In Canada, you can play golf at a VERY nice golf course for under $200 per time.  Sometimes it’s much less than $100.  And I’m talking about really beautiful golf courses, not just average ones.

So why then, would any reasonable person pay $100 000 per year for a membership?  It made no sense to me before.  Now it makes perfect sense.

These guys aren’t paying for how nice the golf course is.  That is only part of it.  It’s a small part actually.  What they are really paying for is the community.  Think about the other people who go to those courses.  Most of them are also successful business people.  They pay for status and ability to meet these people.  They talk and do business together.  They make friends and get their children in this rich group of successful people.  In some ways, the whole thing makes me sick.  I wish the world were a more fair place.  But the reality is that it’s not.  It does make sense for these people to stay together, meet each other, and network together.

It’s MUCH more likely that you will meet someone worth doing business with on one of these super expensive golf courses than if you were to try to meet these types of people at other places where “regular” people can go.

I was thinking about this because I was thinking about a social networking website for English learning.  These aren’t the exact same thing, but you’ll see what I mean in a minute…

People who speak English as a second language and are actually serious about improving their English, their business, their lives, etc, don’t have anywhere to go to meet each other online.  There are a lot of garbage websites that allow anyone on there.  If you want to speak with someone to “practice your English”, you can absolutely find a partner on a million free sites.

But the problem with this is HUGE.  These sites that allow anyone to join, attract people who aren’t really serious about learning English or really serious about anything at all.  Why?  Because most people in the world are not serious about anything they are doing.

If you want to meet a partner to speak English with, share ideas, share stories, share culture, you will want to meet someone who is at or above your level.  You want someone who can challenge you and you can learn from.  It’s not easy to find these people, but they exist.

Imagine for a second that you wrote on your Facebook page, “I am looking for someone to learn from, talk about business and life, and really challenge each other to improve our English skills”.  I can’t imagine you will find anyone.  Maybe, if you are lucky, someone will say “Yes” to your offer, but they probably won’t be the type of person you are hoping for.

As you probably know, Add and I have been making a new free video EVERY DAY at www.LearnEnglish232.com  

We are hoping to get people to get in the habit of going there every day for the new lessons.  We want to grow that site to 50 000 visitors per day.

But many of the people who find this site or that site aren’t super serious about learning English.  We also want to find the SUPER SERIOUS people and provide an opportunity for amazing English, business, and life learning that does not exist anywhere else on the internet.  That’s our goal.

The people who are not serious will not pay a small monthly fee to join the membership part.  And that’s great.  Our plan is to build a membership site for serious learners.  Everyone will have a great profile with an awesome photo, bio, linkedIn page, Skype number, where they are from…  A lot of stuff.  Then these people will be able to search through the other serious members and we can all have a really high level and private conversation.  Also, the members will be able to contact each other and set up high level language exchanges and other things.  It will be a real community.  I’ll be on there providing reading material, movie talk, technology stuff, and a bunch of interesting and high level topics for group discussion.  We’ll all push ourselves to get better and better in not only English, but in life too.

I want to have a lot of great free English learning content for everyone to enjoy, and a high level SUPER VIP program that is connected to this one and also adds a lot more.  We’re still talking about how we want the site to be.  And since some of you guys who are reading this right now will be interested in joining it, it would be great to hear your ideas now.  We are building it for you and other high level people like you.

What do you think of this idea?  What would you like to see in that program?

Help us design it with your ideas and then it will be much better that way!

And by the way, don’t worry, it won’t be expensive like an elite golf course!  It doesn’t need to be.  The only reason I used that example was to try to make a point.

Love to hear your thoughts guys.  By the way, does anyone here already have the great habit of going to www.LearnEnglish232.com everyday yet?  What do you think?  Have you shared it with your friends, students, or teachers?  What do they think?  We’re still in the beginning stages of developing this, and we’re sure this will be the best yet!

It will be connected in some way with China232.com VIP membership, so don’t worry about that.  We’ll take care of you guys and make it kick ass!  There will be tons of amazing free stuff for everyone and an insanely awesome high level private English learning VIP club.

