I was born the youngest of three in Northern California in 1981. It wasn’t an easy beginning; I vaguely remember my parents rocking me back and forth outdoors in a desperate attempt to open my air passages so I could breathe again. My severe asthma and croup made me a regular tenant of the Children’s Hospital (Great Organization) and also held me captive in a croup tent in my own bedroom. I also remember the constant breathing treatments I took with my trusted teddy bear and friend Dr. Miller who was named after my best friend’s father who was also my doctor. Of course as if asthma and croup weren’t enough of a burden for my parents to cope with I was also diagnosed with epilepsy. I remember waking up late at night scared to death thinking snakes and spiders were crawling all over me. I would have been extremely lucky to have outgrown even one of my illnesses but luck can’t describe being pardoned from all of them as I was.
When I was thirteen I did the unthinkable, after everything my parents went through when I was a child, believe it or not I started smoking. It’s hard to imagine any action that would hurt my parents more than their son who nearly died from breathing problems smoking cigarettes but I found a way. I decided to drop out of school after failing tenth grade so I could work full time. It got even worse; I started hanging around with the wrong crowd and allowed myself to be influenced into drinking and driving on a regular basis and doing many other unthinkable things. This very sad lifestyle came to a screaming halt one fateful night when I totaled my 96 Integra running head on into an older couple in a mini-van. I was very fortunate that no one was injured and the one night I spent in jail for the DUI was the “scared straight” event I needed to open my eyes. It’s unfortunate that it took such a horrible event for me to realize that I needed to change who I had become and find out who I could be. It was the pursuit of becoming an actor that kept me on a solid path, which ultimately led me to attaining a GED.
In 2002 I left my quest of acting behind and made the decision to move with my parents to East Tennessee where I met my better half. Since moving to East Tennessee, I married my beautiful wife and we purchased our first home. Nearly five years after completing my first year of college back in California I decided to head back to school and completed my associate’s degree of business in January of 2008, graduating with a 4.0 GPA. Ever since the first time my fingers hit a keyboard, I have dreamed of pursuing a career in computers. JealousBrother.com may not be what keeps a roof over our head but it is something I pour countless hours into and I love every minute of it.
Q & A with Ryan:
What are the origins of JealousBrother? From where did you get the idea?
In reality, the origins can be traced back to over 25 years ago when I was a young child. From the second I started crawling I began to realize what I was brought into this world to do, antagonize my older brother. We have been arguing, competing, and annoying one another for over two decades. Our older sister was the mediator and always seemed to side with me and still does if I’m being honest.
Of course, the actual idea for the website surfaced many years later after my brother and I had both become homeowners. With homeownership comes the responsibility of maintaining your lawn and we began competing over who had the best lawn equipment to get the job done. It started with push mowers, to self propelled, and then eventually to riding mowers. Since we ran out of types of mowers, we had to begin the battle of who had the most horsepower. I of course still hold the title with a 20 hp V-twin but it was acquiring that lawnmower that provoked a voice mail I left on my brother’s phone. My brother and I regularly leave juvenile messages for one another boasting about our newest purchases and this occasion was no different. I left him a message saying, “I posted new pictures of my mower on jealousbrother.com so you can check it out.” I can’t say I immediately knew the significance of what had just happened. I certainly didn’t know I would spend over two years of my life working on a website based on that very message. It wasn’t until relatives started asking if it was a real website that I began thinking that maybe it should be.
What is the concept behind JealousBrother?
The ultimate goal of JealousBrother was to harness the fun and entertaining values of healthy sibling rivalry while creating an environment where everyone gets to join in on the fun. The website itself has evolved and will continue to do so, but the same general concept remains. Part of the growth of the website was the reality that some serious topics will be covered and our platform really gives people the opportunity to learn from or educate others. Of course, it’s also a lot of fun and each user can decide how involved they want to get.
What are some of the things visitors can do at the site?
On the surface JealousBrother is a feature-packed social network but when you look a little closer it is much more than that. One of the key components of the site is our rivalry system, which could be considered a web 2.0 advanced, interactive online forum designed for healthy debate.There are currently over 300 rivalries on the site and users are encouraged to start their own. Within each rivalry, users can take sides, speak their mind, reply, or textually scream at others, up or down vote comments with even more features coming very soon. To get back to some of the core features of the site, users can communicate with friends and family privately through our integrated messaging system or publicly through each user’s shout box. Users can also customize their JealousBrother experience by modifying their profile, which I’ll cover in the following question.
