So today Mike Filsaime is doing a big giveaway for his Butterfly Marketing 2 course.  Mike bills himself as a viral marketing expert and I don’t know if you’ve ever had any success with viral marketing yourself, but here’s the thing about it.  Traffic tends to come in surges and places tremendous loads on your server.  Anyone who has ever gotten an article to the front page of Digg.com or similar can probably attest to the server crushing traffic.

There are many elegant solutions you can use to keep your server humming along when you’ve got thousands of people trying to access it all at the same time.  There are some simple ones as well that any IT guy with even basic knowledge should know how to implement.

However, it would seem that this viral marketing expert with and his team don’t have any of those people on staff.  The nice thing about doing a product launch is the ability to prepare for a much higher than normal server load.   You could easily lease load balancers and extra servers for the project (yes, it will cost a bunch of extra cash, but this is a product launch, a ton of cash is made on these things) if you know you’re going to be getting a lot of extra traffic.

Now I don’t pretend to have any behind the scenes knowledge of what they actually did do to get ready for the launch, but they didn’t do anything close to enough.

I’ve met Mike, and he seems like a good enough guy, but I have to say that I can’t for the life of me understand how anyone who has been through product launches before and is a viral marketing expert isn’t prepared to handle the traffic generated by a successful campaign.

Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy St Patrick’s Day, and now for my public service announcement about what you should be drinking this evening.

Green beer will be served in many places.  I’d like to encourage you not to drink any.  No self respecting Irishmen would do such a thing and frankly it’s a mockery to the holiday.

Instead, opt for a Guiness.  Yes, Guiness is an acquired taste.  Today is the best day of the year to begin acquiring your taste.

And for a real Irish treat, get yourself and Irish Carbomb.  And if you’d like to make one at home, here’s how – fill a glass halfway with Guiness.  Now take a shot glass and fill it 2/3 full of Bailey’s Irish Cream.  Top off the shot with Jameson Irish Whiskey.  Now take the shot and drop it in the glass of Guiness and slam it.  It’s is critical that you slam it or you’re in for a nasty surprise.  When taken properly, however, it’s absolutely delicious.

Enjoy

If you’re on Facebook, you’ve seen this thing being passed around like (insert inappropriate remark about women or drugs here).

I’ve been ignoring it and finally decided to just go ahead and do it, and I figured why not post it here as well so you guys can see it too.    And… Here… We… Go

