RawData

All you have to do is read Gladwell to know he's basically a hack...this comes as no shock.

It was really a surprisingly powerful ending...

...easier said than done!

I wrote a book about this called "The Smart Startup: How to Crush It Without Falling Into The Venture Capital Trap".

http://www.amazon.com/Smart-Startup-Without-Falling-Venture-...

I've been building little startups for 20 years without ever raising capital...it's easier than you'd think...

It's a publicity stunt meant to make Google seem guilty...people don't know the details of the case, nor do they care...but some will remember that Google was "raided" and that sort of thing happens to criminals so...

You probably have the skills now to get hired. You're not going to get hired at Google or Facebook or anyplace like that with their insane hiring practices...but there are a ton of other companies that would probably be glad to have you. Just be upfront about your experience, show them projects you've completed, be enthusiastic...find recruiters and start taking phone calls and see!

The short answer is, it becomes a private company, no longer traded on the stock exchanges.

Of course I've lost something...I've lost 2 going on 3 or 4 days of income from all the people who would have signed up but couldn't, I've lost all the money from the people who are demanding refunds, and I've lost respect from my students who think this is all my fault (and who it will be harder to sell future courses to). I've lost marketing dollars for ad spends that have sent traffic to the site the last 2 days pointing to a course that isn't there (granted I caught this one early but it's still tangible). The course website gets decent Google organic search traffic...but the course site has been gone for 2 days now...how do you think Google will react? I'd be amazed if they didn't penalize the site in the rankings after this.

What are you talking about?

Yikes!

UPDATE: The course is now back up for current students and pending a quick review to make it 100% live again.

The students paid for instant 24 hour access....they aren't getting it. If I bought a course and suddenly I couldn't access it for 2 days, I'd be pissed. And I guess the people asking for refunds now are doing it for an entirely different reason?

Yes, I am entitled to something with their platform, they make a lot of money from my content. A contract is formed, terms and conditions are agreed upon. Mail order law must be upheld. They have every right to combat privacy, but do it responsibly.

Why delete the course at all? A simple email saying "Hey, send us your id so we can verify you" would have been fine and done the trick completely. Give me 24-48 hours to comply before you delete the entire course and screw up a year's worth of work and marketing effort.

That would be an honest attempt to combat piracy. What they did was reckless.

I think they hold all payments for 2 months as a matter of course...

I'm sure that piracy is the reason like you suggest...as per the email they sent me that referenced that sort of thing....

But the email they sent me said that they are merely conducting a "spot check", and for another thing - if they actually were responding to a flag, them "acting immediately" could be "immediately sending me and email and giving me 24-48 hours to respond" You know?

Like I said, I don't mind verifying my ID (even though I think I did that when I first signed up). I mind the way they did it. They could have given me warning first.

I'm getting messages from students asking where the course is...this is a nightmare!

It's a course on Ruby on Rails...so the whole thing is screen casts of my desktop as I walk through each lesson. I don't show my face...

No, that's not the course.

I should also mention, the course is not new, it's been up for a year (maybe slightly longer) and it's not the only course I have on Udemy.

And check out the guide for upgrading Rails...

http://edgeguides.rubyonrails.org/upgrading_ruby_on_rails.ht...

Wait wait wait...Google+ still exists?!

Yes, this is stupid...but I need motivation!

How could they not block this?! Has the world gone mad?

Treat each thing you want to learn as a project, get some free project management software like asana or trello and carve it up into goals...schedule your time, map it out in the software...stick to the schedule....treat it like a job, create to do lists and calendars etc. then just follow thru!

We've managed as a society to turn all the potential warlords into football coaches and let them orchestrate their little armies on the football field instead of the battle field.

Love this!

..and you think being polite is going to stop the powers that be from messing with him when he re-enters the country? Interesting...

Why NOT vilify the folks at the treasury? Why so polite?

Be patient and be nice? Uh, no.

Yes sue. Stop messing around and sue, today...now. Stop reading this, pick up the phone, call your lawyer and tell him to file the papers today.

So who are you planning on suing? PayPal, godaddy, twitter, or all three?

Several students have said that the member area layout reminds them of Lynda.com (which I had actually never seen prior to building the site). Whatdya think?