EGO ANNUAL BLOG REPORT XVII

I have now been blogging for 17 years and published 2813 posts. EGO blog has now been viewed >1 million times (pageviews so far: 1,190,063.)

I have been a bit more active on this blog during the year, due to the fact that I have set up this blog as a destination through my podcast host, Libsyn, so new episodes of EGO NetCast will automatically show up here as blog posts.

I will do an update on my birthday on May 25 with a special podcast episode, celebrating 17 years as a blogger and 13 years as a podcaster. I will also do a live streaming session, thanking the buyers, backers and supporters of my first book on tea, with illustrations by John Cox.

Next annual blog report will include my "last" site, TeaParty.Media.

Related: My post, Annual Blog Report XVI.

EGO ANNUAL BLOG REPORT XVI

I have now been blogging for 16 years and published 2793 posts. Pageviews so far: 999,603.

I haven't been active on this blog during the year, but I will keep blogging here now and then. I have set up this blog as a destination through my podcast host, Libsyn, so new episodes of EGO NetCast will automatically show up here as blog posts.

I will do an update on my birthday on May 25 with a special podcast episode, celebrating 16 years as a blogger. I will also do a live streaming session, thanking the backers and supporters of my first book on tea, with illustrations by John Cox.

Have you read The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand? Recommended reading: Onkar Ghate's article, In a Tribal Age, a Voice for the Individual: On the 75th Anniversary of The Fountainhead.

Related: My post, Annual Blog Report XV.

ANNUAL BLOG REPORT XV

I have now been blogging for 15 years and published 2778 posts. Pageviews so far: 911,000.

I haven't been active on this blog during the year, but I will keep blogging here now and then. I have set up this blog as a destination through my podcast host, Libsyn, so new episodes of EGO NetCast will automatically show up here as blog posts.

I will do an update on my birthday on May 25 with a special podcast episode, celebrating 15 years as a blogger. I will also do a live streaming session, thanking the backers and supporters of my first forthcoming book on tea, with illustrations by John Cox.

Related: My post, Annual Blog Report XIV.

Creating a Newsletter with a Twist

Do you have your own newsletter? How many newsletters do you read on a regular basis? Maybe I am a "cool kid" according to Veselina Gerova's definition! I have figured out the why of starting a newsletter... The challenge now is to stick with it. Here is an excerpt from issue number 2 of Lyceum Bulletin:

On 2/2, with 22 subscribers to my newsletter, I thought it was time to publish another issue of Lyceum Bulletin! ;)

My goal is to send out a new issue once a week with new media tidbits, business philosophy related topics, and the good life stuff (including tea and chile peppers). Elsie Escobar’s announcement on The Feed podcast, sparked the idea to start a weekly newsletter. 

I will add a twist to the bulletin by including a short audio clip in English and Swedish, as a mini podcast episode. It could be a “behind the scene” moment, a shout out to a new subscriber, feedback on the content, etc. I will start with this feature in the next issue of Lyceum Bulletin. I am feeling a bit under the weather with a sore throat at the moment, so I will spare you to hear a soundbite of my wheezy voice this time.

BEVERAGE POLL AND PODCAST SURVEY

I am interested to hear about your favorite beverage! Vote for coffee, tea, or water in the poll in the right column. Grab a mug or glass with your drink of choice, and please take a moment and fill out the podcast survey for EGO NetCast.

PIECES OF EIGHT

Have you heard the expression, "pieces of eight"? Here is an excerpt from The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation's site, History.org:

The Spanish influence on the American monetary system is still evident today. The one ounce silver coin was eight reales. This "piece of eight" could be fractioned into halves (four reales) or quarters (two reales) much as we do with modern dollars. The modern stock market also operates in eighths of dollars. 