1. I love musicals.  Seriously.  I got into them back in high school when I was actually in them, and have liked going to see them ever since – I’m going to see Avenue Q and Wicked in the next couple months – I’m very excited.
2. I don’t own a microwave.  I got rid of it (I think) 2 years ago.  Missed it for the first two weeks and now don’t see any point in owning one.  The only time it’s ever an issue is when someone brings over microwavable popcorn and I have to break the news to them that I can’t make it and we’ll have to use my “old school” popcorn popper instead.
3. I find watching the news to be cruel and unusual punishment.  I hate it.  It depresses me.  Did you know that happy people watch less TV?  Look it up, they’ve done studies.  Television stations want you to be depressed so you “consume” more of their garbage.
4. I don’t use drugs.   No, not those.  I’m talking about medications.  Won’t take ‘em.  Not prescriptions, not over the counter.  The last time I had so much as an aspirin (or its equivalent) was 2003 when I was skiing in Breckenridge, Colorado.  I do love beer, though, and have come to appreciate a morning cup of coffee so I’m by no means perfect.
5. Speaking of beer.  Have I mentioned my affinity for the bubbly stuff?  I developed an appreciation for Guinness after a trip to Ireland.  Stateside, it’s not nearly as good so try not to judge until you’ve had it in Ireland.  It’s so hard for me to pick a favorite, but I have to say I really like Boulevard Unfiltered Wheat (Boulevard Brewing Co), Spotted Cow (New Glarus Brewing), and whatever Samuel Adams seasonal is on tap (as of this writing, it’s the White Ale… mmmm…. White Ale… one moment please…)     Okay, that hit the spot, onward…
6. You know those blenders in the “Will It Blend” videos on Youtube?  Yeah, they got me.  I bought one.  Oh, and they’re freakin’ sweet!
7. I went skydiving last year.  It was awesome.  And here’s the weird thing.  You’d think it’d be this huge adrenaline rush, right?  Not really.  It’s actually quite peaceful.
8. I bought an Xbox for one reason… so I could buy more DDR games.  Those are the only games I own for the system.
9. Some people know me as someone who is extremely intense and competitive.  Others are certain I’m laid back and fun loving.  And they’re both right.  Just depends on the situation.  The problem becomes when those separate groups of friends come together, then I’m just confused at who I’m supposed to be.
10. I’ve been to Orlando twice and have never been to the Magic Kingdom at Disney World.  Last time I even stayed in a Disney Resort right across from the Magic Kingdom and still didn’t manage to get there.
11. I enjoy a good argument.  Not the get mad and get out the fisticuffs type of argument.  Think more like debate.  In most cases, I can argue either side of the argument convincingly regardless of my personal thoughts on the matter.  And when I’ve been drinking, like most people, I get smarter (okay, fine, I think I’m smarter)… and louder.  I think it just makes arguing more fun but for some reason not everyone feels that way…
12. I think ADD is bullshit.  It’s just an excuse to give kids (and adults) more drugs, and an excuse for teachers to suck at their job.  Think about it.  If the kids aren’t paying attention, it must be that they have ADD, not that the teacher is boring the kids out of their skulls.  I’m just sayin’…
13. Kids, how do I say this, make me uncomfortable.  Perhaps this is why I never see my friends who have kids anymore.
14. I have three copiers, two laser printers, and 3 inkjet printers in my office… my home office.
15. I no longer use an alarm clock.  The idea of waking up to that incessant beeping every morning makes me a little sick to my stomach.  I wake up when I need to.  I do have one of those watches that monitors your sleep patterns and then wakes you up when your body is ready to get up in a specified time windows – it works surprisingly well… not that I use it all that often.  I mostly just let my body decide when it is ready for the day.  (usually logging between 6-9 hrs of sleep)
16. Songs on my iPod that I’ll deny having on there if asked: “I Kissed A Girl” Katy Perry – “Womanizer” Britney Spears – “Candyman” Christina Aguilera – “See You Again” Miley Cyrus – “Boyfriend” Ashley Simpson (the song that has the highest play count of all the songs on my iPod)
17. I wouldn’t say I’m a health nut, however, at least once a year I tend to go on some crazy health kick.  Things I’ve tried: following the PH Miracle Diet, a week long juice fast, a 100% raw vegan diet.
18. Best energy drink in the world (you’ll need a juicer for this): 1 head or romaine lettuce, a handful of spinach, 1 lemon, 1 lime, 2 small apples, 1 stalk swiss chard, 1 or 2 brussel sprouts, a handful of carrots.  Run everything through the juice.  Drink immediately (for optimal taste).  Feel free to say things like “holy crap, that’s amazing.”
19. I have worms.  And I’m proud of it!  In my basement, I have two composters using redworms to decompose food scraps and make fertilizer for my garden.  (that probably sounds a little better than just saying I have worms)
20. Coming up with 25 random things is actually harder than it sounds.  I’m only on 20… and I’m already really struggling… hmm… oh, how’s this one – I don’t like gambling.  If I go to Vegas, I might play blackjack for a bit, but just $5 per hand or so.  I won’t play slots at all – so boring.  People find that strange considering I’m an entrepreneur – risk comes with the territory.  However, that feels a lot different than gambling.  In the business world, I take risks all the time, but I also feel that I can stack the odds of success in my favor unlike the world of gambling where it’s based on chance and the odds aren’t in your favor.
21. The video card on my laptop has 6 times as much memory (256mb) as the hard drive on our first computer did (40mb) when I was a kid.
22. My toothpaste is basically flavored soap.  It’s called ToothSoap.  It’s really weird at first to use, but it makes your teeth feel really clean when you get done using it.  I’m rather partial to the chocolate fudge flavor myself.
23. I own over 100 pair of sunglasses.  It’s true.  I used to be a sunglasses dealer and finally sold the businesses last year but still have some of the discontinued styles and samples I accumulated over the years.
24. In my house you’ll find volleyballs, dodgeballs, racquetballs, foosballs, ping pong balls, floor hockey balls, and even bowling balls, but not a single basketball, football, or baseball.
25. I developed an obsession over wool socks a few years back, Smartwool brand in particular.  They’re oh so comfortable – I won’t wear cottons socks at all anymore.  I’m willing to deal with the fact that I look dorky when I’m playing sports with gray, brown, or black socks instead of the standard white ones because my feet are so much more comfortable.

