Site Development

This article is organized as follows:

1. Introduction
2. Developments in Site Content
3. Developments in Site Technology
4. Upcoming Site Developments

1. Introduction

• We have added roughly 150 new pages per year, on average, and are constantly refining the pages already on our site. As a result, the site currently contains pages.

• The number of visitors and the response to our site has increased greatly with the increasing breadth and depth of its contents. We have had comments on our web pages. And, 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 4,700 shared pages per year:
  
  

  
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• This includes over views/listens of more than video and audio clips in our Audio/Video Library — a rate of about 273,000 views/listens per year:
  
  

  
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• 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"!
  
  

  

  
  

An Audio/Video Library that now includes over video and audio clips (from over 100 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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
A greatly expanded Regional Contact / Events 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.
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.
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.
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.
A section on Sacred Literature and Theater.
A section on the Sacred History 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!
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!

3. 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).
  
  
  
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• Videos that play "in place" (instead of having to go to a different web page).
  
  
  
  
• The ability to "like" pages on Facebook, 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 less obvious technical improvements and enhancements.
  
  

4. Upcoming Site Developments

We have many ideas and plans for "growing" this site! Here are just a few 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.