TOWN HALL MEETING INSIDE THE BELTWAY

Is it time for a town hall meeting inside the Beltway? Did you watch the town hall program with John Stossel and Gary Johnson & his running mate, William Weld?

MOBILE PAGE LEVEL ADS

I checked my earnings on the Google AdSense's section on the Blogger dashboard, and found out about the new advertising options (anchor / overlay and vignette formats) for mobile devices.

What do you think about these page-level ads for smartphones and tablets?

ANNUAL BLOG REPORT XII

I have now been blogging for 12 years and published 2756 posts. Pageviews so far: 576,140. Before you listen to my podcast on SoundCloud, 12 Years of Blogging - EGO Blog, please read my post, Annual Blog Report XI.



Show notes:

• Podcast - EGO Netcast
• Listen to John Jantsch's interview ("Creating Audio Authority One Interview at a Time") with John Lee Dumas.
• Cats
• Tea For The Win Book
• Shout-out to supporter / sponsor: Body in Mind.
• Post on Libsyn (Liberated Syndication) by Ms. Ileane.
• Is Spreaker an alternative to BlogTalkRadio?
• Should I upgrade my podcast on Audioboo to a Plus account?
• Should I upgrade my podcast on BlogTalkRadio a Premium account again?
• Future advertising on GOT-Tea-Party.com?
• Hej5 Studio ("High 5 Studio")

• Are You Prepared for a New Prepper Podcast?
• What would America fight for? - The Economist, May 3, 2014.

• Gunboat diplomacy
• Read “Just War Theory” vs. American Self-Defense by Yaron Brook & Alex Epstein - The Objective Standard.
• Americanized website banner commission by John Cox.

ANNUAL BLOG REPORT XI

I have now been blogging for 11 years and published 2705 posts. My intention is to continue to publish stuff on EGO blog for at least 11 more years..., but I must admit that I have been thinking of putting the blog on a temporary hiatus. One reason for taking a blog break is that during the years of blogging, I have been adding new blogs to my content creation portfolio. At the moment, I am publishing additional content at the following places:

• EGO Sole Trader
• GOT-Tea-Party
• TeaParty.nu
• AtlasAnd
• Objective Argentum
• Americanized
• EGO

It could be hard to update all the above mentioned blogs on a regular basis. I will ask my fellow bloggers and contributors to write guest posts now and then. You will soon be able to read posts by a new guest blogger, Daniel Adetunji of Infowland.

As I wrote in my post, ANNUAL BLOG REPORT X, the main thing for the future will still be my EGO podcast on BlogTalkRadio. I have an idea to start a new site focusing on new media broadcasts in contrast to the mainstream media stations out there.

Pajamas at the Gate

I am planning to contact Influads for facilitating sponsorships of my podcast show.

One For You, New England (The SSP)

What kind of stuff will I publish in the future? I will go back to the philosophical core of EGO and write more posts on epistemology (reason), ethics (egoism) and politics (laissez-faire capitalism), but I will also mix it up with funny cat meme material, due to the fact that "Internet is made of cats"...

Internet Is Made Of Cats


As an ending note, I want you to stay tuned for my new project, Americanized.org. Please go to John Cox's post, Website Banner Commission, and read the comment thread and you will get "insider information" about the work of art.

TIPS ON AFFILIATE PROGRAMS AND SPONSORS

For your information: I have removed the 125x125 banner ad for Zeekler penny auction, after reading the news. I never came around to participate in an auction or buying something from the site, as I wrote that I would do in my post, BLOG BREAK (June 24, 2011). I will follow the development in social media and mainstream media.

I am interested in receiving tips on affiliate programs that could fit as a sponsor of this blog. If I don't find product or service that could fill the empty space at the sponsor section, I will probably add another banner for Text-Links-Ads [Editor's note: affiliate link], like the following:

Related: My post, SUCCESS IN 10 STEPS.