Whew, all done.  There you have it – 25 random things about me, Gary Ruplinger.

This joke makes me laugh every time I read it so I thought I’d share.

Before I get your hopes up too high, just keep in mind I’m a big dork…

What Is Marketing?

You see a handsome guy at a party. You go up to him and say, “I’m fantastic in bed.” — That’s Direct Marketing.

You’re at a party with a bunch of friends and see a handsome guy. One of your friends goes up to him and pointing at you says, “She’s fantastic in bed.” — That’s Advertising.

You see a handsome guy at a party. You go up to him and get his telephone number. The next day you call and say, “Hi, I’m fantastic in bed.” — That’s Telemarketing.

You’re at a party and see a handsome guy. You get up and straighten your dress. You walk up to him and pour him a drink. You say, “May I,” and reach up to straighten his tie brushing your breast lightly against his arm, and then say, “By the way, I’m fantastic in bed.” — That’s Public Relations.

You’re at a party and see a handsome guy. He walks up to you and says, “I hear you’re fantastic in bed.” — That’s Brand Recognition.

You’re at a party and see a handsome guy. You talk him into going home with your friend. — That’s a Sales Rep.

Your friend can’t satisfy him so he calls you. — That’s Tech Support.

You’re on your way to a party when you realize that there could be handsome men in all these houses you’re passing. So you climb onto the roof of one situated toward the center and shout at the top of your lungs, “I’m fantastic in bed!” — That’s Spam.

If you have any one liners you’d like to add, go for it – I’d love to read ‘em.

I don’t really get too fired up about politics.  In fact, politics tends to piss me off so I’ve found that ignoring them is best for me.

However, since there’s less than a month to go before the election (as I’m typing this) I’m finding myself at least paying a little attention.

However, this just makes me more pissed off.

Today, however, I’ve come up with the solution to my problem (and really, the solution and cause of all of life’s problems)… ALCOHOL.

So here is my twist on how you should play a presidential debate drinking game… special thanks to John Carlton for helping inspire this.

The Rules:

Pick your horse (trust me, you don’t want to ride the fence as you’ll see in a moment)

This is a game played with shots… of whiskey (Wild Turkey recommended)

This is really a simple game best played with fans of both candidates.

Here’s all you do… whenever you think the other candidate is lying, take a shot.  For example, if you’re a fan of McCain, then whenever you think Obama just lied, you take a shot.

That’s it!

Note:  If you haven’t decided who you’re voting for yet, then you have to take a shot when you think either of them are lying.  So if you like to drink, indecision is a good thing.

Now, for those who want some other games with more drinking opportunities, here are some rather detailed ones (personally, I think they have way too many rules… remember during drinking games you tend to get drunk)

http://brainyjane22.wordpress.com/2008/09/25/the-presidential-debate-drinking-game/

 http://davethenovelist.wordpress.com/2008/09/25/presidential-debate-drinking-game/

***DISCLAIMER***

This post for entertainment purposes only.  Never drink and drive.  Drinking games have been known to kill people. Oh, and don’t drink alchol in excess if taking Cialis.

Just got back from Orlando, and I’ll try to make a post & podcast (yes, I’m podcasting now) in the next day or two.

I’m ready to go back – it’s a heck of a lot warmer there.  I don’t mind winter, and love to snowboard, but I’m ready for winter to be over now.  And the 80 degree weather in Orlando already has me lusting for warmer weather – oh well, soon enough.

When I checked my email this morning, one of the first things was an email from my friend, Lawren – and she told me that Transformers got the snubbed at the Oscars – can you believe that?  Outrageous, I tell you.

I met a bunch of really cool folks at the seminar I was at, and I’ll give you some highlights of stuff that I think will help anyone in business for themselves.

