While Alois has been busy answering your questions, I’ve been busy rebuilding the PingSkills website and it’s nearly ready to be released. So what changes can you expect?

The DVDs are moving into the lessons page

Personally I think that the lessons, DVDs and Ask the Coach section are the main features of the site. Currently there are too many navigation items at the top of the page and these can get lost. The other problem is that people are unsure of whether they should get the DVDs, stick with the free lessons or go for our premium membership.

To make things clearer and simpler, the DVDs are being turned into a number of videos and being merged into the premium member lessons page. At the same time the free lessons are also being merged into the premium lessons page so now we only need one link to all of our lessons. Each lesson will be clearly marked if it is for premium members only.

Will I still be able to buy a DVD

For a short time. We are going to have a runout sale and offer the DVDs at a huge discount. The percentage of people buying DVDs has been dropping steadily over time and it’s got to the point where it’s not worth getting more DVDs made. So if you want a DVD then watch out for the runout sale and scoop up a bargain. If you like the downloads then be sure to check out the new range of monthly, 6 monthly and yearly memberships that we’ll be offering.

All lessons will be immediately available to premium members

Currently when you sign up as a premium member you get access to new videos each week. If there is a particular topic you are interested in but it only comes out in week 20, you have to wait. Well not once our new website is released, you’ll be able to access every single video. Depending on your membership level, you’ll be able to download a certain number of videos each month to your computer or smartphone.

Mobile Optimised

I’ve been busily modifying all of the web pages so that they’ll look great on your smartphone or iPad. The video lessons, ask the coach and the Vault will all be easy to watch and read on your mobile phone.

HD video is coming

The beauty about having videos under our lessons page is that they are easy to update. Now that we’ve got a great camera that can shoot full 1080p HD footage, we’re going to start replacing our old footage. Our free lessons are the first videos on the list. Some of these were filmed around 5 years ago and look very dated. So slowly over the next year we’ll be re-filming and editing a lot of videos. Once we update the free lessons, we’ll most likely re-shoot Serving Secrets Revealed.

When will I get to see the new site?

I’m just finalising the last few changes and then I’ve got a day or two of testing to do which means that the new site should be up and running within the next week!

I’m really excited about these changes. I hope you’re going to find the site easier to use and much more helpful in helping you to improve your Table Tennis.