SPRING CLEANING

I have done spring cleaning at my EGO blog. I have removed some ads. I had to remove Jim Kukral's service called ScratchBack, because it had "closed its doors."

If you are a tea drinker and want to "scratch my back," you could scroll down the page and click on the "got tea?" image with my affiliate link and buy something at Libre Tea's retail shop. Please go to GOT-Tea-Party.com and read my review of Libre Tea's glass 'n poly (large, 420 ml) product.

VAMPIRES AND BEAUTIES AT SUPER BOWL

I will follow the Super Bowl XLVI game on Twitter, GetGlue & AdBowl applications on iPhone and NBC Sports.


Audi 2012 Game Day Commercial - Vampire Party

Check out Patriot Girls: From Sideline to Shoreline.


New England Patriots Cheerleaders Visit Aruba Marriott Resort

Please read my post, PATS AND SUPER BOWL XLII and listen to my podcast on Cinch.fm.

Related articles

• GetGlue Guide to Super Bowl XLVI (getglue.com)

TEXT LINK ADS

Text Links Ads has managed to sell an ad on my blog, so I want to thank Best Orlando Vacation Packages for placing an advertisement ("Descuento Disney World paquetes") on EGO!

SPONSORED POST: BODY IN MIND

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

DOLLAR SIGN COLLECTION BY SJC AURUM

I want to send a thank-you note to Christer Sjöback of SJC Aurum for buying advertising space on my EGO blog and for sponsoring upcoming EGO podcasting shows!

15% rebate on the Dollar Sign Collection by SJC. The sales campaign is starting on the same date as the release of the Atlas Shrugged movie, part 1. The offer is valid from April 15 to June 30, 2011.

Will you watch the Atlas Shrugged movie (part 1) today?



Read Scott Holleran's post, Movie Review: Atlas Shrugged, Part 1 and Ron Pisaturo's post, Exposition vs. Drama.

Watch live streaming video from ideasmatter at livestream.com

Ideas Matter: Ayn Rand’s Message to Today’s World.

For more information, check out AtlasShrugged.com.

Related articles

• Help Me! What Do You Think about the New Atlas Shrugged Movie? (willwilkinson.net)
• On the Importance of "Atlas Shrugged" (kylesmithonline.com)

3 WAYS OF RETURN OF ENGAGEMENT

I wonder if you could help me with finding new ways of getting a good return on my investment in time and energy when it comes to my social media activities. Today I got an email from Jim Kukral that got my attention, so I gave him in a ring on Skype. It was busy, so we will talk next week. I am reading his book, Attention! This Book Will Make You Money: How to Use Attention-Getting Online Marketing to Increase Your Revenue, at the moment and I want to conduct a podcast interview with him sometime in the future.

I want to engage my visitors, readers, listeners and fellow bloggers in a more active way in the future. I also want get more social media worklife engagements in the long run.

I have tested different advertising programs, but it haven't generated much money yet. It is more like coffee / tea / beer [Editor's note: insert your favorite beverage here.] money... At the moment I am evaluating PopAds and ValueClick Media advertisements.



I joined Forbes Business & Finance Blog Network some years ago, and I have to check the status of the network powered by Adify. I will contact some old advertisers, e.g. Body in Mind, regarding the new ad alternatives by Blogads.

I have also tried different tip-jar systems, but it seems to be hard to motivate people to donate a small sum of money on a regular basis. Recently I tested Flattr, but it is an inactive feature on my blog at the moment.

The third way to get financial support is to get sponsors for your social media activities. I am searching for companies and organizations with products and services that could fit my work as a social media enthusiast and at the same time be of interest to my readers and listeners. I have some things in mind, but you are more than welcome to give me tips and suggestions on stuff that you think could be a perfect match.

How do you increase the rate of ROI and ROE? What do you think about affiliate and referral marketing?

