Adi Da Up Close
Site Development:
2007 - present


2007-2017: Celebrating Our Tenth Anniversary!

This article is organized as follows:
  1. Developmental Phases
    1. Leela site
    2. Multimedia resource
    3. Adidam news resource
  2. Database-Driven Content Generation

Note: This article contains many development statistics, most of which are automatically updated to the latest values when you load this page.


1. Introduction

Since the launch of the Adi Da Up Close site 17 years ago (in February, 2007), we have greatly expanded this site! Here are a few metrics we use for measuring that expansion:

  • We have added 114 new pages per year, on average, and are constantly refining the pages already on our site. As a result, the site currently contains 1,940 pages.

  • The number of visitors to our site has increased greatly with the increasing breadth and depth of its contents.

    The site has had good to excellent Google search engine listings, from the time of its launch until now. That has ensured that people interested in Avatar Adi Da and Adidam find this site. Here is how the site is doing currently (as of October 24, 2024) for some of the search engine keywords most commonly used by people wanting to find out more about Adi Da and Adidam:

    And for Google users who don't already know about Adi Da and Adidam, here are some keywords where we are also doing well:

    We expect many of the above listings to be even higher the more we complete our mobile-friendly version of the site.

  • The response to our site has increased greatly with the increasing breadth and depth of its contents.

    We have had 1,414 comments on our web pages, from 48 countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia And Herzegovina, Brazil, Cameroon, Canada, China, Colombia, East Timor, Eritrea, Fiji, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Honduras, Hungary, India, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Liberia, Malta, Mexico, Netherlands, Netherlands Antilles, New Zealand, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, and Zambia.

    In addition, our conversations with regional missionaries have led us to conclude that, for most new devotees of Adi Da, a period of immersion in the materials on the Adi Da Up Close site has been a key component of their process of becoming a devotee.

  • Visitors have been sharing the pages on this site with their Facebook friends at a rate of about 2,600 shared pages per year:

    total number of pages shared on Facebook to date
    (click picture for enlargement)


  • The number of contributors from whom our site content is drawn has increased to several hundred people. It truly is an incarnation of Adi Da's "everybody-all-at-once"!


  • Visitors to our site have made extensive use of our Audio/Video Library, with over 4,320,000 views/listens of more than 1,100 video and audio clips — a rate of about 288,000 views/listens per year (since the Library opened in 2009):

    total number of views/listens of audios/videos in our Audio/Video Library
    (click picture for enlargement)

2. Developmental Phases

The Adi Da Up Close site has gone through three major phases of development.

Leela site. If you were visiting this site in 2007, you would have mainly found leelas: stories from devotees about Who Adi Da is and His Work of liberating all beings.

Because the site has been established now for many years as the most comprehensive online repository for Adi Da's Divine Leela (as seen through the eyes of His devotees), devotees who have leelas to contribute have submitted them to our site — as a result, the site has continually grown with new leelas each year, right up to the present.

The 2007 version of the Adi Da Up Close site also included the first major address to the various controversies and misunderstandings that have arisen around Adi Da's life and approach to teaching and growing His devotees. In 2019, Adidam launched a new site, AdiDaControversies.org with the same purpose, drawing extensively on the materials from the Adi Da Up Close site.

Multimedia resource. In 2009, we added an Audio/Video Library, which reflects the increasingly multimedia nature of the Web. While the Adi Da Up Close site contains much more than the Audio/Video Library, most people's first visit to the site is likely to be to watch a video — after which visitors discover more videos, and then more everything (leelas, Adidam events, articles, etc.). The Adi Da Up Close Audio/Video Library is now the most comprehensive source of Adidam-related audios and videos on the Web, currently featuring over 1,100 clips, and always growing. One unique feature of the Audio/Video Library is that it draws upon 133 different sources for the video and audio clips: from the YouTube AdiDaVideos channel, the Dawn Horse Press, Da Plastique, and Adidam Europe; to the Florence Dance Company, the Mormon Transhumanist Association, the Dutch television station Ratatouille TV, and the Istituto Lorenzo de' Medici in Florence.