Sounds like a win/win to me!  What are your thoughts on this whole topic?  Even the part about rich people paying so much for golf.  Does it make sense to you too?

Your comments are always appreciated.  You guys have been great lately with that.  Keep it up.  I read EVERY one!!

For anyone who doesn’t already know, China232 is now on the Stitcher podcast app.  The free Stitcher radio podcast app is the best and most popular app to organize all the world’s best free podcasts.  You can listen to all the free china232.com podcasts there.

Just download the free App and search on the App for “Fun English Lessons”.  It’s an awesome App and it’s what I use to listen to podcasts on my Iphone and my Ipad.  It’s what Add uses for his Samsung android phone.

Here is the direct link to our show on Stitcher:  China232 Podcast on Stitcher

China232 now on Stitcher Radio for ipad, iphone, ipod touch, android, blackberry.

I hope you guys love this!  I’ll be making awesome videos soon.   If you have any problems with downloading this or figuring it out, let me know and I’ll help you out!  Thanks!

This is about a website that I certainly won’t be using, but then again, I’m not a chick.

I found out about HeTexted.com when I was reading some tech blogs. The site is pretty hilarious really.

Tons of girls go onto the site and write down some situation they are having with a guy and write in the EXACT text conversations they are having. This isn’t fake. This is real life.

So be careful guys! Some girl can post your texts online and get opinions from thousands of other girls on what your motives are. Ie. Are you interested in her “romantically” or not.

The site won’t let you put people’s actual names on there, but it will let you put the REAL messages. I’m 100% sure that some guys are going to get in trouble with this.

I guess the basic idea is that many girls have a hard time knowing whether or not some guy likes them. I’m not sure if guys have this problem or not. I think some do but it’s not as common.

In my experience, if a girl doesn’t like a guy, she just won’t respond to any text messages, or will just say some really short answer and will never ask a question. This is a big generalization, but that is based on my experience and from the stories of my guy friends.

I went on the site because I wanted to make a podcast about it. Add and I just made our latest one today about this. You can check it out HERE if you are a VIP member. I think you’ll like it!

Anyway, I hope you guys check out www.HeTexted.com and let me know what you think.

Do you think this would be useful for girls to understand guys?

Do you think it’s making private things too public?

Do you like the idea of this type of website?

What do you think about what I said above? Do you think in a “dating context” girls are more direct than guys with texting, in general of course? What are your “texting habits” when you like a guy or a girl? Do you let them know? Do you “hint” at it? Do you make them wait and “play the game”?

I’d love to hear your opinions. I don’t want to say too much more because we talk A LOT about it on the podcast.

It would be awesome to hear your thoughts after you check it out. You might even learn some slang English on there. If you have any questions of slang from real native texts, please ask in the comments section below.

By the way, thanks for all the comments on the last blog post. That was awesome! I hope you keep it up!

I’m gonna make this short and sweet. For anyone who doesn’t yet know the good news, our Android App is good to go! It’s free to download and it a great and easy way to use the lessons. If you feel like being nice and giving us a 5 star rating on the Google Play store, we’ll love you even more, if that’s at all possible. (We already love you guys a lot!)

Sorry Apple fans, you’ll have to wait another week or so. It’s coming though! It will be worth the wait. (It’s really not our fault, i-tunes is even slower than me!)

I want to get some of your opinions on this. Basically, there is a Japanese Pop Group where one of the singers is actually a “fake” face. Some impressive video editors took the “prettiest” facial features from 6 different girls and somehow made a new girl. She looks pretty real to me. I’ll post 2 Youtube videos about this. The reason I picked 2 videos is that the youtube videos are made from some very strange news people. I think it’s really terrible how they make Japan look and they think they are being funny but they are not. This whole thing is quite strange. If you have a few minutes, take a look at the videos and practice some writing about your thoughts.

