervously consoled ourselves.

And then as we all kept watching, the second plane hit. I don’t know if we actually saw the second plane, but that’s how I remember it.

And soon after, the first tower collapsed.

I heard a emotional male co-worker let out a blood curdling shriek in horror. That’s actually the first time when it really hit everyone that we were witnessing one of the greatest acts of terror ever carried out not just on US soil, but in our lifetimes too.

And then the second tower collapsed.

People were getting sick and passing out around me.

Some were sobbing uncontrollably.

Some were calling others to find out if their friends or loved ones were safe.

I don’t remember what happened the rest of the day after that – it’s all one big blur now.

Looking back to that day, and thinking about the events that unfolded, it still gives me goosebumps. I have a sickening knot in my stomach even as I write this. And I didn’t even know anyone among the 3,000 unfortunate souls who lost their lives on that fateful day.

I don’t know what it feels like to have lost a loved one to the tragedy. I can only imagine.

I was fortunate enough to not have lost anyone among my friends or loved ones on that day.

The closest I came to it, was finding out later that a close friend’s brother had been to the WTC buildings that morning. He couldn’t be reached immediately, and it was a nervous few hours for my friend, but he eventually turned out OK. He had already left the building by then, and he narrowly missed being part of the tragedy.

Even though 10 years passed since the tragedy, no year has had so much impact on my emotions or on my entire family, as it has this year.

As I sat with my wife and children and watched the various memorials and documentaries and interviews, we couldn’t help but thank the media for it.

I had never before felt the compelling need to write and share about that day, but today I’m doing so, thanks to the media that made us all remember why this day is so special, one to be remembered, one to be mourned, and one to be celebrated.

I guess I needed to wake up and remember the pain.

I needed to realize how fortunate I am – and how fortunate my family and friends are to have not lost anyone that day.

And I needed to appreciate the unimaginable suffering and pain that all the families who lost loved ones that day have endured for the last 10 years.

So I wanted to write this, to share my acknowledgment of the pain – and let the world know, that I have not forgotten.

And I will never forget what happened. Because it changed all of our lives in so many ways.

May God bless the souls of those who died on September 11, 2001, and bring peace to their families and loved ones.

- Ravi Jayagopal

PS: If you have a story of your own to share, please do so in the comments below.

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Crush It With Video

by Ravi Jayagopal on 6/4/2011

About 4 years ago, when I decided to sign-up my kids for piano lessons, of course the first thing I did was to start thinking about which keyboard to buy.

I did extensive research online for keyboards: I did Google searches, visited an insane number of web sites, musician forums, read reviews on Amazon and other e-tailers, and even called up several music stores and asked for recommendations.

To make a long story short, it came down to two products: the Yamaha Motif XS and the Korg M3.

And I was really, really torn between the two, unable to make up my mind… until I saw this free video on YouTube…

Yup, literally one free video on Youtube sealed the deal for Yamaha, and they literally reached into my pocket and sucked $3,200 out of my credit card (it costs like $2500 now!)

So yes, video does help you sell better.

And actually, it’s not just about “selling”. Video basically helps you “persuade” and “close” better – regardless of what the goal is.

So video rocks whether you’re selling a product, building a brand, building a reputation, or simply trying to make a very cool viral video…

And creating such videos is a LOT simpler than you can imagine.

Andy Jenkins, a marketer whom I admire and am a big fan of, has released 3 spectacular videos that show you how easy it is to create videos that work.

Yes, the videos are free.

One thing I can guarantee you: If you’re not totally impressed by the production quality, humor, fast-paced and multiple-sensory-stimulating narration in the videos, then I will let you smack me silly and call me “Ravioli” :-)

So click here to watch them all for free before they get taken down when the actual product launches in 2 days…

And don’t forget to leave a comment below about what you thought about this post (or Andy’s videos).

Cheers!

- Ravi Jayagopal

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An iPad For My Birthday

by Ravi Jayagopal on 5/10/2011

You see, my birthday is coming up later this month.

And my lovely wife Veena wanted to gift me an iPad2 (she’s a darling, isn’t she?)

But here’s the other part of this story: She already has an iPad1.

And she really puts it to great use too (see picture below of Veena relaxing at the beach in San Diego, with her iPad, hidden from view below her gigantic purse that has lots of cash – I think! – some of which she might use to buy me a gift with!)

