Photos from Bhutan, Kathmandu Taxi Rides, and a Brief Store Update
Greetings once again from the South Asian kingdom of Bhutan. It’s been a great trip to a fairly remote place.
There aren’t really any “undiscovered” places in the world anymore, but when you look at lesser-known destinations, Bhutan definitely tops the list. Today I’m getting on a plane and headed back to Kathmandu, but I’m glad I stayed as long as I did. If you have $200 a day to invest in a unique travel experience that is sustainable and adventuresome, you can’t go wrong with Bhutan.
In Which I Finally Publish Photos (and Video!)
Everyone always asks why I don’t post a lot of travel photos. The truth is that I am a terrible photographer. I have enough friends who take great photos to know that I can’t do what they do.
That said, I do end up going to a lot of fun and unusual places in my travel quest, so I’ve decided to step up and learn.
Here’s my Flickr account, where you can see photos, videos, and friend me up if you’re so inclined
I expect to add to the photostream through future trips, so even if my images aren’t the best, at least they’ll be interesting. I’ll also publish the contributions of volunteer photographers who come to AONC meetups, which will undoubtedly be better than mine.
Technical Note: I’ve been traveling recently with this flip camera. Most of the videos with me talking are made directly with my MacBook laptop, but the Flip Cam is fun for shooting short travel scenes. For just $150, it’s been well worth the price already.
For fun, the first few attempts from last week’s layover in Nepal are embedded below:
Kathmandu Airport Taxi
Kathmandu Traffic Jam (or technically, just normal Kathmandu traffic)
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Social Web Price Increase
This is the Sunday update, so I’m supposed to write about my small business. Working from the road is always interesting, and this time it was even more interesting since I left home right after a product launch.
The reviews for the new product, the Unconventional Guide to the Social Web, are now coming out around the internets. For a good example, here’s a review from Web Worker Daily (my thanks to Thursday Bram for making this happen) which was picked up by WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg and a number of other blogs. Other reviews can be found in the usual location.
I talked with Gwen on Skype the other day, and she really is getting overwhelmed with a full calendar. As mentioned last week, the most consistent feedback we’ve heard from customers and advisors is that the price is too low. To illustrate this point, here is a great, unedited quote from one of the early buyers:
“The Social Web guide pricing is ‘crackhead’ pricing. Like when you want to give a guy on the street a quarter but he says he just wants sixteen cents.”
Well, because Gwen is getting so busy and the response has been great, we’ll start taking quarters soon. On Tuesday or Wednesday this week while I’m working in Asia, I’ll raise the price to accommodate all the feedback. It won’t be enormously expensive – the whole point of my Unconventional Guide series is to demystify complex topics without charging a fortune — but it will be a real increase.
Again, I want to be clear that I don’t like scarcity marketing. You don’t need this product (or anything else) to achieve your own success in getting your message out to the world. You won’t die if you don’t buy it, and you can probably do pretty well through trial and error. But if you want to learn from Gwen and I about how we’ve done it, this resource will cost more after Tuesday or Wednesday. That’s all.
Consider this the last reminder.
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Coming this week: the sequel to last week’s Product Launch 101 (this one is about other aspects of business and blogging) and the winning entry in last month’s Unconventional Writing Contest.
I’ll be on the road until the end of the week, coming home through Indonesia and Malaysia. After I’m home, I’ll be there for a while, with no major trips planned for 60 days as I finish writing the book that refuses to write itself.
Here’s wishing you well, wherever you are.
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