The crowdfunding campaign for my forthcoming first book on tea, has now reached 1/8 of the goal. From my update, Pieces of Eight:

This evening I had a talk on Matcha green tea, together with a tea tasting. My fourth book is planned to be on this kind of green tea in powder form. After the talk and tea tasting, the event organizer passed around a tip jar for donations of my first book on tea with illustrations by John Cox. ... I have now reached the "pieces of eight" ($250 donated so far) milestone... ;) The goal is to get $2000 in total, so I can back John, with enough funds, for the creation of the illustrations for the first book on black tea.

Fundraising with GoGetFunding

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?

ANNUAL BLOG REPORT XIV

I have now been blogging for 14 years and published 2770 posts. Pageviews so far: 809,347.

I haven't been active on this blog during the year, but I will keep blogging here now and then.

I will do an update on my birthday on May 25 with a special podcast episode, celebrating 10 years since I started podcasting. I will also do a snap on Snapchat (username: TeaPartyMedia), thanking the backers and supporters of my book(s) writing project, #teaftwbook.

Related: My post, Annual Blog Report XIII.

THANKS TO COMMIT ACTION

I was the lucky winner of an iPad Air in Commit Action's sweepstakes on Facebook, by Peter Shallard. It is funny that I mentioned Peter Shallard's blog post, Why Inbox Zero works and Tim Ferriss is wrong about email, in the first issue of my newsletter, Lyceum Bulletin.

Here is my unboxing Vine video:

Thanks to @commitaction https://t.co/RmhSdNHuXX

— Martin Lindeskog (@Lyceum) March 25, 2016

Hat tip to Bryan Armentrout for his nice congrats comment on Facebook.

As a sidenote: I had to pay circa $100 in customs, taxes, and fees, for this gift. As supporter of free trade, this is another example of protectionism by the Swedish state. If you want to support a "poor" capitalist, you could send a donation via PayPal.

TOP 100 SMALL BUSINESS PODCASTS

I have compiled a list of 100 small business podcasts on Small Business Trends.

Talking about podcasting, please check out my podcasts:

• EGO NetCast.
• TrendPal with Lotta Gergils Aston.

   by  Colleen AF Venable 

IS YOUR SYNDICATED PODCAST CONTENT LIBERATED?

How do you store and distribute your podcast material? The title of the blog post is a hat tip wink to LibSyn (Liberated Syndication). In my Annual Blog Report XII post, I said that I will put more effort into my podcasting and get back on track with a regular schedule.

The question that have been asking myself recently is:

- How do I secure my content, save it and promote it in an effective way?

At the moment, I have podcasts at:

• Audioboo
• SoundCloud
• BlogTalkRadio

I have had a nagging feeling that all the above mentioned services have had their share of challenges and I want to have a "safe haven" for my content in the future.

Now when I got my first patron (of the arts), Niklas Larsson, I decided to sign up for LibSyn's podcasting + smartphone app packages with 400 MB storage for $20 per month. I must say that the mobile app feature with a potential of revenue sharing, is a sweet deal! So, I ask you to stay tuned for my own Podcast Box app on iTunes and Amazon App Store. You could now listen to my podcast and support my work at the same time! :)

Here is an excerpt from Robert Walch's post, Podcast Consumption as easy as Angry Birds:

Today more podcasts are downloaded directly to Mobile devices than to computers.
This is a huge deal.  In March 2013 for all the downloads from all the 13,000+ shows hosted with Libsyn – we saw the following stats for where podcasts were directly downloaded to:   

Mobile = 51.37%
Computer = 48.58%
Set Top Box = 0.05% 

There are a lot of people that even today say consuming podcasts is too difficult. 

Really?

Based on What?

Today podcasting is as easy to consume as Angry birds is to play
You open your mobile device – you tap on the app and you consume. It really is that easy.

Maybe people are saying “THEIR” podcast is tough to consume. And that might be because they don’t have their own smartphone app.

Looking at the Libsyn stats for March over 7.5% of mobile downloads happened directly to Podcasters own stand alone smartphone apps – not the generic apps – but their own branded apps. And that percentage is growing every month.

