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!)

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?

I started Techiiies.tv as a fun project, and I’m pretty confident that YouTube would run out of storage space before I run out of ideas for creating techiiie videos.

Oh, and by the way, if you’re wondering about the weird spelling of Techiiies, it was of course because the name “Techies” (with the single “i”) wasn’t available

And then Seth Godin published a book called “Tribes” and used the name Triiibes.com for its web site.

And I blatantly copied Seth’s idea, that is all

And ended up with Techiiies.com as well as Techiiies.tv

So check out a video that I created for the site.

Or, the truth is, I launched the web site just to showcase videos that I have created

- Ravi “GeekDawg” Jayagopal
PS: Also on YouTube at http://YouTube.com/Techiiies

Here’s the email I received earlier today, notifying me of the change to Amazon’s Affiliate Commissions policies. Relevant portion is highlighted below.

We’re writing to let you know about a change to the Amazon Associates Program. After careful review of how we are investing our advertising resources, we have made the decision to no longer pay referral fees to Associates who send users to www.amazon.com, www.amazon.ca, or www.endless.com through keyword bidding and other paid search on Google, Yahoo, MSN, and other search engines, and their extended search networks. If you’re not sure if this change affects you, please visit this page for FAQs.

As of May 1, 2009, Associates will not be paid referral fees for paid search traffic. Also, in connection with this change, as of May 1, 2009, Amazon will no longer make data feeds available to Associates for the purpose of sending users to the Amazon websites in the US or Canada via paid search.

This change applies only to the Associates programs in North America. If you are conducting paid search activities in connection with one of Amazon’s Associates Programs outside of the US and Canada, please refer to the applicable country’s Associates Program Operating Agreement for relevant terms and conditions.

We appreciate your continued support and participation in this advertising Program. If you have questions or concerns, please write to us by using the Contact Us form available on Associates Central.

Sincerely,

The Amazon Associates Program

What do you think? Does this affect you in any way?

Feel free to comment below (I do “follow” links here in comments .

I use Amazon S3 to host my business videos.

S3 offers incredible performance, unlimited storage, and is extremely affordable. Another Purple Cow from Amazon.

Plus it looks a lot more professional than hosting your business videos on a crowded social video site with user generated videos and ads surrounding it.

• Amazon S3 for video hosting.
• Camtasia / Jing (both from the same folks) for screen capture.
• S3 Fox Free FireFox plugin to upload videos to your Amazon S3 account.
• FlowPlayer free flv player (flowplayer.org) to play the videos.

And I’m done!

Check out some videos I have hosted on S3.

Amazon currently has 17,338,442 books available for sale.

Of those 17 million, my book is currently ranked at 20,969. Which means my book is ranked at 0.1% of all books on Amazon.

0.1% means high up among the top 1% of all books.

These numbers mean not much more than a pat on the back. And maybe some extra juice to keep going on.

But not bad for a book with almost zero marketing.

And not bad at all for someone who wrote the book while commuting to work by train, stayed up late nights just to get in at least 10 minutes of writing for the day – and finally self-published it

Hope this inspires you to keep moving forward.

No Business Like E-Business Amazon Sales Rank

Amazon Books For Sale By Category

Uncanny!

I got “Presentation Zen” delivered in the mail last night from Amazon.

And someone tweeted this Garr Reynolds video of “Authors at Google”…

The folks who buy a new product when it first comes out, are commonly known as the early adopters.

These people – who are not the same as the “beta testers” – actually spend money to buy the product.

They risk the annoyances, technical and usability issues of First-Generation products in exchange for the “Wow” factor that comes with someone stopping by at your table at a restaurant, or interrupting you on the train, or huddling near you at a party, to ask about your cool new toy.

There is a certain coolness and hipness that comes along with owning the latest and greatest gadget.

But what if the gadget itself is considered a failure? What if you just kept reading poor reviews everywhere you look, especially from the people and web sites and blogs you visit and respect?

Would you still shell out hard-earned-money when you know there is very little “Wow” factor in it for you?

I’m not an early adopter in any way. I am usually on the other end of the curve, buying only the latest version of the most proven products, after the product has been out for a while, after reading tons of reviews and doing a lot of online research.

Even I was initially tempted to get the new Amazon Kindle. But after reading poor reviews everywhere, I finally pulled the plug on this item from my wish list.

Here’s one of the best, most balanced, most informative reviews I’ve read about the kindle.

So, don’t take my word – judge the Kindle for yourself.