More recently (since 2014), we have made use of all the good work the Adidam Translation Guild has been doing (in conjunction with AdiDaVideos) to introduce 10 non-English video channels to our Audio/Video Library (primarily videos with subtitles), to help make the site a truly global resource:

  1. Czech video channel (28 videos)
  2. Dutch video channel (10 videos)
  3. Finnish video channel (63 videos)
  4. French video channel (14 videos)
  5. German video channel (13 videos)
  6. Italian video channel (48 videos)
  7. Mandarin video channel (1 videos)
  8. Polish video channel (74 videos)
  9. Portuguese video channel (4 videos)
  10. Spanish video channel (45 videos)

Adidam news resource. From around 2010 on, we expanded the site to also make it the premier online "news resource" for Adidam and what's happening in Adidam around the world. While you can find fragments of what is happening on various other sites (new DVDs, CDs, and books on the Dawn Horse Press site; news about Adi Da's Image-Art on the DaPlastique site; new retreats in Europe at the European Danda site; new classes at the Laughing Man Institute site; etc.), we have re-tasked Adi Da Up Close to be the site where you can go and find out about everything Adidam, all in one place, and up to date. This is especially true of the Adi Da Up Close site home page, which we intend to function something like the front page of a newspaper, or the home page of a news website.


3. Database-Driven Content Generation

In parallel with the three developmental phases we have just described (providing Leelas, multimedia, and news), we have been making extensive use of a state-of-the-art possibility: using databases to automatically generate (and rotate) website content. (It also helps us maintain the site by making it "lower maintenance", where much content is changed automatically rather than by hand.) Here are some examples:

  • Today's Feature. Each day, a new item (article, video, story, etc.) is featured at the top left of the home page. We think of this a little like changing the "shop window" every day, to keep the store fresh! The featured items are drawn from the most shared items on the site. We were delighted when (on August 10, 2019) the database reached the point of having 365 featured items — we now could have a different featured item every day of the year! And of course the featured items database keeps growing. (It now has 366 items.)

  • The Latest Video Additions. The six most recent additions to our video database are automatically displayed on the home page.

  • Adidam Sacred History. The events associated with this calendar day (e.g., November 21) in the Sacred History of Adidam are displayed on the home page, drawn from the Sacred History database. "Today in Adidam History" also appears on its own page.

  • Sacred Calendar for this Month. The Adidam Celebrations and special days for the current month (e.g., November) are drawn from the Sacred History database, and displayed on the home page and on its own page.

  • Today's Quote from Adi Da. A quote is drawn at random from a database of Avatar Adi Da's quotes, and displayed on the home page. This quote also appears on its own page.

  • Responses to the Site. Comments on the site are stored in a database. One of them is drawn at random from the database and displayed on the home page. The visitor can then also step through all the comments, one by one. These comments are also displayed on a single page, which is database-generated.

  • The Audio/Video Library. This section is completely database-generated.

  • Divine Utterances. This section is completely database-generated.

  • The 2024 Sacred Cycle of Celebrations in Adidam. This section is completely database-generated, and is updated every month.

  • The 200 Most Shared Pages on Our Site. This page is automatically updated every day, based on the Facebook "shared" counts associated with each page on the website.

  • Glossary. Glossary entries are stored in a database, and then drawn upon wherever needed on the website. The Glossary section is completely database-generated.

 

* * *


We have just painted a "broad brush" picture of the developmental phases of the Adi Da Up Close site to date. Next, we'll look at the details in the following two sections: specific developments in site content; and specific developments in site technology.


4. Specific Developments in Site Content

Since the site's launch in February, 2007, there have been many additions in site content, including:

  An Audio/Video Library that now includes over 1,100 video and audio clips (from 133 contributors) of Adi Da talking or giving Darshan, devotees telling stories about Adi Da, videos of Adi Da's Image-Art, videos on Adi Da's Not-Two Is Peace, and much more.  
Audio/Video Library
         
  A large section on Adi Da's Divine Mahasamadhi and Adidam in Perpetuity, including a subsection on The Great Calling of His Devotees (what devotees need to do to ensure the survival of Adidam in perpetuity).
 