If you don’t have your own smartphone app in the iTunes store, Amazon Store and Google play store – then maybe your podcast is not as easy to find and consume as your peers.

The other advantage of having a stand alone app in the apps stores is discoverability. People searching for a subject matter may stumble upon your show – while not looking specifically for a podcast – and decide to give your app a try. 

Libsyn blog, April 12, 2013.

You will be able to find my future podcasts at EgoNetCast.Libsyn.com.

What's your take on the future of podcasting and the different players on the market?

Podcaster selfie at Hej5 Studio in Gothenburg, Sweden.

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.

COIN JEWELRY

How about getting a piece of coin jewelry for your Valentine? You could get great deals on coin jewellery (Aurista Coin Classics) from my coin webshop.


Here is a Morgan Dollar money clip:

TIME TO REWIND WITH VINE

Have you charged your batteries during the summer? Are you ready to "rise to the top" and go back to work? I will kick-off my podcast interviews again, starting in September. Please stay tuned...

In the meantime, enjoy my latest Vine video clip with Robin the cat, exploring the roof top. I will submit this video to Friday Ark.



By the way: Do you think that Vine will create a compilation page for your vines sometime in the future, similar to your Instagram photos placed one page? Do you think that the short video clip content material is here to stay, or is it a fad going away?

KIRKWOOD CARTOON BY JOHN COX

I have now learned a new word, poot, thanks to John Cox! ;)

POWER FRIENDING IRL AND CYBERSPACE

During my birthday on May 25 I got 99 mentions on Facebook.

Is this an example of the power of new media? If you are interested in this topic, I recommend you to read Amber Mac's book, Power Friending: Demystifying Social Media to Grow Your Business. [Nota Bene: Amazon affiliate link. If you want to support my blogging and read a great book at the same time, please click the link and purchase Amber Mac's book.]

How many friends do you have on Facebook? I am getting close to 1,000 (power) friends... What's your take on the Dunbar's number and the social media tool called, Path?

In the evening, I got social and had dinner at a Mexican restaurant together with three of my friends that I am doing business (according to the trader principle) with:

• +Christer Sjoback
• +Palle Frid Svensson
• Vida K.R. of "the third place," Vida La Vida.

After the dinner I went to Café Hammock, listening to Elecro Swing (jazz) music.


Electro swing jazz Music party.

Here is my birthday thank-you note:

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.

GOOGLE+ COMMENTS ON BLOGGER

From Google's official blog (Bringing Google+ Comments to Blogger):

Bringing Google+ Comments to Blogger Reading and responding to comments can be one of the most rewarding aspects of blogging. Not only do they help you connect with your readers, they can also inspire later blog entries. The challenge, oftentimes, is following all the conversations around your content—on Google+, for instance, as well as on your website. So we're making things a lot simpler.

(Googleblog.blogspot.com, April 18, 2013.) 

Do you think that this new feature will give other comment services, e.g., Disqus, Livefyre and CommentLuv a fighting match?

LOL CATS CREATING BUZZ & BIZ

It is amazing how cats could create a such online buzz and big business. I am missing Morris the cat very much, but Robin & Rufus are our family's precious cats nowadays.


Robin & Rufus

Here is an excerpt from Rahul Varshneya's interview with Ben Huh, CEO and founder of Cheezburger (featuring LOLcats):

Rahul Varshneya: What are your greatest learnings as an entrepreneur, things that you would give as advice to an aspiring entrepreneur? 

Ben Huh: Don’t have a fear of talking about your failures. Don’t hide your mistakes. Because we know that running a startup is really hard, and it’s a lot harder if you lie about it. It’s a lot harder if you can’t be honest about the situation you’re in, and you can’t be honest about asking for help.  

(http://rahulvarshneya.com, December 20, 2012.)

You could read what I learned from my business failures in my post (from 2009), Five Lessons Learned from my Start-up — And why I’d Do it Again, on Open Forum (powered by American Express).