Veena at the beach with her iPad

I get this feeling that she’s up to something sneaky here – which is, to get me an iPad2 for my birthday, then since she thinks I won’t be using it much, she plans on emotionally blackmailing me into exchanging my shiny new iPad2 with her “old” iPad1.

“Not so fast!”, is what me thinks.

So here’s my plan.

Brendan Burchard, a marketer I highly trust, respect and admire, is currently doing a launch of his newest product.

And he’s giving away some insanely high quality, “knock your socks off” free videos to generate buzz for his launch.

And he’s promised his marketing partners, that if we get enough (real) people to simply watch his free videos, he will give us a shiny new iPad (I’m guessing it’s an iPad2!!).

So, go to this link, simply sign up for free to watch his incredibly awesome, free video training series.

You get some extremely powerful content for free, and I *might* get an iPad2 in the process.

You win, I win [who cares if Brendon wins... heheh <sound of evil laughter at the thought of stealing an iPad from him legally!>]

And if I win an iPad, then I might emotionally blackmail Veena right back, to give me cash instead, which I could then use for buying really cool stuff on Amazon (psst: there’s this awesome zoom lens that I’ve been eyeing for a while, which…. oh well, I digress).

Deal?

Click here to watch the first of the free videos.

Here’s what you’ll learn…

* The ‘Create Anything’ outline and script for creating your products

* 12 simple-to-create products and programs that bring in recurring revenue

* The MATH for how you can make $100,000 in 12 months with EACH of these products

* How you can win $1,200 just for posting a video of your story and advice

All free. Nothing to buy to watch these videos.

So don’t hesitate to forward the link to this post to your friends [nope, I will get only one iPad no matter how many people sign up :-(   ]

Here’s the link again: http://RavisRants.com/blueprint.html

Wish me luck!

- Ravi Jayagopal
PS: Sure, I could run out and buy one in the next hour. It’s not like I can’t afford it. But where’s the fun in that? Nothing like “winning” a toy, is there? ;-)
PPS: BTW, I’ve never won anything in my life. Never won any kind of business contest. So not a bad way to get my feet wet, eh?

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Evil Smartphones

by Ravi Jayagopal on 4/13/2011

Smartphones are evolving at such breakneck speed, thanks to Apple and Google, that they’re killing a whole range of gadgets…

The demise of the legendary Flip camcorder says it all.

Is your product (or company) geared to deal with such an incredible onslaught of change?

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Google’s New Online Magazine

by Ravi Jayagopal on 3/26/2011

Did you know: Google recently launched their first, full-length, online magazine called ThinkQuarterly.

At Google, we often think that speed is the forgotten ‘killer application’ – the ingredient that can differentiate winners from the rest. We know that the faster we deliver results, the more useful people find our service.

But in a world of accelerating change, we all need time to reflect. Think Quarterly is a breathing space in a busy world. It’s a place to take time out and consider what’s happening and why it matters.

Our first issue is dedicated to Data – amongst a morass of information, how can you find the magic metrics that will help transform your business? We hope that you find inspiration, insights, and more, in Think Quarterly.

Matt Brittin
Managing Director, UK & Ireland Operations, Google

 

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I Came Home And The Dog Was Bald

by Ravi Jayagopal on 1/25/2011

Seth Godin talks about attention deficit. And he also talks about attention surplus

And weirdly enough, they both conclude the same thing: No one is paying attention. Including yourself.

I’ve always been intrigued by the psychology of persuasion (yes, and am a big fan of the book by Cialdini too). And one of my favorite past-times is reading random stuff about “Ninja” copy-writing and persuasion and marketing techniques, as I’ve always been (and will be) a student of marketing.

And one of the techniques I love, is a NLP Technique called “Pattern Interrupt“.

This is where, you do something so different from the rest of your competition, that it completely throws your audience off-balance, and lowers their guard just enough for you to make your presence felt – and grab their attention for a few fleeting seconds (now what you do with that next is a completely different story).

This technique can be used in many aspects of life…

Stand out from other typical web sites…

…by say, offering a free report, without asking for their email address.

Stand out from the other males all vying for the attention of that beauty in the bar…

…by acting totally un-predictable, being a bad boy, and never being a “gentleman” (Eben Pagan, mega-marketer and super-nice dude, who runs DoubleYourDating under the pen-name David DeAngelo calls it the “Wuss” factor).