Related articles

• Book Review: Attention! This Book Will Make You Money: How To Use Attention-Getting Online Marketing to Increase Your Revenue by Jim F. Kukral (blogcritics.org)
• Review: Attention! This Book Will Make You Money (networksolutions.com)

UPDATE 11/27/10:

Check out the comments on my post on BizSugar.

SUPPORT BLOGGERS WITH FLATTR

I have decided to remove some of the ads for the time being.

From my post, ADS POPPING UP:

I will test a mix of different advertising options and evaluate them during some time. My goal is to continue to build up the traffic to my EGO blog, publish interesting, enjoyable and valuable content and continue the conversation and exchange of ideas with my fellow bloggers, readers, and friends through this blog, Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook, LinkdedIn, etc.

I am especially interested in fostering my relation with BlogAds ("Blog advertising makes opinion.") and see if I could attract some new advertisers. I will place an ad on a blog sometime in the future. I will see if some of my future guests on my podcast show on SolidVox could be interested in advertising on EGO.

I am thinking of adding a "featured item" section on my blog, with books that I have discussed on my blog.

It will be interesting to see how it works out with the new premium ad feature by Chitika. (EGO, 02/14/09.)

I am searching for affiliate programs that could become a good fit. Read Chris Brogan's post, My Worry Reduction Buttons- Affiliate Marketing. Found via Chris Garrett's post, Why I Switched to the Headway Premium Theme for WordPress.

If you want to join the next generation of communication platforms, you should check out GreenWin Network. [Editor's note & full disclosure: Affiliate link.] As a member you could call other members free of charge.



Do you have any comments on the layout of the blog? Blogger has introduced a new template designer.

Photo taken at an exhibition (Innovesign 2010 - Lindholmen Design & Product Development) at Lindholmen Science Park in Gothenburg, Sweden.



Morris is a cool cat as always and says that EGO should join Friday Ark #295 and then check out Flattr...[Editor's note: Thank you Navid Modiri & David Stiernholm for the invite code.]

From Miikka Kukkosuo's post, Flattr Enables Social Micropayments For All Content On The Web:

Flattr is a new Swedish service enabling easy microtransactions, or social donations, for the whole web. Flattr wants to make it easy for people to share money in addition to content on the web, and thus allow content producers to get income on their work. The service is currently in closed beta, but I got an account to take a closer look.

In practice, every Flattr member needs to pay at least 2 euros per month (you can up to 5/10/20 as well). Then, during each month, you discover content on the web that you really like, be it text, audio, video, or something else, and you want to “flatter” the creator. You then click a small button the content creator has placed on her site. After each month is over, your monthly allowance (e.g., 2 euros) is divided evenly to all of the content creators whose work you have “flattred” during the month. Flattr itself takes 10% cut initially. (ArcticStartup, 05/05/10.)

[Editor's note: Please click the button if you want test the Flattr service and support my blogging.]

UPRINTING BLOG SPONSORSHIP PROGRAM

I have joined a blog sponsorship program by Uprinting.

A Brochures Printing Company

I am ready to join BNI (Business Network International) in the near future, so I need to get more business cards. Have you bought stuff from Uprinting?

SUPPORT PANOS SWIMWEAR

In the news: Swimwear designer rejects sexism charges - The Local.

Asked whether the company would make any changes to its product catalogue in light of criticism from the Trade Ethical Council against Sexism in Advertising (ERK), CEO Panos Papadopoulos replied, "absolutely not".

”We’re often criticized in other countries for being overly restrictive. If anything, our catalogue is too conservative," he told The Local.

ERK has issued the company with a formal reprimand for the titillating nature of some of the pictures in Panos Emporio's latest product brochure.

"In a lot of the pictures in the catalogue, the models are posing in a way that leads one's thoughts to sex rather than bathing," ERK wrote in its ruling.

The council added that not all of the suggestive pictures could be viewed as discriminatory on the grounds of gender. But, "the fact that certain pictures are taken in an indoor environment reinforces the allusion to sex, as does the fact that the model is portrayed lying down in provocative poses."