Note: To any Japanese people, I know these people doing the news are CRAZY. I’m just sharing because the whole thing is an “interesting” story and I want to hear the “world’s” thoughts about this. I know this is not a normal thing for your culture and I think it’s so stupid to watch western media trying to comment on other cultures when they have no idea about what they are talking about. It’s also important to note that this isn’t normal western media. They are just strange people on Youtube. No wonder there are so many misunderstandings in this world.

Here are the 2 videos. Check em out and comment below:

Andy

It’s a bit harder to get 100% accurate information on this because I’ve seen different lists, but I think this one’s not bad. At least you get to see some pictures of the countries.

I know that Korea is definitely super fast. I am always amazed when I go there how awesome the 3G is. Best in the world, even on the islands. I really hope the whole world speeds up the internet. It’s so important for sharing knowledge, and of course, downloading 232.

I wanted to share this info with you in case you were interested, but more importantly I’d really like to know where you are from and how the internet is in your country. Is the 3G fast enough to watch videos? Is it getting faster? What are the government’s plans there for internet speed improvements for the next few years? Is 3G growing like crazy?

Here is the list I found: Countries with fastest internet speeds

Love to hear the news in your country!

Andy

I was on a bike ride with a close friend and we started talking about photography. I never thought I was good at taking pictures, I just thought it was an easy thing to do. I actually hated hearing people talking about their “photo taking ability” because I thought it was such a joke.

Until today, I basically thought that all anyone had to do was buy a good brand of a digital camera for about $300 and and then just point and shoot. If it was dark, I used a flash (the light). If it was light, I didn’t. From a distance, many of my pictures looked not too bad so I didn’t realize there was a problem or that I had no idea of what I was doing. I knew they weren’t professional quality but I thought they were good enough and I never bothered to find out what the problem was.

My friend had an older 4.8 Megapixel camera and I had a pretty new Fuji 10.0 Megapixel camera. I thought that I could easily take clearer pictures without even trying because I had the better and more expensive camera. Wow. I was totally wrong. (We both were using the automatic “auto” setting). I thought that the auto setting meant that the camera did all the work for you and the person didn’t need to try.

We were taking “close ups” of the letters on business cards. It sounds like a boring and stupid picture to take but it’s actually quite fun and a great way to test the quality of a camera. A “close up” in camera language means a photo from a very close distance.

We put our photos on a large monitor (computer screen) and looked at them. His photos were WAY better and clearer than mine. I couldn’t figure it out. I didn’t realize that I needed to hold the button down half way and really look at the screen and make sure the letters were in perfect focus. I didn’t know that I needed to keep moving and adjusting the camera very slightly until I saw the letters perfectly.

When you take a photo from far away, it’s hard to see the quality. If you are taking photos of the letters of a magazine or business card, it’s easy. For my friend’s photos, we could “zoom in” on the computer and see the letters so clearly. “Zooming in” means to go really close and make a small part of the photo take up the whole computer screen.

On his photos, you could see each letter in very high detail. We could even see the glue that puts the ink on the card. For example, we could zoom in and see the letter “k” on the entire size of the computer screen. It just looked like a big “k” with little bits of glue. It was shocking.

Then we tried mine and they totally sucked. From a distance, the photo didn’t look too bad. It was just that up close, my picture was just terrible. It means that I didn’t really understand what Megapixels were and I just thought paying more money would make things better with no effort.

The truth is that having good eyes, still hands, and understanding how to use your camera is MUCH more important than the quality or price of the camera.

I don’t know this for a fact, but I believe that over 98% of the people who want to buy a digital camera for around $300 are just clueless. Most people know some of the top brand names and they know that the more expensive cameras are better. People buy cameras and don’t even learn how to use them. It’s weird. We do the same thing with computers too. We get a “good one” and then learn less than 1% about how to use it well. I’ve learned that I need to learn a lot more about the technology I am using if I want to really see the benefits. It’s not just about saving money, it’s about enjoying the benefits and not being a total fool.

I need to know more about cameras anyway because Add and I are working for Pivothead, which is the best mini hands free video camera ever. Click on the link and you’ll see what I mean. It’s really exciting. I love the logo of the guy in the backwards baseball hat too. I wish I could draw…

Anyway, I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences regarding this or a similar story you may have. Who knows, maybe it’s just me who is completely clueless.