Stand out from the thousands of marketers crashing your prospect’s inbox with “offers”…

…by offering just honest-to-goodness, *awesome*, instantly usable, valuable content.

Stand out from your competitors…

…by putting your personal phone number on your web site.

Stand out from most other bloggers…

…by generously publishing outgoing links to all kinds of posts and pages and sites (like this blog post) without worrying about “losing your readers” (an awesome technique I learned from… you guessed it… Seth Godin :-) )

But I digress…

Now you might have already heard about Roy H. Williams, the “Wizard Of Ads”, and one of my “Guru Drona’s” that I pay tribute to in my book.

Here’s an excerpt from his newsletter, that I eagerly wait for every Sunday midnight.

Here, he talks about asking people to volunteer ridiculous, over-the-top subject lines, and how he ties it to their marketing, in front of a live audience…

“The stagecraft begins when I ask everyone in the room to write a statement that would catch the ear of any person who overheard it. “The statement doesn’t have to make sense,” I say, “It just needs to be larger than life, evocative, difficult to ignore. The kind of statement that would make a passing stranger turn and say, ‘Huh?’”

I then ask 6 volunteers to bring their statements onto the stage. “I’m now going to craft real ads for real businesses using the statements written on those papers as the opening lines for the ads. Do I have any business owners in the room?” Six business owners take the stage. I randomly pair them up with the colorful statement-holders. I have no idea what businesses are on stage or what statements are written on those papers.

I owe Tom Robbins (not to be confused with Tony) for this little bit of stagecraft. In a magazine interview that accompanied the release of his novel, Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates, Tom said, “Everything in the universe is connected, of course. It’s a matter of using imagination to discover the links, and language to expand and enliven them.”

“Business owner number one. Tell me about your business.”

“I have a plumbing company.”

“Name a profit center you’d like to improve.”

“I’d like to get more calls for our 24-hour emergency service.”

“Crazy person number one. What did you write on your paper?”

“I came home and the dog was bald.”

The room roars with laughter as I walk to the front of the stage and balance there – my toes hanging over the edge – as 2,000 people hold their breath.

“I came home and the dog was bald. I haven’t been that surprised since I woke up at 2AM to pee and stepped out of bed into an inch of water. Thank god Martindale Plumbing never goes to sleep. At 2AM they were just sittin’ there, hoping someone would call. They fixed the problem while I made coffee. Great guys. Thank god for Martindale Plumbing, 24 hours a day. But I still got no idea what to do with a bald dog.”

I started laughing so hard at 3:45 AM in the morning while reading this newsletter on my iphone, on my bed, getting ready to fall asleep, that I literally became wide awake, and couldn’t fall asleep for a 1/2 hour after that. That’s how much it tickled me, inspired me, and got my juices going.

Remember, it’s not just about writing something ridiculous, larger than life, and simply shocking for the sake of shocking. That usually ends up like a bad joke.

The key is to start your copy (email subject, blog post, book title) with something ridiculous, outrageous, and even shocking, and somehow tie it all together with your main story.

That’s when you make people laugh in a dark room at 3:45 AM in the morning and inspire them so much that they lose their sleep!

Oh, and don’t forget to go sign up for the free Monday Morning Memo, written by one of my favorite people in the world.

A Mini Headline/Subject-Line Challenge

Imagine you’re sending out an email to your list… something to do with your product (any product or service, or yourself).

I challenge you to come up with a “pattern interrupting” headline, and also tell us, if you would, how you would tie it in to your story…

Go on, give it a shot in the comments section below. No one’s reading my blog anyway :-)

Cheers!

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Burning Your Brand Into Their Eyes (literally!)

by Ravi Jayagopal on 12/18/2010

Awesome idea!

Know that thing that happens after you stare into the sun and then close your eyes? Know how you see a bright ring that then gradually fades away?

BMW came up with the same concept and created an ad that did that to viewers.

Now the idea itself is nothing groundbreaking. But what’s really cool is, that they actually did it, and now everyone’s talking about it.

I’m blogging about it.

And you’re reading about it.

And shortly you’re going to watch a video about it.

And then you’ll probably blog (or tweet, or facebook message) about it.

And thus the cycle starts all over again.

That’s the power in creating something “viral”. That’s the power of doing something that starts a conversation.