“The woman’s body is used in these pictures as an eye-catcher of a sexual nature with an insufficient correlation to the product being marketed,” wrote ERK. (TheLocal.se, March 20, 2009.)

Support Panos Papadopoulos and buy something from Panos Emporio.


Panos and Yana Kay.
Source: Image Copyright - Panos Emporio AB.

Related: My post, NEW MISS SWEDEN COMPETITION.

ADS POPPING UP

After reading the article in NewsWeek, Time to Hang Up the Pajamas, you could wonder if it is any use to try to to earn money from your blogging. [Editor's comment: Maybe Daniel Lyons, a.k.a "Fake Steve Jobs", landed some other writing gigs?] Here is an excerpt from the article:

I rationalized this insane behavior by telling myself that at the end of this rainbow I would find a huge pot of gold. But reality kept interfering with this fantasy. My first epiphany occurred in August 2007, when The New York Times ran a story revealing my identity, which until then I'd kept secret. On that day more than 500,000 people hit my site—by far the biggest day I'd ever had—and through Google's AdSense program I earned about a hundred bucks. Over the course of that entire month, in which my site was visited by 1.5 million people, I earned a whopping total of $1,039.81. Soon after this I struck an advertising deal that paid better wages. But I never made enough to quit my day job. Eventually I shut down—not for financial reasons, but because Steve Jobs appeared to be in poor health. I walked away feeling burned out and weighing 20 pounds more than when I started. I also came away with a sneaking suspicion that while blogs can do many wonderful things, generating huge amounts of money isn't one of them. (NewsWeek, Growing Rich by Blogging Is a High-Tech Fairy Tale, February 7, 2009.)

And here is my comment on the article:

Posted By: lyceum1776 @ 02/11/2009 10:32:18 AM

Interesting story. Did it not feel strange to blog as a "copy" of Steve Jobs? I think you could make money on advertising, affiliate marketing, sponsorship and in other ways. I am a "poor" capitalist at the moment, but I enjoy my blogging and it has lead to great things, in a material & spiritual way. With my experience and increased knowledge how social media is working, I could create workshops, engage in consulting projects and the spread the good word.

All the Best,

Martin Lindeskog - American in spirit.
Gothenburg, Sweden.
EGO blog - http://egoist.blogspot.com

I will test a mix of different advertising options and evaluate them during some time. My goal is to continue to build up the traffic to my EGO blog, publish interesting, enjoyable and valuable content and continue the conversation and exchange of ideas with my fellow bloggers, readers, and friends through this blog, Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook, LinkdedIn, etc.

I am especially interested in fostering my relation with BlogAds ("Blog advertising makes opinion.") and see if I could attract some new advertisers. I will place an ad on a blog sometime in the future. I will see if some of my future guests on my podcast show on SolidVox could be interested in advertising on EGO.

I am thinking of adding a "featured item" section on my blog, with books that I have discussed on my blog.

It will be interesting to see how it works out with the new premium ad feature by Chitika. Here are the latest "search engine visitors" coming to my blog:

• "morris cat" - Google Australia.
• "nikkala stott" - Google.
• "fox's licorice candy irish" - Google.
• "20010911" - Google Canada.
• "cutty sark after the fire" - Google Canada.

If you are interested in how to produce free leads, using Google Adwords, check out this video by Mike Dillard. If you want, you could buy a designated Chitika ad space, directly from me. At the moment, I have an Alexa ranking of 467,918.

I am not allowed to encourage my readers to click on the ads provided by Google. I let my visitors to decide when to click or not... Please note that I don't control how the contextual ads come about and I haven't installed any "filter" to my Google AdSense account at the moment, blocking advertisements from certain URLs. As an example, I wonder why ads by Tom Cruise and the Church of Scientology is popping up now and then, but what the heck: "Let 'em pay!"

