Check out the new video submissions! Very cool

Bismillah ar-Rahmaan ar-Raheem,

A bunch of new videos just came in for the Kalimaat Video Contest and I must say I'm impressed with the work and creativity. Then again, I'm not choosing the winner...the viewers are! :)

Deadline for Video Submissions is April 14th InshAllah and from April 17th to May 17th, we're the viewers will vote for their favorite video. Originally, I was going to use Google Polls but then I found a flaw in their system (they allow users to vote as many time as they want) and that would be a headache. So I found a better polling company that limits via cookies and IP address inshAllah.

Each video is different and you never know which one the people will choose. I'm looking forward to the voting.

Check out the latest submitted videos here: http://www.babaaligames.com/contest

Kalimaat Video Contest Extension - April 14th 2010

Bismillah ar-Rahmaan ar-Raheem,

The submission date for the Kalimaat Video Contest has been extended to April 14th 2010. Use this opportunity to make your final tweaks inshAllah.

The contest winner is chosen by viewer votes (not by me) so let the video with the most votes win. For more information regarding the $1000 Kalimaat Video Contest, please visit http://www.babaaligames.com/contest

My $1000 Marketing Idea

Bismillah ar-Rahmaan ar-Raheem,

When it comes to business, I take more risks that anyone I know. The risks I take aren't just random but rather they're actually calculated. Basically, I weigh the risks vs rewards and then I decide to pull the trigger or not (not literally in case the govt officials are reading this). So although Kalimaat has been really good in sales, I wanted to try something new to promote it. I came up with an idea to market the game by having a video contest and to make the contest interesting, I decided to offer a $1000 prize for the winning video. And that all sounded great in my head but in reality, I was wondering where am I going to get $1000 from? haha

So I came up an idea to fund the contest by offering a discount on the game. By giving a $5 discount (coupon code "youtube" in case your interested), customers would be able to buy the game for $20 instead of its normal price of $25 from www.babaaligames.com. The goal was to sell 50 games at $20 each to make the $1000. So I made a video (link)to announcing the contest and posted it up on YouTube. By tracking the number of games bought with the promo code, I was able to account for the number of games bought as in result of the video contest promo. Alhamdulillah we have sold 50 games already.

As far as the marketing side, the contest allowed me to get 50 more games into circulation which means that possible hundreds of more people will be exposed to game when the play it with their friends inshAllah and that often leads to future sales.

The winner of the contest is not chosen by me but rather by viewers. In other words, the video with the most votes wins the $1000. So the second possible benefit from the contest was that people would make videos about Kalimaat and ideally would tell everyone they know to vote for their video, which in turn would get the game even more exposure. The ultimate goal would to have a bunch of Kalimaat videos on YouTube (biggest video site on the net) posted by users.

Next, I decided to have the voting done at www.babaaligames.com site which would bring more traffic to the site as well InshAllah. Thus, with the risk of $1000, I could have a bunch of videos made by customers about Kalimaat, an increase in game sales by offering a sale (discount code), while increasing traffic to the site where I sell the game.

Although we have sold the 50 games we needed to break even, only 1 video has been posted. So I'm not sure if people thought I was joking about giving away the money or if people are waiting till the last minute to submit their videos. Rest assured, if nobody else enters by March 31st at 11:59pm, the current video will win by default and he will receive a check for $1000.

Some of my friends may have thought I was crazy for giving away $1000 but I don't think they think I'm crazy anymore haha. Alhamdulillah now that I've basically broken even, everything from now on is just gravy. If anything, the contest gives people an excuse to pick up a camera and try to do something creative. I did a few years ago and look what happened...Baba Ali was born on the Internet.