And that is what is cool about doing something like this.

Now go do something really cool yourself, somehow tie it to your product or service or brand. And see if you can get a conversation started about it.

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Google Redirection Virus

by Ravi Jayagopal on 12/14/2010

Just when I thought that I was one of the most “web savvy” and “tech savvy” people on earth, who could never be tricked into downloading anything that would infect my computer…

BAM!

My laptop gets infected by what’s come to be known as the “Google Redirection Virus”.

The symptoms are very obvious…

You do a Google (Yahoo or Bing) search, and when you click on any of the results, then it redirects you to a totally unrelated page on a completely unrelated web site that has all kinds of ads on it. My Google toolbar for FireFox even blocked some of the sites as spam/malware sites, and did not allow me to actually visit them.

So I first consoled myself following this rude shock that in spite of having McAfee Virus Protection on my laptop, using only Firefox (no IE) and being extremely “download paranoid”, I had still ended up a victim of this stupid virus.

And then I started my Google search (every time I did a search to research this virus, guess where the first Google result took me? To a spam site, of course! The virus was still very much in action!

The first thing I found, was that the virus had changed the way my Firefox browser connects to the interwebs.

See how the setting had changed to “Manual proxy configuration” to point to “127.0.0.1″ on port “64646″.

First thing to do is to change the setting to “No Proxy” and hit “OK” (unless you’re actually using some other proxy server).

That seemed like it solved the redirection issue, but I had to be absolutely certain. So back to Google – without the redirection issue.

And that’s when I found more and more people talking about the Hitman Free Virus Scanner software.

The software itself has a cost associated, but they allow you to do a free scan and even remove any viruses it may find, for free, using their free 30-day trial version.

If you don’t wish to fully install the anti-virus software, just select the option to run a free “one time” scan of your computer.

Worked like a charm!

It picked up on many malware files on my laptop, as you can see below.

Here’s what it looks like after it cleaned up all the garbage (required a reboot to fully delete one file).

So here I am, after cleaning and rebooting – totally virus free (or so I hope!).

Now that I’ve destroyed whatever little confidence you may have had in “big name” anti-virus programs, go read more about the Hitman tool, and get rid of the trojans!

Happy Trojan Hunting! :-)

- Ravi Jayagopal

PS:  Feel free to pass this link on to others. And as always, don’t forget to comment below. Cheers!

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Where I Am At

by Ravi Jayagopal on 11/16/2010

“It was the best of times, and it was the worst of times”, wrote Charles Dickens.

That’s exactly how it has felt for the last couple of years.

On one hand, my wife’s father, and both my parents – all passed away in a span of 3 years, leaving our kids with no grandparents, and leaving us utterly devastated.

And on the other hand, my career has gone from good to Great to UNBELIEVABLE! (including the ALL CAPS & “exclamation point”). My wife and I both have been able to quit high-paying jobs, become full-time entrepreneurs, move to beautiful and pleasantly sunny San Diego, California. We work full time from home, we’re always there when the kids come home from school, we eat lunch together as a family every single day, we basically do whatever the heck we want, whenever we want – all while we grew our business by 1,000% (yup, one thousand percent) in less than 1.5 years.

So yes, it has been the best of times, and it has been the worst of times. A very big roller coaster ride.

And as the year comes to an end, I have been reflecting on where to go from here.

From a career perspective, I do have a best-selling book under my belt, a successful online business together with my wife, and am part of a wonderful community of customers, associates, partners, peers, and fans (yup, I apparently have some fans too!)

I am looking to take my personal brand to a new level this forthcoming year: I plan on doing more blogging, more speaking, more consulting and more coaching. And it was during this time that I happened upon a course called “Experts Academy” being promoted by a person named Brendon Burchard.

I was first introduced to Brendon’s products earlier this year when all of the big marketers in the industry were promoting his product. I received an email from at least 20 different people pitching his product “in my face”.

To be honest, I was a little turned off at that point. Plus I was in a different place in my life at that point, and did not give it further thought.

Over the months to follow, after the hype had died down and the launch had ended, I somehow kept running into Brendon’s videos, audio and other content from time to time, and the more I watched and absorbed his material, the more his brand grew on me. And I found the stuff he was teaching to be something not too many people taught (or taught like he did), very powerful and eye-opening – even for me, someone who has “been there, done that” in the online marketing world.