Is there any way for users to personalize their experience at JealousBrother?
Yes, absolutely.We have opened up the “about me” and “shoutbox” section of each users profile to allow certain html code. What this means is that most third party html will function on JealousBrother.com. This enables users to add music players from websites like playlist.com, photo slideshows from websites like slide.com, picture comments from a large number of third party websites, and much more. Each user can also upload, label, and describe their own images for their “my photos” page or they can upload an image to create a custom wallpaper for their profile. JealousBrother also has a very unique yet simple quote system where users can choose to display a single quote or multiple quotes that rotate in and out of view.
Are there going to be any modifications or additions in the coming months with JealousBrother?
Without a doubt, we already have a large list of features slated for development with new ideas surfacing daily. We just added our newest feature, “EGO” points, which recognizes users who are active on the site. So the more involved you get the bigger your EGO grows. Currently the most active users are featured on the “people” page, which just received an overhaul itself, allowing users to see the newest and most active members as well as the five most recent comments on the site. Currently users can use the main search located on the top of every page to search for rivalries and people but we will be adding an advanced people search very soon to make it easier for users to find friends and family.
JealousBrother has been hand coded from the ground up with the understanding that we will never be finished with the development of the site. Our users have played a significant role in several changes made to the site and their input will continue to shape the direction of JealousBrother. All of us involved with this project are easily accessible if any of our users wish to contact us with any suggestions, ideas, critiques, or to just to say hello.
Where would you like to see JealousBrother at this time next year?
I am a glass half full kind of guy and wouldn’t have put this much time, energy, and passion into a project I didn’t think would do well so I’d really love to see continued growth with the ultimate goal of JealousBrother becoming a household name.
What is it about JealousBrother that grabs the visitor? Something that other sites don't have?
Initially I’d like to think visitors are attracted to the clean, functional, and easy to navigate design of the website. Upon surfing around the site, I think there are a number of things that attract our visitors. Let’s face it people don’t agree on everything and JealousBrother thrives on that disagreement. Each of the over three hundred rivalries are filled with differing opinions and views. Sifting through the hundreds of rivalries will likely invoke a variety of emotions stretching from humor to anger and I’m sure most users will find it hard to not get involved.
What makes JealousBrother different?
JealousBrother forces people to look at both sides of an argument. With the constant presence of opposing views users may actually find themselves doing extensive research to prove the opposition wrong or they may do the unthinkable and prove themselves wrong. Not all of the rivalries are serious and deep but for ones that are users may be surprised at how much they learn and how far their opinions alter.
What is JealousBrother's best trait?
I would have to say intimacy. Everything from the logo to the websites concept was built from a very personal and passionate background. Beyond the physical attributes of the site comes the very personal involvement with the site that all of us involved have. We are constantly active on the website and will always be available to our users, there is no disconnect, we are also JealousBrother users.
My Review:
I've not known Ryan long (having met Ryan through StumbleUpon), but I loved the concept behind JealousBrother from the first day. Yes, JealousBrother is about rivalry, but it's not the kind of rivalry that ends up with a lot of drama, it's a rivalry that you can't help but to jump into! There are a lot of Social Media sites on the internet, but none that I have seen like this. Ryan has taken a common occurrence, familiar to any household with two or more children, and translated it to the virtual world of the internet (I wonder if his brother has ever been able to compete with this?!). Now, all the siblings who may have not been able to keep up in the sibling rivalry of yore, or you only children, can experience the fun and whimsical ongoing debate at JealousBrother. On the technical side, JealousBrother is easy to navigate, the categories for rivalries are displayed near the top of the site and tabs mark the different sections on the site, which are Rivalries, People, and Pages. To join, you need only a few pieces of information during an easy process and you're ready to join and create rivalries, not to mention that your personal profile is equipped with the latest social media bling. A particularly enjoyable feature at JealousBrother is that the user can create a rivalry. If you don't like something, you want to speak your mind about your side of an issue, you're tired of the usual "around the water cooler" conversations, JealousBrother is where you can finally have your voice. The topics for rivalries extend from: Art, Mona Lisa vs. Statue of David; to natural disasters, Tornados vs. Earthquakes; and for you stumblers and digg users, StumbleUpon vs. Digg; all the way for the coming season, Real Christmas Tree vs. Fake Christmas Tree. The fun of JealousBrother.com is in the good-natured competition, but what's going to keep you coming back is the chance to disagree and to speak your mind. Now, don't you think you should be heading over to JealousBrother.com?
