Ravi’s Rants

The whole idea of podcasting is not to be just able to publish your audio files online, but to make your audio posts “subscribable” - i.e., your listeners should be able to set up their podcasting software (like iTunes) to subscribe to your feed, in which case the software (in this example, iTunes) will automatically download your newest posts to their hard disk, as soon (or soon after) you make your posts live.

Which means, when they next sync up their mp3 player (say, iPod), your newest audio posts will automatically be synced from your subscriber’s hard disk to their iPod.

That’s the real “subscription” model of podcasting.

So how to make your WordPress feed refer to your podcast? Simple:

1. Create your audio file (mp3, mp4, etc)
2. Upload it to your server (into a folder in your main directory, say “podcasts”)
3. Your post can have your usual text content, but make sure your post has a link to the actual audio file. Note: It has to be the full path.

   Wrong: <a href=”yourfile.mp3“>My podcast</a>
Right: <a href=”http://Example.com/podcasts/aug2007-vol1.mp3“>My podcast

4. WordPress automatically links your feed to your audio file, such that if someone were to view your blog posts in a feed reader, and clicked on the link for your audio post, then they won’t be led to your blog, but the audio file will start playing instead.
5. Once your listeners “subscribe” to your feed, their podcasting software automatically downloads new files (posts with your audio file in it) to their hard disk automatically.

WordPress is not perfect - not just yet. But there really isn’t any software out there that can do all it does: well written, open-source, extensible, has lots of plugins, and has a great community around it - like WordPress.

So, just make peace with the “comparison war” (which is better: WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, etc), simply download WordPress (or sign up for a free blog online), and get going with your content.

Content is what makes money - not your blog software.

We all knew this day would come, but I had been more curious about the type of video ads that would show up: would they be pre-roll (first show the ads, then the actual video)? Would they be post-roll (after the video) or some kind of pop-up (probably not, knowing their Adsense policy about pop-ups)?

Well, it appears that Google is going with overlay ads on YouTube. I am yet to see an ad on YouTube, but I will update this post when I find one.

James Bond	Jason Bourne	Jack Bauer

Think it’s a coincidence that these three super crime-fighting-machines share the same initials? I think not.

Bourne was bourne as America’s answer to the ultimate killing machine and British super spy who is the only one (other than God) who can save the Queen: James Bond.

Last night, I watched “The Bourne Ultimatum”. Last week, I got through Season 3 of “24″ (I know! I’m trying to catch up).

Bourne and Bauer are the “Bond”s of the new millenium, with Bauer doing the honors for the small screen.

• Bond is super-slick. Bourne is your boy-next-door.
• Bond is stylish - he drives the hottest cars, wears Prada suits. Bourne dresses like a bum.
• Bond has impeccable hair. Bourne sports a close-shaven, military cut.
• Bond drinks “shaken” martinis. Bourne probably drinks cheap, adulterated liquor (especially when in Russia and India).
• Bond gets the ultimate gadgets made for him. Bourne simply borrows a few from his enemies (after he’s knocked them out cold).
• Bond doesn’t blink before killing. Bourne is torn apart when he has to kill someone.
• Bond’s women are plastic bimbos that add nothing to the plot. Bourne and Bauer’s women (except for Kim Bauer, of course) are intelligent, have character, and are a lot more than sex-toys for their men.
• Bond insults women with his use-and-throw attitude towards them; Bourne and Bauer love and respect their women, and mourn for them.
• Bond has no identifiable weakness, but Bourne has his girlfriend, and Bauer his family - and drug addiction problem.
• Bond has a smirk on his face at the end of the day; Bourne has nightmares about the people he killed, and Bauer weeps like a baby (end of season 3) for deliberately killing a fellow-agent.

Bourne and Bauer: These two are every man’s (and woman’s) ultimate heroes. They look ordinary, dress ordinary, their emotions are pretty ordinary (in a good way): they weep, they flinch, they feel guilt, they hesitate, they love and they mourn - just like you and me.

What separates them from the cold, merciless, super-cool bond who will blow up a hangar killing 200 men and bed a super sexy foreign-language-speaking babe - all in a day’s work - is that these guys feel real. Yes, they have extraordinary kick-ass talents, but the way they go about their life, is identifiable by the average person in the 21st century, where Bond comes across as fake (gasp!)

There are a few take-aways from the skyrocketing success of Bourne and Bauer, and the declining fortunes of Bond (until the entry of Craig - but that is another post altogether).

• Yes, you certainly can take a competitor’s product (Bond), localize it (Americanize it), add better features, benefits, or simply make it a better product (Jason Bourne), repackage it, resell it, and be insanely successful. Yes, you can copy your competitors, and still beat them at it.
• Your audience has to be able to identify with your brand. Bond’s brand is tired, old and spent. You just stop wishing he were so darn perfect! Bourne and Bauer have created their own brands - they are quite imperfect, very real, merciful, emotional, humble, vulnerable, think-before-you-shoot and one-woman types.
• Predictability is not always a good thing. That’s why Daniel Craig’s newest Bond is trying to re-invent Bond - when asked by the bartender how he wants his drink, says ““Do I look like I care?”.
• Reality is a lot more powerful than fiction. The ratings-success of Saturday Night Live, Survivor, and even terrible shows like Big Brother is in-your-face proof. Even fictional characters - like Spiderman and Superman - have to be and feel like they are real.
• Credibility comes from being believable. Make your site copy believable, make your “benefits” believable, make your “U.S.P” believable, and when your customers call you, don’t greet them like a pre-recorded voice recording (think: shrill “Corporate accounts payable, Nina speaking. Just a moment” voice of annoying secretary from “Office Space”).