So this time around, when I found out that he’s re-opening the doors, the timing couldn’t have been more perfect.

I’m in a place right now where I am looking to actively and aggressively go into the “Expert” space, and launch more products in the coaching, consulting and seminar space.

This is exactly what the doctor ordered for me. And I have already decided to buy the course. Most people would consider it “expensive”, but for me, it’s going to be pretty “cheap”, because this is exactly what I’ve been wanting to learn, courses like this from someone who has proven themselves are rare to come by, genuinely good people like Brendon are even rarer, and the value I’m going to be getting from this is going to be so immense, that it is going to be the best gift I’ve bought myself in a long time.

Going by his free videos, his reputation, and his results, I predict this is going to be the product of the year. And if you could purchase just one thing over the next entire year, then let it be this one.

Even if you don’t buy the course, it would be crazy not to at least check out the bucket-loads of amazing free coaching that he’s giving away as part of this product launch. And as you watch each video, be sure to study the whole launch strategy – especially the “12 positioning tools” video that teaches how to market yourself as a a high-value, highly-paid expert starting starting today.

I have never, ever watched any “how-to” video for longer than 10-15 minutes at a time – ever. But I watched the first video which is like 45+ minutes long, in one sitting, completely mesmerized, furiously taking notes, while my brain was going so nuclear with all of the possibilities, that it could’ve probably powered my entire San Diego neighborhood!

Oh, and use this free FireFox plugin (one of my favorites) to download the launch videos, as even the free information is just too good to be skipped and forgotten. You will be watching them many times over, so make sure you save them to your computer for offline viewing.

- Ravi Jayagopal

P.S: So Where You At? What have you planned for 2011?
Do comment below.

PPS: Some of the links in this blog may result in an affiliate earning for this web site. We do not recommend products for the sake of earning a commission. Rather it’s the other way around. When we want to recommend something, we check if they have an affiliate program. If not, we recommend it anyway.

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Presentation Matters

by Ravi Jayagopal on 9/24/2010

… and so does “music” – especially when it comes to just about any kind of video online.

When your mother admonished you when you were young for dressing like a bum to your first job interview, you probably didn’t realize how important “presentation” is. But you’ll be even more surprised how much it matters, after you see these videos.

Artifact 1:

An original video what will knock-your-socks off from Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod. The video has been watched more than 11 million times (at the time of writing this).

And don’t miss watching it in full-screen mode.

Artifact 2:

Here’s a copycat video, with much different music, and a much different style. See if you can tell a difference in “impact”.

Artifact 3:

Completely different video, nothing to do with the above two – but simply had to include this in the conversation about using great editing and great music in an online video. And the beauty is, you could’ve done this too for your web site, with a not-very-expensive tool like Camtasia, but you didn’t :-) . And neither have I :-)

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We Write Ads Or People Die

by Ravi Jayagopal on 9/6/2010

What a remarkable way to market your services through a viral video like this.

This is way too funny!

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Arthur Ashe

by Ravi Jayagopal on 2/14/2010

Inspiration from (friendly) spam I received in my email….

Arthur Ashe, the legendary Wimbledon player was dying of AIDS which he got due to infected blood he received during a heart surgery in 1983…

From the world over, he received letters from his fans, one of which conveyed: “Why did God have to select you for such a bad disease”?

To this Arthur Ashe replied:

“The world over, 50 million  children start playing tennis, 5 million learn to play tennis, 500,000 learn professional tennis, 50,000 come to the circuit, 5000 reach the  grand slam, 50 reach Wimbledon, 4 to semi final, 2 to the finals, when I was holding a cup I never asked GOD ‘Why me?’. And today in pain I should not be asking GOD ‘Why me?’ “

Arthur Ashe, the legendary Wimbledon player was dying of AIDS which he got due to infected blood he received during a heart surgery in 1983…

From world over, he received letters from his fans, one of which conveyed: “Why does GOD have to select you for such a bad disease”?

To this Arthur Ashe replied:

“The world over, 50 million  children start playing tennis, 5 million learn to play tennis, 500,000 learn professional tennis, 50,000 come to the circuit, 5000 reach the  grand slam, 50 reach Wimbledon, 4 to semi final, 2 to the finals, when I was holding a cup I never asked GOD ‘Why me?’. And today in pain I should not be asking GOD

‘Why me?’ “

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I’m A Hunter

by Ravi Jayagopal on 2/3/2010

Oh, I’m very much a Hunter!

