Why Food Blogging is so Popular?

While many people tend to think that Blogging is dead in 2025, food blogs are becoming popular and actually making a good amount of money. It seems that more and more people are reading food related text content, watching food related videos. This trend is here to stay. In this post, I am trying to take a look at the growing popularity of food blogging.

What is a food blog?

In simple words, a food blog is a blog that mainly covers the topic of food. It can simply talk about recipes that are very popular. Some blogs can simply talk about food instead of focusing too much on recipes, some blogs may focus on just reviews of restaurants or food shops. Some blogs focus on kitchen equipment.

Here, I just like to point out that in this post, I did not make any distinction between a food blogger and a food vlogger.

Show me the Money

I was shocked that on average food bloggers earn the most amount of money in blogging. They are the highest earners. I thought that finance bloggers or gadget bloggers were earning most but I was wrong. There are tons of money but you must not only be hard working but also have some entrepreneurial skills and mindset.

You have to remember that money does not come in one simple way. You can display ads in your blog, sell courses, sell products, or even land a cook book deal etc.

Some Stats about Food Blogging

I found some interesting information in this blog post: 15 Food Blog Statistics and Data

In 2021, 4 out of 5 adults in Generation Z said that they enjoyed watching or interacting with food content across different social media platforms. As for food blogging, this niche was the most popular and most profitable niche last year with the highest median income of $9169 of all major blogging niches. The food blog niche also had the highest percentage of blogs with over 50,000 monthly sessions (42.8%.)

Most people start a food blog out of personal interest. They love to earn money but this is not the primary reason they come here.

Some blogs

I could not find any specific figure about the number of food blogs online but the number can be more than 1 million. I found a report in the Daily Mail about an Australian food blogger earning $1 Million annually.

Here are two links for you to read:

Highest Paid Food Bloggers (2025)

The 50 Best Food Blogs of 2024

There are many food blogs online and the good thing about it is that information provided in the posts does not become stale. For example, recipe posts are evergreen and ever-fresh. For example, this recipe from 2006 is still interesting to me. This is one big advantage of a food blog and if you are a food blogger don’t just delete or discontinue your blog even if you become too busy.

YouTube

Many Food related video channels have become very popular on YouTube. Some Food bloggers or content creators travel to different parts of a country or different countries of the world and showcase the popular regional food items.

You can browse this list: Top 100 Food YouTube Channels

The growing popularity of YouTube has contributed immensely to making food blogging more successful. Video is insanely expensive for an ordinary blogger or vlogger but YouTube lets you host your video absolutely free of cost. Even you can earn money from your viewers. So, it is a win-win for food bloggers and YouTube.

Facebook and TikTok

Facebook is another place where food blogging is becoming very popular. You can simply open a page about Food for free of cost and then post texts, videos, and photos. After all, there are 3 billion monthly users in Facebook. So, if you are serious then you will soon get some followers in Facebook.

TikTok videos about food are also gaining popularity. If your video goes viral on TikTok there is every chance it will some doors for you in the form of sales, sponsorship, etc.

For the young generation, TikTok is sometimes more popular than Google according to this report:

TikTok’s somewhat mysterious algorithm is weirdly good at recommending content that users want to see, and now members of Gen Z have turned to the app as their search engine of choice.

Google is taking note of the trend. At a conference last year, Google senior vice president Prabhakar Raghavan said that “In our studies, something like almost 40 percent of young people, when they’re looking for a place for lunch, they don’t go to Google Maps or Search.”

Why Food Blogging is not easy?

Becoming successful in Food blogging is not easy because it is a time-consuming work. You see, when it comes to food blogging, as a blogger, you are expected not to just write about the recipes but actually cook the food. It does not end there. You are also expected to take some splashy photos and if possible take videos too. Compared to any other type of blogging, this really is time-consuming.

Relying solely on Google is not a smart idea because these days, Google changes its algorithms too often and that may cause massive traffic loss for your blog suddenly. Yes, it happens a lot.

The Future Prospect

The future looks to be even better. With more and more people becoming busy cooking regularly, they are turning to food blogs for ideas and even time passing. Food is something we always enjoy and the more money we have, we love to spend on food items be it cheap street food or exotic food items in fancy restaurants.