I’ll also talk about some very smart things that Disney does that I think are very smart (and a couple not so smart things) – after all, the entire place is engineered to help extract as much money from you as humanly possible and have you leave happy about it.

This post is NOT about the iPhone. In fact, I’m not going to mention the iPhone at all.

Instead, I’m going to talk about getting traffic to a website since everyone who has a website could probably use more traffic.

My area of expertise in the online world is actually in getting traffic from search engines like Google.

I just finished taking everything I know about building links and putting it into a series of ten videos totalling nearly 11 hours of solid content.

I just want to give you a chance to get those videos at a steep discount since I’ll be raising the price dramatically after the first 300 copies sell.

The product is called Mission Unlinkable and you can get the videos from www.MissionUnlinkable.com.

If you ever wanted to learn about how to get FREE traffic from search engines then you’ll want to take a look at this comprehensive video series.

I promise this isn’t going to be an iPhone blog, but since that’s all anyone wants to talk about, and everytime I load up my homepage I see at least 3 stories about that damn thing, I’m going to post about it again.

 Today’s Topic:

Why Possessed The People At Apple To Sign An Exclusive Deal With AT&T For It’s iPhone?

In my life I’ve had four different cell phone providers – Cellular One, Sprint, AT&T (Cingular at the time), and Alltel.  I liked three of them – hated one of them. 

Any guesses as to which one I hated to the point I broke contract?  You get a gold star if you guessed AT&T. 

 Where I live, despite that fact that their website says they have service in my area, the reality is that they have rather sparse coverage in the city.  In some parts of the city it works like a charm, and in others you get no coverage.  My home happens to be one of those places where you get not coverage. (I live in a city of over 200,000 people, so it’s not exactly like I live in the middle of nowhere.)

Depsite the fact that they have those commercials claming the fewest dropped calls, if you look at their track record in customer service you’ll find that they consistently rank at or near the bottom. 

So let’s go back to this iPhone deal, and Apple signing an exclusive deal with one of the worst cell phone companies – why?

Well, one of the reasons likely has to do with the fact that Apple was allowed to control the promotion of the phone and AT&T was to provide the service – a rather unique arrangement in the cell phone industry.

Another has to do with Apple’s Visual Voicemail system.  It probably wasn’t feasible to get all the carriers to work together and have the system work the way Apple wanted, so they had to go with one company who would work with Apple’s take on voicemail. 

But still, why AT&T.  I mean if you’re Apple and you have this hyper loyal crowd who will buy anything you produce simply because of your reputation for innovative and easy to use products, why would you go with a cell phone company that is pretty much the opposite – a lot of people *hate* AT&T, and trust me, they’re not a lot of fun to deal with.

Apple was smart, they made the process of getting a phone and signing up pretty easy.  You go to the store, buy one, go home and activate it through iTunes.  A great idea because you don’t have to sit in an AT&T store for half an hour while they get your phone setup – can you imagine the lines then if everyone had to wait – you’d be in line for days.  However, while Apple did their job, AT&T dropped the ball.  A lot of people are reporting that activiation is taking quite some time, up to 24 hours or more which is completely unreasonable since nothing on the phone, not even the music, will work until the phone is activated.

How I Plan To Surive Without The Latest Must Have Gadget

I’ve typically been an early adopter of cell phone technology – I got my first phone in 1996, this was before minutes were even included in plans (although at $9.95 a month I wasn’t complaining.)   When the first smartphones came out, I bought a Kyocera QCP-6065.  When the RAZR was released, I was instantly in love and had to get one.  But since as mentioned in my previous post, I don’t want an iPhone, what am I going to do?  And if you’re on one of the other cell phone networks that doesn’t support the iPhone, maybe you’ll do this too, but the RAZR 2 looks to be one hell of a phone, and it hasn’t forgotten the fact that it needs to function as a phone. 

And my carrier (Alltel) doesn’t cripple it’s bluetooth features like some others *cough* Verizon *cough*.  So that’s what I plan to do since my current RAZR is getting old and everyone and their brother has one.

If you haven’t been living under a rock these past few months, you’ve undoubtedly heard of the Apple iPhone set to be released on June 29^th 2007.