Andy

It will make video recording a lot of fun and actually practical. You can record your life as you see it. If something interesting happens, you will have it on film to watch over and over again. It’s a pretty cool concept. There are a lot of really bad “spy glasses” that are selling for under a hundred bucks right now. I checked out the quality and it’s not “up to par”. That means it isn’t good enough to compete with Pivothead. Some people with no cash will probably buy the cheap ones, but they are so bad in comparison, both in appearance and in video quality, that anyone with half a brain will choose the best brand. Pivothead Sunglasses are definitely worth looking into for anyone who wants something cool to have fun with in 2011

Parents will be able to take videos of their kids playing sports with ease. Coaches will be able to record their team in games and practices. Journalists will be able to record interesting documentaries without a film crew. Athletes and adventure seekers can film high def footage of their adventures and have them for the rest of their lives. Bloggers will be able to use these to make interesting content. Now that Google and Youtube are using ads to support video, many people will be making a lot more videos to put up on the web for many kinds of money making reasons. These will be amazing for self promotion and “how to” videos as well.

They were in a courtroom and Tom yelled out: “I want the Truth”, and Nicholson replied with “You can’t handle the truth”. The reason I loved that line so much is because that’s how I feel in this world. People can’t handle hearing the truth about stuff unless it’s the truth that they want to hear. It’s unbelievable.

If someone says, “I want your honest opinion, do you think I am pretty?” and your honest opinion is “Actually no, you are one of the ugliest people I’ve seen in my life”, you can’t say that even if they beg you for the truth. Actually, I can kind of understand that one. People have feelings and that would be hard to hear. But in the business world, where people should be less sensitive, they are not. It is so fake.

Add and I were at a conference yesterday in Shanghai. We went there with a company we are consulting for. They are small and super cool. Anyway, the topic was about the internet and social media (Facebook, Twitter) etc. (We have a hilarious podcast coming out next about the real story there). We’ve been sharing more of our “real opinions” in the VIP room because it’s a private place where we don’t have to be shy. We can be free and say whatever we want in there without having to worry too much about weird comments.

Anyway, the conference sucked (The lunch was not bad at least). The speaker was from a large multinational PR company. He was basically saying a bunch of obvious things about the internet and making everyone believe that “viral marketing” is easy if you go through his company. It was a joke, but most of the audience actually thought it was pretty good. Many of the people there were from other large companies that had nothing to do with the internet. They “bought into” his long and stupid presentation and I’m guessing his company will get a lot of business from that.

There was a question and answer period at the end of the conference. Anyone could ask the speaker anything. I started getting nervous and my heart was racing. I wanted to say my honest opinions. I wanted everyone in the room to know they were being tricked.

There were probably about 150 people in the room. About 95% were wearing suits. I was wearing jeans, a golf shirt, and a pair of sunglasses to give you an idea of what was going on.

Everyone was polite, in a fake way, and it was so annoying. I get this feeling every time I’m in one of these situations. Time moves slowly. I hate it. I have so much to say but I end up saying nothing. I feel like I’m cheating the world or something. Even if people don’t agree with my opinion, I somehow feel it’s evil if I don’t at least share my true feelings.

One thing I hate about business is that so many businesses just try to sell their stuff to everyone. There is just so much lying involved. The truth is that most people should NOT buy most products. When I look around at the English learning market for example, I see a lot of businesses just trying to sell rather than teach. Of course they teach something, but they don’t care if a student pays $2000 USD at the beginning of a course and either learns nothing or doesn’t go to class. Actually, them paying and not going to class is the best situation for the school. They just get free money and can get another paying student to fill the classroom. It’s sick.

It’s really funny when it’s B2B (Business to Business sales). Huge companies pay so much money for the weirdest things. A friend of mine who works for a major market research company says that many of their business clients pay over 10 million USD every year for their market research. It doesn’t mean it’s a bad product, but he told me that they will sell it to any major company who wants it.