 

Final Words

Food blogging is going to be more popular in the coming years. It has a huge amount of readers or followers online. However, remember that most bloggers do not earn money because earning money is like running a business. 

Starting a Blog in 2025:

We are in the year 2025 and most of us are addicted to social media websites- instead of blogs. Monthly active users for Facebook is 3 billion and for YouTube, it is 2.5 billion. It seems and many people feel that blogging is almost if not fully dead. However, blogging is not dead as new blogs are being created every day and millions of people read blogs and the number is not decreasing. 

I started blogging in 2006 and have seen many ups and downs. I have again decided to be a serious blogger in 2025. I am writing this post based on my own experience.

2025: Why Blogging is so Tough?

Blogging surely has become very competitive and becoming successful has become very challenging in 2025. Yes, there are at least 5 billion people in internet but when you start a blog, you may not find even five persons visiting your blog daily.

The first one year can be really daunting and challenging in every aspect. Most bloggers get frustrated and stop trying at all. That is why many people think that blogging is dead in 2025. While this is true for most bloggers, at the same time, there are millions of people who love to read blogs or even the reviews and information before buying anything or watching a movie.

Why do you want to start a Blog?

First of all, ask yourself why you want to open a Blog? Do you want to just earn money and take it as a profession? If this is the case, then remember that, most people hardly earn any money in the first year of their blogging career. The first one year is for learning and experiencing things in this field.  

Are you ready to accept the challenge and wait for one year for money to come? If not, then blogging is not for you. Many people have a rosy dream that if you start blogging, then people will start coming to your blog and praise you. Again, this doesn't happen for most bloggers in the first one year.

Many people start a blog just for fun or hobby. They mostly write about their everyday life. Such blogs rarely become popular unless there is something to learn or the content is enjoyable. Why should you be interested about my eating in a restaurant or about my pet cat? Some start a blog to write about their career updates.

So, first of all, try to find the reason behind you becoming a blogger or starting a blog.

What are the Things you need?

If you want a start a blog, then what are the things you need?  You need to have a name for your blog and domain. Here, you can find the name of this blog is Hobby Economists. I did not buy a domain yet. Then you have you to have to go for self-hosted blog running in WordPress. If you do not know the meaning of self-hosted blog then please, spend one full day about it and learn about it.

A Domain should not cost more than $15 and hosting may vary according to the plans. Again, if you are not familiar with these things- please, spend from 1 day to 1 week so that you can be familiar with these things. These are basic but vital information. There are tons of information available on such topics in Google and YouTube. The only thing that you need is to spend some time learning about them.

 

Blogger vs WordPress

99% people would vote for WordPress when it comes to blogging contenting management software or platform. Yes, WordPress has many advantages but it is a bit technically challenging. So, if you are a new blogger then you can start with Google’s Blogger or Blogspot platform. However, remember that you will have to move to self-hosted WordPress blog sooner or later.

 If you are not comfortable with using technology then I strongly suggest you to spend a few weeks learning about domain, hosting, WordPress, SEO etc. More than 90% professional bloggers use self-hosted WordPress. So, you have to spend a few days to weeks learning about it.

You might wonder why I am writing in a blogger blog and in a subdomain instead of my own domain with WordPress. I am doing it because I am trying to practice and learn the basics of blogging in 2025. I am spending a lot of time. I know that soon I will move to my own domain and perhaps will blog using WordPress. However, I would not advise you to do so because you may lose patience.

Niche Content

You have to find a topic to write about in your blog. There are two suggestions. Firstly, write about the topic that you love and know a lot and passionate. The second idea is that select a topic that has good earning potential and then write about it.

So, let me give you an example. Suppose you love cricket (a sport extremely popular in South Asia but not popular at all in other parts of the world) and you want to start a blog about it. You write posts every day and cover important matches and events. Your readers will mostly come from India. However, earning money will be tough because people do not buy cricket related products online that much outside of India.

On the other hand, if you do not have any passion about gadgets like iPhones but you try to know and write about gadgets then there is a strong chance of earning money because people spend a lot of money after smartphones, gadgets etc.  

So, select your topic carefully. Some niches have more money, some niches have less traffic, some niches are very easy to write and some are very difficult. Spend some time before finalizing your niche topic.