Be true to yourself. Be real. With your your friends, your family, your children, your colleagues, and with yourself.

Please Vote Below:

Watch this hair-raising video that shows a herd of buffaloes trying to fight a pride of lions, trying to snatch a baby calf away from the jaws of 5 lions and 2 crocodiles!

Will the baby calf survive? Make sure you have nerves of steel before you watch it.

I hope this fight inspires you to fight valiantly - against all odds - against whatever adversity you may be facing in your life right now.

Ravi Jayagopal
Author, “No Business Like E-Business”

• Creating an e-business…
• Learning a new skill…
• Being the best at what you do…
• Building something worth building…
• Creating something worth creating…
• Saying something worth saying…
• Doing something worth doing…

All of these take plenty of time - and effort.

It is very easy to just look at the end-result of other people’s successes, ogle at their fortunes, and forget (or conveniently ignore) the painstaking path they had to take in order to get there.

Life is very much like the video you are about to see.

It takes inspiration, vision, persistence, creativity, and most importantly, quite a bit of perspiration too…

Now go create your Purple Cow, Raving Fans, Fanatical Support, Positively Outrageous Service, Mona Lisa - or whatever else you want to call it.

Doesn’t matter what the name is. The idea is to do something remarkable.

Ravi Jayagopal
Author, “No Business Like E-Business“

The sad thing is that along with the “Citizen Marketers” come the “Citizen Abusers”.

Any form of user(citizen)-powered marketing will always eventually be subject to abuse, and then the distinct line between a legitimate “volunteer” citizen and a “paid” citizen suddenly becomes very thin. Point in case: Digg.com, BzzAgent.com or a PayPerPost.com.

As time goes by and more “citizens” go up for hire, all user-driven marketing will be viewed through colored glasses.

So, that’s where trusted networks like LinkedIn will come into the picture.

Ravi Jayagopal, “No Business Like E-Business“

Maybe quite a lot, and mostly not a lot.

“Huh?”, you say?

If you look at this “top bloggers” list, you may end up buying into the fantasy that blogging will make you big bucks.

Not every blog will make that kind of money. Actually, it would even be fair say, that less than a fraction (less than 1%) of all blogs will make big money. Maybe a little more than a fraction will make decent money. But 95% of all blogs will not make any money. Why? I think there are quite a few reasons.

In my new book “No Business Like E-Business” that is being released shortly, I quote figures from Guy Kawasaki, about his self-disclosed ad revenues on his extremely popular blog. Here is a snippet from the book:

Excerpt from “No Business Like E-Business”

Imagine blogging for a whole year, ending up with a very popular blog that has 23,457 subscribers, ranked #45 out of all blogs in the world, and earning (brace yourself) a whopping $3,350 for the entire year!

Now stop imagining - this stuff is real.

I’m talking about Guy Kawasaki’s blog (blog.guykawasaki.com). These statistics only prove my theory further, that:

1. It is very hard to get tech-savvy folks to click on ads the way the average surfers (moms-and-pops) do.
2. It is not easy making a living just by blogging.

I myself own a site targeted at moms-and-pops, and I made many, many times more than what Guy’s #45-ranked blog earned. And mine is a very small niche, and a lot, lot, lot less less popular than Guy’s blog.

Here are some key stats from his blog:
• 2,436,117 page views (about 6,200/day)
• 23,457 RSS feed subscribers
• Total advertising revenue: $3,350 for 1 entire year (= $1.39 cpm)

You’ve got to take these stats with a pinch of salt, because these stats could be skewed due to a number of things – especially due to improper optimization for Adsense (or ads in general). Like mentioned earlier, Adsense optimization requires a lot of continued experimentation and tracking – in other words, a lot of focused effort - in order to make it work, which I’m guessing Guy probably didn’t due for various reasons.

But then there’s the other school of thought that overrides common sense. If you read the actual article, you will see that most of them did not start the blog with the sole intention of making money.

The main take-away here is that blogging may not make you directly cash-rich, but there are a lot of indirect, intangible benefits of blogging that simply cannot be overlooked:

• Build your brand: Develop a group of regular readers who are more likely to buy stuff that you actually sell down the line. Brand yourself as an expert in your niche. You will sell more books, get more paid consulting gigs, and all of that will eventually snowball into…. selling more books and getting more paid consulting gigs.
• Looks great on your resume: Unless you are putting up personal pictures or talking about stuff that you did when you were drunk, it adds a lot of value to your profile, because not everyone is capable of writing, and even among those few, not everyone is capable of writing about a focused subject in a professional way
• Ad-revenue: When you eventually start getting a lot of traffic, there will be plenty of ad-revenue opportunities (mostly CPM types); don’t count on PPC revenue, because tech-savvy folks just don’t click on ads.
• Develop original content: If you sat down to write a book, you may get overwhelmed by the amount of writing that needs to be done, and the sheer amount of effort that needs to put in. Instead, just start blogging chapter by chapter, and you could eventually compile those into a book (or other product).
• Blog posts can be transformed into articles: Writing an article for the sake of writing one can be extremely boring and painful. Instead, write short and crisp posts, and over time, you can pick each one up, expand it a little, and convert it into articles that can get you some incoming links.
• More traffic: Writing great posts that are instantly digestible and usable, and submitting to sites like Digg and StumbleUpon can not only get you tons of traffic, but also potential new subscribers and maybe even sell more of whatever it is that you are selling.

- Ravi Jayagopal
Author, “No Business Like E-Business“