Ravi's Rants – Rndaom, Yet <Well Formed/>

Do you prefer listening to a podcast that is is edited? Or nah?

7/29/2020 By Ravi Jayagopal Leave a Comment

Q: “Do you prefer listening to a podcast that is is edited? Or nah?”

My Answer: For the most part, I prefer podcasts that are edited for umms and aahs and pauses.

Now, there are shows which the conversations are just absolutely incredible (Bill Simmons, Tim Ferriss, Marketing Over Coffee), and it would actually do it injustice to edit the natural flow – so such shows are the exception. But those are far and few in-between.

Most regular “interview” shows can use all the editing they can, not just to improve the length of the show, but for improving the audio quality (sound leveling, cross-talk, etc), and to improve the show quality just by cutting out the completely unnecessary stuff – like “Can you hear me now?” pre-interview banter, “Hold on, my door bell just rang”, “Sorry, my child is calling me, let me quickly check what it is”, “Mind if I grab a quick drink of water?”, type stuff which is not important to the show or to the listeners.

Some other points: I listen at 1.8x speed, I skip the intros and outros for all shows, fast-forward thru the ads, skip the last 1-2 minutes as soon as I realize the show is ending and outro is coming up, etc. Only 24 hours in a day. Even a few minutes saved as long as I’m still getting what I need, is big for me.

My main interest is in education and information in my niche. So, while I’m not specifically looking for podcasts primarily to be entertained (like comedy, for eg.), I absolutely WANT to be entertained while I’m getting what I need. I need to have fun listening to the show.

So if a show has the greatest information and education, but is boring as hell, or the show’s host has no personality, or the guests or questioning are/is annoying, or it takes too much time to get to what I care about, then I won’t subscribe to such shows.

So everything has to be entertaining, at a minimum, or it becomes C-SPAN to me

P.S: That’s me in the picture listening to a podcast while getting my teeth worked on.

Pirates Keep Out

6/10/2020 By Ravi Jayagopal Leave a Comment

If you’re an Online Course Creator you probably have Audio, Video, PDF and other files like mindmaps, powerpoints, docs, zips, etc – in your courses or on your website.

If you use WordPress, the most important features you’re going to need from an Amazon S3 & CloudFront video player plugin, are the following:

Easy to use
Create secure videos that cannot be accessed by unauthorized users
So this plugin must allow you to create an actual Video Player (not just a link to your video)
Should have basic features like all player controls, splash image, ability to speed up the video
Create both Single Video players as well as Video Playlists * It must do both regular videos (aka “progressive downloads”) as well as Streaming videos
It must allow you to Transcribe your videos (that you can repurpose)
It must provide you with user stats as to which user has watched which videos for how long
Also create Audio players for your s3 audio files.
A bigger plus if the player is not ugly, like the standard WordPress player, and instead is really pretty and customizable
Biggest plus if it could also protect other regular files, like PDF, Zip, Doc, XLS, and even Images like JPG and PNG.

Yes, there’s a plugin that does all of this, and it’s arguably the #1 plugin for Amazon S3 and CloudFront, and can create secure S3 videos, supports both S3 and CloudFront, can do regular videos and streaming videos, supports Audio players, supports Video and Audio Playlists, can transcribe Audio and Video, can protect regular files, and most importantly, is now available for a one-time fee (no more subscription).

Features? Check.
Usability? Check.
Price? Check.
Support? Check.

If you are a digital creator, you create premium content, and you have a WordPress website, then S3MediaVault.com is the perfect plugin for you.

Sands of Time

6/8/2020 By Ravi Jayagopal Leave a Comment

Time is FINITE. Nobody wakes up with a few extra hours a day.

Everybody gets the same 24 – even Jack Bauer ?, or should I say, *especially Jack Bauer (from the show “24”).

We all have to “make” time – for the things that are important to us. Like Family, mental & physical health. community work, side-hustle, hobbies, education. execution.

You can and will “make” time for whatever you “want”. You’ve just got to “want” it.

If you want to be an author, you will have to make time to write at least 10 minutes a day.

If you want to be a podcaster, you will have to make time to record and edit a couple of hours every week (or two).

If you want to build an audience, you will have to make to do various things like create an epic lead magnet, build a list, repurpose content, etc.

If you want to make money online, you will have to make time to create products and services, and promote them.

And on top of that, you have to continuously stay engaged – with your niche, with your customers, with your audience, with your industry, with technology.

Everything is simple. Nothing is easy.

Nothing is given. Everything is earned.

No exceptions.

The sands of time flow only one way.

Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow is not guaranteed. What you have is today.

So what it is that you’ve been putting off forever that you can get started with today?

PS: Pic is from last year. Haven’t been to the beach yet in 2020. Hopefully soon!

Proud Quitter

8/30/2018 By Ravi Jayagopal Leave a Comment

It was more than 8 years ago – in May 2010 – that I quit my last and final “job”. I’ve been a full-time entrepreneur ever since.

But looking back at it now, it certainly wasn’t easy getting there.

It only took me 10 years of working nights & weekends, and getting a side-business running “on the side”, while I prepared to become a proud quitter.

10 years of sleeping 4 hours a night, 10 years of blood, sweat and tears, incredible will-power and hustle, pushing through some extreme lows, tolerating bad jobs and horrible bosses and verbal and emotional abuse, all so I could get a stinkin’ Greencard (and eventually become a US Citizen), cutting out all the fluff in life like parties and entertainment and sitcoms and TV so I would have the time to stay locked in on my end goal, staying self-motivated by constantly reminding myself as to the “why” I wanted to do it – my lovely wife and my 2 precious kids.

So here’s to all you proud (job) quitters, moonlighters, side-hustlers, wantrepreneurs, job-haters, soul-crushing-job-losers, nights-and-weekenders, side-business owners, podcast-on-the-siders, boss-haters, steady-paycheck-riskers, not-willing-to-settlers, and one-life-to-live’rs.

Keep crushing it.

Stay beasting.