Adi Da's Divine Mahasamadhi and Adidam in Perpetuity
         
  A major expansion of our section on Art and Photography, including subsections on Art Events and Exhibits, What Others Say About Adi Da's Art, Adi Da at Work on His Image-Art, and Video Library Clips on Adi Da's Image-Art.  
Art and Photography
       
  A section of Empowered Places and Things, including subsections on the Development of Sacramental Worship and Holy Sites in Adidam, the Sanctuaries of Adidam, and Stories from Devotees.  
Empowered Places and Things
       
  A major expansion of our FAQs section, including key articles on Recognition of Adi Da, The Necessary Artfulness in Taking Up Disciplines in the Way of Adidam, The Way of the Bone (The Addict's Revision of Adidam vs. the True Way), and Adidam and Postmodernism.  
FAQs
       
  A large section on Adidam and Music, including subsections on a Culture of Sacred Music, Devotional Music as a Regular Element in the Practice of Adidam, and a Sacred Musical Occasion.  
Adidam and Music
       
  A section on Easy Death, including subsections on Near-death experiences, Adi Da serving the death transition of His devotees (and their families), and Lessons in relating to mortality and serving the dying (or very ill).
 
Easy Death
       
  A greatly expanded Regional Contact / Events page.  
Regional Contact page
       
  In addition to our Regional Events page, a Special Events section for events that may hold a broader-than-regional interest: workshops, retreats, exhibits of Adi Da's Image-Art, Celebrations at The Mountain Of Attention, etc.  
Special Events
       
  A Celebrations section, which lists the Adidam Celebrations and their dates this calendar year, and provides a growing number of presentations on the various celebrations.  
Celebrations
       
  A comprehensive Adidam History database, and a "Today in Adidam History" section (on the home page and on its own page), generated daily from the database.  
       
  A greatly expanded section on The Books of Adidam.  
The Books of Adidam
       
 

A database of quotes, and a "Today's Quote from Adi Da" section (on the home page and on its own page), generated daily from the database.

A database of Divine Utterances. Quotes can be viewed either all at once on a single page; or they can be viewed by topic.

 
Divine Utterances
       
  A section on Sacred Literature and Theater.  
The Sacred Literature and Theater of Adi Da and Adidam
       
  A section on the Sacred History of Adidam.  
The Sacred History of Adidam
       
  A section on Practical Lessons in the Way of Adidam.  
Practical Lessons in the Way of Adidam
       
  A Contributors, Sources, and Helpers page listing the hundreds of people whose creations and efforts we have drawn upon in creating and evolving this site (in addition to our primary Source, Adi Da Himself). This is truly an "everybody-all-at-once" site!  
Contributors, Sources, and Helpers
         
  An ever-growing number of entries in our glossary, and links to individual glossary entries throughout this site, wherever specialized terminology is used. To get the most out of our stories and articles, please make use of these, wherever you see a double link that looks like this!  


5. Specific Developments in Site Technology

Since the site's launch in February, 2007, there have been many technical improvements and enhancements, including:

  • The site is entirely iPad-compatible. Everything now "works" on the iPad, including audios and videos.

  • Adi Da Up Close regional event pages that are automatically "in synch" with the Adidam.org event pages. For example, here is the Adidam.org page for events in Los Angeles, California. And here is the Adi Da Up Close version of the same page (which is generated in real time from the Adidam.org version).

  • Adi Da Up Close is now a secure site! Every page you look at on the site has a web address beginning with https: rather than http: — the "s" stands for secure. You can see the different web address in the address bar of your browser. Many browsers also display an icon to the left end of the address bar that signifies "secure page" — for example, a lock icon.

  • The addition of many features for effective search of our Audio/Video Library, including: listing of all clips from a particular year or poster; listings of clips by various measures of popularity (this week, this month, and all time — look at the red text on these pages); quick retrieval of clips of frequently requested types (Adi Da's Talks; formal Darshan occasions; etc.); tag cloud access; and the ability to order results by title, date added, event year, or number of views/listens.

  • The addition to our Audio/Video Library of extensive support of multi-part videos, including: links that make it easy to watch all the parts in sequence; and a feature that displays subtitles for the parts, so one can jump to a particular part of interest. (Click here for an example of such a multi-part video.)