Anyways, the contest is just a few days away so I'm interested in seeing what happens next :)

Bball Clothes & the Peeping People on the Plane

Bismillah ar-Rahmaan ar-Raheem,

I just realized that I've done 3 shows in North Carolina so far, and each time I keep forgetting to bring my basketball gear. It seems like everyone, including the Imam, plays bball in NC. Anyways, I think I need a privacy filter too for my laptop. Although I'm usually type of scripts or playing games, who knows what the paranoid people on the plane are thinking haha. This week I'm doing two shows. One in Boston (North Eastern University) and one in Ottawa, Canada...eh? (sorry you can't just say Canada without saying eh!)

Half Our Deen - Sign up page is up

Bismillah ar-Rahmaan ar-Raheem,

I'm excited with the progress of Half Our Deen so far. About two months ago, we decided to scratch what we had so far and decided to start over. The Half Our Deen project is the biggest budget I have worked on (about $32k) and so far they have programmed over 250 pages of code. Yeah, I could have just paid a few thousand dollars and got a vanilla matchmaking site like everyone else but that would be pointless.

My goal with Half Our Deen was to take what was out there and take it to another level. I basically listed everything I disliked about the other sites and decided to do those things completely differently. If the other sites work for you, then don't waste your time with Half Our Deen, but for those who want something completely different, then InshAllah I think Half Our Deen is going to be nice surprise.

Yesterday, we put up the email notification page up for those who wanted to be notified when the site launches. The link to the site is http://www.halfourdeen.com

We're on track to launch in June InshAllah

Muslim Funnymentalists in Memphis

Bismillah ar-Rahmaan ar-Raheem,

Although I do the majority of my touring solo, I sometimes team up with Aman Ali and Asif Ali (no relation) and we tour as The Muslim Funnymentalists (www.funnymentalists.com). Last week, we did a show in Memphis and the event organizers advertised the show on a bunch of billboards. Being that the south hasn't always been non-white friendly (this is where they killed Martin Luther King), we weren't show who was going to show up at the event. Alhamdulillah the event went really well. About 40% non-Muslims showed up and they had a blast (not literally but you know what I mean). The show was oversold and by the crowd's reaction, it looked like everyone had a great time. They sold out early and over 200+ tickets were sold on top of that which made things a little hectic for the organizers.

After the comedy bits, they had a panel discussion where parents/youth were able to bring up issues for discussion. The topics were relative and that made the discussions interesting.

The crowd was amazing and I really enjoyed meeting everyone there. The southern hospitality was awesome. Next week, I'll be in Durham, NC.

Baba Ali on Billboards? Yeah on a bunch of them in memphis!

Bismillah ar-Rahmaan ar-Raheem,

I really hope people don't think that I'm on a wanted list or something. Usually when you see "Have you seen these men" on something, you really don't want your pic to be attached to it but in this case, I think its kinda cool :) The organization who is putting this weekend’s event together decided to go all out and put my face and the other two comedians (Asif Ali & Aman Ali) on a bunch of billboards in the city. I really hope we don't get hassled by Memphis police and airport personnel.

During the 1960s, the city was at the center of civil rights issues. I'll be performing with the other two Muslim Funnymentalists this Saturday inshAllah and I just hope that the crowd doesn't confuse Funnymentalist with Fundamentalist. I'm interested in finding out the demographics of the audience for this event. Either way, I think its going to make an interesting blog post.

What happened in Glendale stays in Glendale :)

Bismillah ar-Rahmaan ar-Raheem,

I live in LA during the week but almost every weekend I'm traveling to some random city to perform at events. So when I found out that I would be in Glendale this past weekend, I was looking forward of doing a show that was just a freeway away. When I got to the event, I noticed the crowd was about 500 people, mostly dressed in suites. The had a free dinner (the type of food you would get a fancy restaurant) so of course someone asked if the meat was halal since it wasn't your typical fund-raising-biryani-dinner I guess :). They crowd was so noisy that they had to make announcement for the audience to stay quiet and listen to the speakers. By the end of the night, they were able to raise 400k for the new Islamic Center in Glendale. Once the fundraising was done, I was up.