His job is to wear a suit and make the research sound a lot better than it is. A lot of the business is about creating an image that you think the other person will like to hear. It should be about making great products and services but it’s just not like that in the “real world”. Small companies can be different. It really depends on who is running them. Huge companies need to make sure they are making money for their investors though. They don’t care where the money is coming from. They just want more of it.

Of course we are “free” to say whatever we want, but the reality is that people don’t. Anyone else who felt the same way I did just kept silent. We knew that if we said what we wanted to then we would look like terrible people.

The honest question in my mind was, “Do you know that you are selling services to many companies who don’t need them or do you actually believe every word you are saying?” I really wanted to know but I couldn’t ask.

I’d love to hear your comments on this and about my last blog about a cool kind of high def video camera sunglasses.

Who cares when a new camera comes out that is just a little lighter and better than the last model?  It is ok but it isn’t really worth talking about.  I love when I see something totally new and creative.

I remember when the first Ipod came out.  It was amazing.  Before those days, if you wanted to listen to portable music, you pretty much had to walk around with a “diskman”.  Some kind of portable CD player.  You could only play one CD at a time and you couldn’t go running with them or anything.

When my close friend, a music lover, showed me the first Ipod I couldn’t believe it.  I was so amazed that you could put thousands of songs into one little portable box and find the songs easily.  The songs never skipped and you didn’t have to worry about CD’s.  The Ipod changed people’s lives in a huge way.  They really made making listening to music and podcasts even possible.  If it wasn’t for Apple, I have no idea what Add and I would be doing now.  The “Ipod” was a game changer for both people and the Apple brand.  Amazing.  Now we all forget what life was like before Ipods.  At least I do.  Think of all the cool apps and all the other creative stuff that happened just because of the Ipod’s success.  If the first Ipod failed, then maybe we wouldn’t even have apps, podcasts, or anything that the new Ipods and Androids can do.  Who knows?

Now there is a new really cool trend going on but with Video recording.  Not a lot of people realize this but there is a major revolution about to happen.

The idea of video recording always sounded interesting but it was frustrating to actually do.  Most people don’t want to bring around their hand held video cameras everywhere they go.  Now our phones can take videos but the problem still is that we have to hold it in our hands.  It still disrupts our lives.

The new video camera I was talking about that I truly believe will change lives, much like the Ipod did, is HD video recording sunglasses.  Most brands are terrible and still make bad quality videos, but there is one super brand that is going to record unbelievably high quality videos using really awesome optics.  I used a test pair of these glasses and saw the video on my big TV in the living room.  It was really cool.

This is called “Point of View” video recording.  It means that if you are wearing the sunglasses, the mini camera lens on the frames will record what you see in real life.  It’s from your own “point of view”.  Obviously, if the quality is not good, then the glasses would be pointless.  No one wants to watch choppy video.  But imagine if your glasses could take video almost as good as what you see on real HD TV?  That is exactly where we are going.  Since the glasses are so easy to use, it now takes no effort at all to make a video.  This will change the game big time for making cool videos.

Here is a cool blog about the best mini video cameras

If you want to see the best brand, just go to Google and type in “best brand of HD recording sunglasses” and read about them.  I’d love to hear your honest opinions.  It’s a great topic for discussing.  Somewhere on the homepage in the article there is a link (in a yellow/orange color) to the videos and the way the glasses look.  Which ones do you think look the coolest?  I’ll tell you my favorite ones after I hear from you guys.  I’d love to hear some of your creative ideas for how to use these.

I’m looking forward to reading your comments and I’ll write back with some of my own ideas and we can keep sharing.  Imagine this for a couple examples.

Coaches can easily record their team’s practices and games.  They can then show the the players what they need to improve on.

Another idea is that university students can record a lecture from a professor and watch it a couple of times if they didn’t understand something during the class.  Also, students can share this video with their friends who missed the early class from sleeping in.  I certainly would have loved that when I was in school.

Let’s hear what you guys have to say.