Here is an excerpt from Mike Rosen-Molina's post, Project Wonderful, Blogads, FM Go Beyond Click-Through Ads:

Click-through ads remain the most familiar form of Internet advertising to most websurfers. Most ad services, including Google's AdSense, still operate primarily on this model. Unfortunately, the click is plagued by the potential for fraud, as some site owners resort to multi-clicking their own ads or setting up bots to do so for them. (You can see Google has tried to address in its terms of service agreement, which, for example, admonishes site owners against directing readers to click on the ads.) ...

"There's an industrywide discussion about the value of the click -- both how we're recording clicks and how successful it is," said Matt DiPietro, Marketing Manager for FM Publishing, one of several ad services pioneering alternatives to the click. "It's essentially the way that marketers have been trained to think of the market online, but it's something that's evolving as we speak."

If advertisers want to attract customers and bloggers want to make some money, it would behoove both sides to look for something beyond the click-through. But what else is there? At least a few companies have come up with some ideas. (PBS MediaShift, November 21, 2008.)

You could support my blogging in an easy way, subscribe to free trade publications! For example, check out Website Magazine. [Editor's note: International readers could perhaps use a new version of a postal service like a forwarding service provider.]

Please participate in the new poll, Support EGO by:

• Checking out ads?
• Placing your ads?
• Sending donations?
• Sponsorship?
• Shopping @ EGO stores?

Scroll down the page and look at the bottom (right column). [Editor's note: Thanks for your participation and support! The poll will be up until my birthday, May 25.]

...and now a word from Donald Trump.

WILL WORK FOR OLIVE

I got an email from ShoppingAds:

ShoppingAds is undergoing a revamping and in the process has redefined the requirements of quality and traffic volume for the publishers we work with. Due to this restructuring, we regret to inform you that we have had to deactivate your account moving forward.

Thank you kindly for your cooperation, and good luck with your future marketing endeavors.

So, I had to remove that ad space from the template.


Kirkwood

I will work for olives so I could add it to my Persian Lime Martin(i)! You could also pay for my services in precious metals, according to my post, SPONSOR AND SUPPORT EGO BLOG.


Blogger's Cycle

PAJAMAS MEDIA AND BLOGADS

I have had Pajamas Media ads on my blog for a long time, but I took it down after I updated my template. At one point I earned some money but later on my blog didn't made the cut according to the new traffic requirements. My blog is belonging to the long tail of the blogosphere, as described in Justin Gardner's post, More On Pajamas Media Business Model:

Now, according to PJM’s own list of network bloggers, there are only 60 sites in the network. And probably only 20% of them hit that 1,000,000 impressions per quarter. Basically, a good rule of thumb is that you usually get 80% of your traffic from 20% of your posts/site/etc., so let’s just apply that reasoning here to PJM’s stated 29,000,000 cumulative impressions a month. (Donklephant, 02/02/09.)

Here are some other posts on the situation:

• The Obligatory PJ Media Post - Balloon Juice.
• Economy Hits Pajamas Media: Pajamas Media Ad Network To Shut Down As Bigger Focus To Be On Internet TV - The Moderate Voice.
• Fellow Liberals Gloat; Conservatives Sniffle As Pajamas Media Goes Broke And Goes For More Future Brokeness - The Gun Toting Liberal.
• Pajamas Media Shutting Down Ad Network (Leaves Conservative Bloggers In The Poor House) - The Blog Herald.
• RIP, Pajamas Media Ad Network - Winds of Change.Net.

During the whole time, I kept my BlogAds space. Most of the PJ network bloggers signed exclusively up for ads served via Pajamas Media ad network, but according to the deal, you could keep your other advertising sources at a certain level, if you wanted. Here is my pitch on BlogAds:

Join the Second Renaissance! Reach international readers who are rational individuals and defenders of the Western world.

Support CAPITALI$M: Advertise @ EGO!