Let's keep the game going! Please add your thoughts in the comment section.


Game For Cats

UPDATE 01/13/2013:

Check out Catmoji! Hat tip to Sarah Lane of The Social Hour.

HITTING THE FOLLOW LIMIT ON TWITTER

How many tweeps could you handle? Is the magic number 150 (Dunbar's number)? Could it be a good idea to try to increase the amount of people you are following on Twitter, or am I on the "wrong" path...

Do you think that @twitter will continue to adhere to its "follow limit" forever? ;) I want to follow new tweeps. support.twitter.com/articles/66885…
— Martin Lindeskog (@Lyceum) January 6, 2013

From Ev Williams's post, Making Progress on Spam:

There Is No Magic Number  

So, our challenge is to curb this type of behavior without interfering with non-spammy users—some of whom may just be very enthusiastic followers. What is a reasonable number of people to follow, anyway? Most users may have a hard time finding 500 accounts they are interested in—while others would think a limit of 10,000 is too low. 

Also, people approach Twitter in different ways. Some think you should follow everyone who follows you. Personally, I don't because that would render Twitter unusable for me. I "only" follow about 700 accounts—less than 5% of the 16,000 who follow me. (Mr. Obama may have time to keep up with 50,000 people, but I'm a busy guy!) 

The point is, there is no right or wrong. And there is no perfect formula. We do our best by taking a multi-dimensional approach. We look at a number of factors—including how many people are following you back—before applying limits. We don't reveal exact limits, because it's somewhat complicated and, more importantly, if you were to tell spammers exactly what the filtering rules are on your email or, say, Google's PageRank, they'd just engineer their way around them much more easily.

(blog.twitter.com, August 7, 2008.)

Here is my comment (BizSugar) on Valentine Belonwu's post, How to Promote Your Business on Twitter? Here are 7 Awesome Tips:

Twitter is one of my favorite social media channel. I have participated in this kind of cocktail party, listening to several radio stations of lifestreams, since 2007. Right now I am looking for a tool to help me clean up some of Twitter users I am following, so I can follow new tweeps. I have reached the "follow limit". Twitter has put a cap at 2000 users that you are following. I am following over 4000 users at the moment, but have "only" 3800 followers, so I can't follow new tweeps at the moment. Do you have tips on a tool that take care of this situation?

Valentine suggested that I should test out JustUnfollow. Don't you think that Codigami Technologies Pvt. Ltd's video demo is inspired by CommonCraft?! ;)

JustUnfollow - find who unfollowed you on twitter

Do you know about the different Twitter follow limits? I don't hate the limit as Isla McKetta, but I agree with much of her statements. Here is an excerpt from her post, Why I Hate the Twitter Follower Limit:

I follow back. Not indiscriminately, but if you want to take time to get to know me, I’d like to get to know you too. We can do that on Facebook, but unfortunately you’ll have to make the first move on Twitter (and wait until I hit some magical unpublished ratio—PR and the Social Web says the magic formula is number of followers plus 10%—that means I can follow you back). 

(Portent.com, September 17, 2012.)

It is up to the folks at Twitter to set their own rules, but personally I don't understand their reasoning with the limit:

When you reach a daily or total limit and we show you an error message, you've hit a technical limit imposed to limit egregious behavior by spam accounts and to prevent strain on the site.  

(support.twitter.com)

Kathy Colaiacovo: I promise you, I am not a spammer! ;)

Twitter does have limits set in place with regards to ratios of following (who you follow) and followers (who follows you) and their preference is to have more followers than following. They do this for one main reason – to keep spammers at bay. If you follow 1500 people and only 150 follow you back – the first question people ask is ‘why is no one following this person?’ and assumptions are made that you are trying to ‘talk’ to more people than want to talk back to you which = SPAM ALERT!

(social4business.com, January 30, 2011.)

Before I test JustUnfollow, I want to hear your thoughts on this issue and tools you have used in order to keep your Twitter feed nice and tidy.