But being a Gemini, I do have a kind of split-personality. So, occasionally I chill out and become a “Farmer”. Not for too long though :-)

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Twitter: @Replies Rock, DMs Over-rated

by Ravi Jayagopal on 2/2/2010

What’s the the most powerful feature of Twitter?

It’s definitely the ability to send an “@” reply to anyone on twitter – without their permission.

Now “great tools come with great responsibility” (yup, just made it up :-)

Spam people on twitter, and you will get blocked, labeled a spammer, folks will hate on you, and word can spread very quickly. So obviously, you don’t want to spam folks and screw up your brand and reputation.

The “@” reply is so powerful that you can basically send a “tweet” to anyone who has an account on Twitter. Did you know that you can send a direct message to anyone from Bill Gates to Beyonce Knowles?

How cool is that?

Just remember, all “@ replies” can be seen publicly by everyone on Twitter.

But Twitter DMs (Direct Messages) are “private” tweets. They are seen only by the recipient. But before you can send someone a DM, they must be “following” you first.

Now there are Social Media experts who will tell you to simply “follow” everyone who follows you.

Now why would I want to do that? Just so that they can send me a DM?

Hey, if they must send me something in private, then it is probably important enough for them to go to my web site and send me an email. Or call me. Or @reply me and ask me for a way to contact me privately so we can take it offline. After all, if it’s that important, then I’m sure it deserves more than 140 characters.

And if I am following 17,541 people, then my twitter stream is going to be moving so dang fast, that it makes it practically worthless!

I only follow people, whose “tweets” I’m interested in.

I follow people because I want to know what they’re saying.

I want to know that they’re thinking.

I want to know what they’re reading, writing, selling, ranting about.

So to blindly follow everyone who follows you, makes no sense.

So here’s my take on this:

* Follow only those whose messages (and/or their timeliness) you’re interested in.
* Auto-DM’s and Auto-Follows are for spammers
* Feel free to use the @reply to butt-in to conversations in a relevant, non-spammy, non-commercial way
* Add meaning to a conversation, add value, and grow your network

Your impending “online rock star” status then can’t help but follow.

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Why WordPress Is The Absolute Best Platform For Your Membership Site

by Ravi Jayagopal on 1/28/2010

NOTE: WordPress is right for you, only if you want to actually launch your membership site some day, make money from your site, and do not wish to spend an insane amount of time creating and maintaining it, and only if you do not wish to spend hundreds (or thousands) of dollars outsourcing the creation and maintenance of your site

I recently happened across a blog post that presents an argument about why you should not use WordPress for your membership site.

That seems to have caused quite a stir among my target audience (who are basically people who want to start a membership site using WordPress).

A couple of them wrote to me and asked me for my opinion, 1) because I am such a big evangelist of WordPress, and 2) because I have developed a Membership Plugin for WordPress.

I read the argument with interest, and of course felt that it was a very extreme, one-sided worldview of WordPress. I tried to comment there on the site itself, but I got a message that “the site owner has blocked you from commenting”. Not sure why. I will try again. But in the mean time, I simply had to post this here.

So, after you’ve read Alex’s argument for why you should not use WordPress for your membership site, read my (well-rounded, well-educated and balanced, IMHO :-) opinion about why you would be foolish NOT to use WordPress for your membership site – especially if you’re a small-biz owner, info-product marketer, blogger or Do-It-Yoursef’er, and don’t have a big team or a big budget to outsource your membership site development.

My note to Alex…

Alex,

Having developed WordPress and Non-WordPress scripts for almost 15 years now, I have to respectfully disagree with your argument for not using WP for membership sites.

Let me try to present an objective argument here.

You wrote:
>>it doesn’t matter which one you will choose to use as they all share one big flaw – their dependency on the core of WordPress!<<

I am the developer of a plugin called DigitalAccessPass (DAP), which does *not* have a dependency on the core of WordPress. DAP is a separate piece of software, that can be plugged on TOP of wordpress, and only needs a simple, light-weight “Plugin” that acts as a “bridge” between WP and DAP. In the 15 months since the launch of DAP, and 10 months prior to that when we were developing DAP, WP has released a huge number of updates in those 25 months (2+ years), and we have *never* had a single instance where a WP update affected our script.