SPONSOR AND SUPPORT EGO BLOG

I haven't become rich on my blogging yet, but I see great potential in this field in the long-run. I have gathered plenty of experience and knowledge of social media and the web (2.0?) during these 6+ years I have been publishing stuff in this electronic journal / weblog. My philosophical perspective has helped me to get a good grip of what's going on in the blogosphere. If you want to hire me for a talk / discussion / workshop or some other event on blogging and social media, please feel free to contact me by e-mail or via a social / business network, e.g. LinkedIn. As a "trader in matter & spirit," I am open to discuss different terms of exchange of values, i.e., delivery of service and payment. As a supporter of objective money, i.e., precious metals, my standard price is 1 kg / ~35.27 oz of silver (Ag) according to the buy rates at GoldMoney for a 1/2 working day (circa 4 hours, effective time).

In order to receive some monetary reward for my blogging, I have added several options for my readers, friends and supporters to show their appreciation in different ways:

Send a donation via PayPal. Scroll down to the bottom of the page (right column) and click on the "donate" button. I want to use John Cox's statement as an eloquent example on how to put it in a good way:

If you enjoy John's site, one way to encourage him is to make a donation via PayPal. It's money well spent and deeply appreciated. (www.JohnCoxArt.com)

Another way to give tip ("to insure performance") is to use TipJoy's service. I have set the micro-donation to the small amount of a quarter (25 cents). Want to buy me a cup of tea or coffee? Enter your e-mail address and click on the "tipjoy" button and you will keep EGO blogging! :)

You could also buy stuff from my wish list at Amazon. I have listed products that I can use as tools for my blogging, e.g., a digital voice recorder so I could store ideas and "note to self" tidbits, a camcorder for taking video clips on the move, and plenty of books for future reading.

If you want to become an EGO "ambassador" and walking "billboard," feel free to purchase stuff from my online stores. If you want to spread the good word, buy an EGO stamp and send a snail mail to a friend.

I don't think I will get rich on advertising, but I am happy to provide my readers with different products and services that could be of interest. I will write individual posts on the different advertising services. Please check them out!

Related: My posts, FREE TRADE PUBLICATIONS AND DOWNLOADS and BLOGGING AND ADVERTISING.

PRESTO EGO BLOG

I have now uploaded the final version of EGO banner. Read John Cox's post, STEP 3: PRESTO! for feedback on the finished product.

I am very pleased with the new template. It looks fine in different browsers and the loading of the page is quick. It could be that I play around with the colors now and then, but I will keep the default settings for now. I am thinking of getting my own "favicon" later on, but I am pretty happy with the standard "R" (as in Revolution template theme) as it is. [Editor's comment: You could say that the "R" is a symbol for the American Revolution or for a future Second Renaissance.]

It could happen that I add more stuff (called gadget boxes by Blogger) to the blog later on, but I want to keep it to a minimum so it will continue to look nice. I don't have much space for a long blog roll list, so I have kept a short list for now. You could find more blogs listed on my Blogger profile page. I have some things under the resources section, e.g., Fuel My Blog due to the fact that it belongs to Blogger and Podcaster Media Network.

At the moment, I have 10 video clips from the Ayn Rand Center in the video section. Yaron Brook answers questions during a lecture titled "Why Unregulated Laissez-Faire Capitalism Is the Only Moral Social System," delivered at the University of California, Irvine on April 14, 2008.

I will talk about the different types of ads on my blog and how you could support and sponsor my future blogging in my next post. In the meantime, read my post, RADICAL CAPITALIST, on advertising and Super Bowl and Bruce Horovitz's article, Marketers face pressure to deliver with Super Bowl ads.

CASSIA INTEL ENGINE

I have created a profile at a "credit-driven intelligence engine" called Cassia. I found out about this site via an Entrecard advertiser. Hat tip to: Cindy King, cross-cultural marketer and international sales specialist.