You’ve probably seen the commercials showing off its innovative features and maybe even visited Apple’s website to learn about everything it can do in detail.

I have to say that as much as I like cool toys, I won’t be buying an Apple iPhone.

Here’s why:

Yes, does it make calls?

I don’t know about you, but for me the most important thing I need to do with a phone is… drum roll please… make phone calls. If you’ve seen the commercials the fact that the iPhone is actually a phone is downplayed. Sure, you can get on the Internet and surf using a real full featured web browser and you can listen to iTunes, and you can watch videos and movies as well.

However, I like most people, primarily use my phone to make phone calls. Once in a while I send a text message or use the voice recorder (does the iPhone even have that), but that’s about it. I have owned smartphones in the past and never really found all the extra features that useful.

Lack of buttons

In order to make the phone as simple as possible, there is only one real button on the phone. Everything else is on the touch screen. This makes the phone simple, but means whenever you need to do something you’re going to need to look at the screen. You may say that you typically look at your screen anyway, but do you? I know that I can get my phone out and speed dial several people without ever having to look at the screen with my current phone. I can change the ringer from loud to vibrate without ever opening up the phone or taking it out of my pocket. I can record a memo to myself by pressing a single button.

On the iPhone to do all of these thing I would need to get the phone out and activate the screen, and then find the button that takes me to the menu that performs that task and since a touch screen provides no tactile feedback for me to “feel” my way around it’s keyboard, I would almost certainly need to be looking at the phone to make sure that I’m really changing my ringtone instead of playing Pulp Fiction.

iTunes are Great but…

I got an iPod for Christmas last year and I have to say that I really do like iTunes and the iPod, and you’d think that I would think that since the iPhone works with iTunes I’d consider it an iPod replacement.

The truth is that I use my iPod mainly when I’m at the gym. Besides the fact that you’d look like a major tool walking around listening to music from your iPhone, it’s just not a practical device at the gym or if you’re out running – it’s too big. For music, I’ll take my iPod Nano over the iPhone any day.

I will admit that being able to watch movies and TV shows is pretty cool, and for plane flights, that would be an awesome feature to have, but I don’t travel as much as I used to so it’s really not the useful to me since when I’m at home I have TVs I can watch and when I’m driving I can’t really watch TV anyway. And even if I’m on a plane, a laptop will do the same job better anyway.

The Deal Killer

While the iPhone is fairly pricey, that wasn’t ultimately a deal killer for me, the real deal killer is the fact that they signed and exclusive agreement with AT&T so the phone is only available on one network. Even if I wanted an iPhone I couldn’t get one – not because AT&T doesn’t have coverage in my city but because I live in one of their “dead spots” in my town. And I need to be able to get phone calls in my house.

So if you’ve stopped by this blog anytime in the past three years you’ve probably noticed something – yeah, this sites looks completely different.

I’m not done customizing it yet – there’s likely a picture of me coming in the header somewhere and I may play around with the colors and layout some but overall this is what the new site is going to look like.

Where Are The Old Posts?

If you’ve visited before, that’s probably that next thing on your mind – where the heck did all those old posts go? Well, I have them backed up but I decided not to restore the old database files.

Why?

Well, there were a lot of crappy posts and I decided I wanted a fresh start on this blog. I’m going to try to post at least once a week on this blog – no promises, but that’s a heck of a lot better than the five or six times a year I was managing before.

The Topic of This Blog Will Be…

As an Internet Marketer, most people would probably expect that I use this blog as a pulpit to promote myself and services. To them I say fooey. I have other blogs that I use to promote what I do. I’m going to use this blog to write about whatever I damn well please.

I know – I know – I should have a well defined theme if I want to attract a loyal following of readers… blah blah blah. The truth is, I just want a place where I can write about whatever it is I feel like. If for the day it’s marketing stuff, then so be it. But don’t be shocked if I feel like talking about ice cream flavors, motorcycles, iPhones, or something else that seems completely off topic.

And that’s all I have to say for today – I’ll be posting again soon, but not too soon.

Thanks for stopping by.

Gary
(If you really feel the need to see the business side of Gary Ruplinger, then you can see a few of my websites in the “links” section in the sidebar of the blog.)