Because the event started on Middle-Eastern standard time (late), it pushed back all the way to nearly 10pm (I was originally schedule for 8:55pm). When the MC was introducing me, most of the crowd was emerged in conversation with one another so when I went up, it was almost like talking to myself. It seemed like the room noise kept getting louder and louder, and I was basically talking to myself. I noticed my table was laughing at me instead of with me which made me laugh. Then a brother walked up to the stage and told me to make an announcement. Apparently, somebody had lost their shoes. Not sure how someone loses their shoes in a formal gathering but hey, with the way things were going that night, I wouldn't be surprised.

So I figured it couldn't get any worse so I told myself let me just try to wing it and then go home but it wasn't that easy because the crowd was just too loud. Then a guy walked up on stage on said "let me put this (wireless) mic on you". Now with two mics, I tried to start again but suddenly there was a loud feedback/interface coming from the mics. Next thing I know the wireless mic drops off my shirt. I tired to walk around the stage but mic the interference wouldn't go away. The brother got on stage again to put the wireless mic on me and the result was once again, interference...loud, uncomfortable interference. Still, I tried to pull off my first joke but the combination of interference and room noise made it almost impossible. At this point, I'm like in boxer about to get knocked out and all I can do is look around in the crowd. As I look down at the table in front of me, I noticed there were people take group pictures. So at this point, I'm not just bombing on stage, but the funny thing that I don't think most of the crowd is even noticing. Next thing I know, I'm laughing at myself on stage. You had to admit, i whole thing was pretty funny. You start to think to yourself, this is a prank. I mean, this is this stuff you see on the candid camera tv shows. You're looking around waiting for someone to say "hey you just got punked" but that wasn't happening either. So I just stood there with an awkward smile.

Finally, one of the speakers of the evening made an announcement and asked everyone to be quiet. It took him a few minutes to get everyone quiet since he had trouble getting everyone attention. He then proceeded by giving them a lecture on being quiet and by the time he was done, the room became strangely quiet. It was almost an uncomfortable silence. The kinda of quiet you feel when people are in trouble. He gave me back the mic and I didn't really know how to start. Usually the crowd is excited and looking forward to laughing but this crowd had just been told that they were not courteous and I almost felt like I was about to perform at a detention. So I did something I don't think I have ever done for a standup comedy event. I started off serious. Very serious. Eventually, I transitioned it into standup comedy but it was just weird. By the time it was all over, the crowd was laughing out loud (with me and not at me). At the end, everyone had a good time. As for me, I grew thicker skin after that event haha. Good times.

Alhamdulillah, the event was well organized and I actually enjoyed the night. The scholar was not just a great fundraiser but he amazing human being as well. More importantly, the event managed to raise a lot of money for the new center so I'm happy to be part of the such a night.

Baba Ali performing in Glendale this Saturday

Bismillah ar-Rahmaan ar-Raheem,

I was just invited to speak/perform in Glendale, CA this Saturday night InshAllah. The community is working to build a Masjid in the Glendale area so if you would like to help them, please visit icglendale.org

For details on the event, please check the flyer above.

I use to come out with video almost every weekend but these days I'm working during the week and busy on the weekends performing at various events. My weekend schedule is so crazy that from now till like mid May, I'm touring basically every weekend. In the past, I have been using this blog to just post new videos because I figured that's what people were interested in. I was wondering if the people subscribed to this blog are interested on touring side of things? If so, I can blog about that and that will allow me blog on a much more frequent basis. Anyways, post a comment and let me know what you think.

By the way, you'll find the Baba Ali standup schedule on www.alistandup.com

Kalimaat Review by Musilm Link

Bismillah ar-Rahmaan ar-Raheem,

My game was reviewed by The Muslim Link in this week's paper which was kinda of cool. Click on the pic above to read the review. Over 1100+ games have sold and I have only had one return which isn't bad. Alhamdulillah.