    For those interested in watching these (perhaps you're a Netflix binge watcher, and you'd like something a little more elevated to binge-watch than a TV series), we added an index of multi-part video series on our site.

  • The extension of our Audio/Video Library's technical capability to be able to play an increasingly broad range of videos and audios including: YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, SoundCloud, and more.

  • The most recently posted clips from our Audio/Video Library now automatically appear on our home page.

  • Pictures that enlarge "in place" (instead of having to go to a different web page).

    Adi Da embraces a young boy
    click picture for enlargement


  • Videos that play "in place" (instead of having to go to a different web page).


    full page link
    If video won't play in place, refresh the page and try again. Or you can click "full page link" (above).
    length: 04:33
    views: 6707
    Slideshow showing Adi Da's relationship with children, with images/words from His book for children (and adults): What, Where, When, How, Why, and Who To Remember To Be Happy.

    Soundtrack is Ray Lynch, "What To Remember To Be Happy", from his album, Truth Is The Only Profound.

    This video is an excerpt from Second Evening: Track 6 on the DVD, A Tribute to the Life and Work of His Divine Presence, Adi Da Samraj. More than 7 hours long, this Tribute DVD was filmed on the occasion of the first Anniversary of Adi Da's Divine Mahasamadhi, when devotees, family, and friends of Adi Da Samraj gathered at Adi Da Samrajashram, Fiji (Adi Da's principal Hermitage), to acknowledge Adi Da as the Divine in human form, to praise His Greatness, and to express their heart-felt gratitude for the Blessings they have received from Him.

    A list of all the tracks on this DVD can be found here. Other excerpts available on this site can be found here.


  • The ability to "like" our pages (using Facebook s "like" button, at the bottom of every page), and share pages on Facebook and a large number of social networks.

  • A Facebook Group you can join, which will post Adi Da Up Close site updates and other goodies. Click on the Facebook icon at the bottom of any page to get to our Facebook group page.

  • A Twitter feed you can follow, which will post Adi Da Up Close site updates and other goodies. Click on the Twitter icon at the bottom of any page to get to our Twitter feed.

  • The extension of our on-site search engine to include audio/video library clips in the results.

  • A much improved, multi-level drop-down menu at the top of every page.

  • A "coming events" link that identifies (by event date) and returns audio/video clips featuring upcoming events.

  • An MP3 download link associated with the majority of audio clips in our Audio/Video Library, that enables visitors to download MP3 files to their computer, transfer MP3 files to their MP3 player, etc.

  • and many more important but less obvious technical improvements and enhancements.

6. Upcoming Site Developments

We have many ideas and plans for continuing to "grow" this site! Here are just a few planned directions:

  • A mobile-friendly version of this site.

  • A subscription service, "Adi Da Up Close Today", that sends all subscribers a daily mailing that includes such features as: Today in Adidam History, the daily quote, Today's featured item, and more.

  • A "comparative religion" section on Adidam, including its theology. Every other major religious tradition has a clearly laid out theology, stating its view on the nature of God, reality, human potential, etc. This section will highlight Adidam's unique theology, and will compare and contrast it with the theologies of the world's great religious traditions.

  • Expanding our Sacred History section. We've begun this section, but there's so much more that can be added.

  • Expanding our section, Practical Lessons in the Way of Adidam. We've begun this section too, but there's so much more that can be added.

 



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Thanks, Chris Tong! May the force always be with you.
Thank you for such marvellous service, dear Chris.
Wow, congratulations on your tenth anniversary, and keep up the excellent service that this site offers. Thank You Very Much!
Thank you Chris and all for a wonderful website that truly serves
Quotations from and/or photographs of Avatar Adi Da Samraj used by permission of the copyright owner:
2024 Copyrighted materials used with the permission of The Avataric Samrajya of Adidam Pty Ltd, as trustee for The Avataric Samrajya of Adidam. All rights reserved. None of these materials may be disseminated or otherwise used for any non-personal purpose without the prior agreement of the copyright owner. ADIDAM is a trademark of The Avataric Samrajya of Adidam Pty Ltd, as Trustee for the Avataric Samrajya of Adidam.

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