Again, it’s all in the design, right? DAP was deliberately designed from the ground up *not* to have a dependency on *any* CMS, not even WP. That’s the reason why DAP works right out of the box with regular, plain-ol HTML web sites, and using the “bridge” plugin concept, can be integrated into other CMS like Joomla, Drupal, etc (Joomla plugin for DAP is in the works as I write this). In fact, with just a little bit of work, DAP can be made to work with every imaginable CMS out there, for this very reason.

>>By themselves they will not function and same goes the WordPress core<<
See above. DAP will function all by itself with just regular HTML web sites.

>>WordPress is Open Source and its code is constantly under scrutiny not only by the good guys but also by people who are looking for a way to compromise your site<<
I can kind of agree with you there, but then, even software and services from even high profile companies, like Google and Microsoft get hacked or gamed. So, just because it’s open source doesn’t mean it’s more vulnerable, and just because it’s “closed source” doesn’t mean it is secure. It all depends on the developers and the community behind it.

I mean, non-WP sites get hacked all the time because the shared-site owner left a PHP script in there that’s vulnerable to XSS attacks, or left the permissions wide open inviting hackers to come join the party. That actually says more about the security of PHP itself, and the security of a shared-host environment. But why blame WP for that?

>>You quickly contact support of the developer who created the plugin you use for Membership Management before jumping into upgrade, as you have to ensure that it will continue to work with new version only to learn that he is taking romantic vacation on secluded island somewhere in Fiji and will not be back for next couple weeks…<<

Yes, I agree, that if you went with a small-time, one-man-developer solution, then regardless of whether they are in Fiji, or get hit by a bus, you’re going to be in trouble. That’s why you pick software from companies like mine, which have been around for 15 years, have written millions of lines of code for small businesses as well as for the enterprise, have a team in place for support, and won’t be going away any time soon (we can’t, because this is what we do :-) .

>>I personally prefer that my membership script is separate and with dedicated support!<<
DAP totally fits the bill here :-) . It is separate, and has dedicated, “non-outsourced” support :-)

You are recommending a downloadable script solution at the end of your post – one which is developed in PHP. PHP has always been (arguably) one of the most insecure programming languages, just because, if you didn’t quite know what you’re doing, it allowed newbies to easily shoot themselves in the foot. Of course, PHP has come a long way since then, but it’s still not the most secure language.

Are we next going to start recommending that no one should use PHP scripts at all, and instead use something like Java or .NET?

So, whether it’s a programming language (PHP), a content management system (WP) or an operating system (Windoze), the solution is only as secure as its developers, the company backing it, and the community supporting it.

And most importantly, the security of a site is only as good as the actual “user” using it (if you download spyware and infected .exe files from the web and your computer gets infected, can you really blame Microsft for it?).

I guess you could blame MS, but that doesn’t mean you’re right.

So, when it comes to the quality of code, extensibility (hooks and filters and plugins) and the community, and the insanely large user base, WordPress simply can’t be beaten.

And when it comes to a membership script for WordPress, DAP also can’t be beaten :-)

My humble $0.02 :-)

Appreciate the soapbox, the opportunity, and for your great post which seems to have evoked so many great responses :-)

Thanks much!

- Ravi Jayagopal
Founder & Developer, DigitalAccessPass .com
(Membership Script for WordPress)

I’m hoping to augment this soon with a more detailed article about using WordPress as the platform to build your membership site.

So stay tuned by subscribing to this blog or by following me on twitter.

Feel free to pass this link to other WordPress lovers, and don’t forget to add your comments below. And no, I won’t block them – even if you’re Alex ;-)

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Video LightBox Script

by Ravi Jayagopal on 12/20/2009


A Lightbox is a piece of JavaScript used to display images and videos in an ‘overlay’.

Basically, a user can click on an image to either have the image – or a video – magnified in a Lightbox window. It is usually accompanied by the use of a dark background, usually a dimming of the page over which the image or video has been overlaid, which helps highlight the image or video being displayed.

For example, click on the image below, and see what happens.

And you can see it in action, on a real, live web site, at the home page of http://DigitalAccessPass.com

This Lightbox script is available for free. It is actually open-source, and released under the MIT license – which means you can also use it in commercial projects.

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