 

SEO

Do you know anything about Search Engine Optimization or SEO? If not, please, spend at least one month to know about it. You see when you want to know about something you just go to the home of Google then type the keywords like these:

iPhone

Who will win the UEFA Cup this season?

Movie Review

You normally click on the search results on the first page 1-5 positions in Google. You rarely go to the second page. So, SEO knowledge is crucial for your survival as a blogger and earning money.

Secondly, it is not that you publish a quality article and then it gets in the first page of Google. It takes time and sometimes it takes few months of time to be in the first page of Google. The more you learn about SEO the better you will become in getting visitors in your blog.

Have your own Voice

There are around 700 million blogs in the world now. So, there are hundreds of blogs on any topic that you can think of. So, if you just publish the news items by simply paraphrasing them people will not be enthusiastic about your blog. That is why, you need to have a voice of your own, give your own opinion and some people will love that.

Commenting and Collaborating

Try to find blogs that you like in your niche. They do not have to be popular. Just try to think why do you like the blogs. Put a quality comment in some posts and soon you will find some bloggers that you know and they know you. Then it will become easy for you to collaborate with some other bloggers.

Monetization

I have already stated that there is hardly any money in the first one year of your blogging life. If you can then you are really lucky. However, if you have a job then do not quit and start blogging with the hope of getting the money of a full time job. Blogging is not simply writing about a niche topic but you have to learn to sell your content.

In 2006, almost all the bloggers used to think of displaying ads from Adsense to earn money from their blogs. Now, there are far more options because of growing popularity of e-Commerce.

Learn the art of Selling

As I said earlier, you have to become skilled about the business side of blogging. You have to think that when you are blogging then yes, obviously you are a writer as writing is the primary skill and you have post content regularly. However, you have to become a seller or business person at the same time if you want to earn money blogging.

Who are your customers? Your readers are your potential customers? Are you selling something in your blog? My advice is that first try to have some decent amount of visitors in your blog. It will take some time to get that. In the meantime, try to read a lot about selling products and services, displaying adds and anything related to earning money in your blog.

 

Social Media is not your Enemy

Many bloggers feel that social media sites Facebook, YouTube, Twitter have destroyed blogging but this is not the case. Social media websites can help your blog in the level that you cannot imagine.

So, start a page in Facebook or if possible a Facebook group in the same name of your blog. Do it for a YouTube Channel too. That can help you to get more readers in your blog. It will take time but if it happens then you will get more readers, more sponsorships and more money with the same amount of time and effort.

Try to be patient

This is the most important thing in blogging. This is the secret behind blogging success. You have to be patient, hardworking and consistent. If you are not patient, then you will get frustrated with a month or two.

Remember that there will be many challenges and destructions when you become a serious blogger. You will not get overnight success, you may have relationship problems and you become sick. However, you have to sacrifice your time. Just spend time to learn about delayed gratification.

Just remember that it takes hard work and patience to become successful in anything in life, not just only in blogging.

Try to avoid AI as much as you can in Creating Blog Posts

If you have already used ChatGPT then you know that it can write an article containing one thousand words for you within just 10-15 seconds. However, no matter how tempting it looks, don’t do it. Google is totally after punishing sites that simply puts article or content generated by Artificial Intelligent or AI.

That does not mean that you should avoid AI totally. Instead, you should use it for generating title, finding a topic, finding information etc. Using AI will save a lot of time. Just, do not copy paste an AI generated content.

Instead, take idea, learn and gather information and stats with the help of AI. Then write the blog post or article in your own words. This will help you a lot to get many things done within a short time and will improve the quality of your blog posts. AI can be extremely helpful in content writing.

Final Words

Finally, this post has been written based on my own idea and experience. I am not an expert but that is why, I think that you should read this post seriously as I am someone like you. My only strength is that I can forget everything else and dedicate my time, energy, focus on something that I love. I do not mind spending 10 hours on writing a blog post. I do not mind thinking about a topic and search about it whole night.

Starting a blog is easy but becoming successful is quite a challenge. So, take the challenge seriously and try your best. I hope that you have liked this article. It was written on 16 March, 2025. I am hopeful that this post will be written by thousands of people in the coming months and years. 

Business Aspects of WSL Women’s Super League

Football is the most popular sport on earth in terms of popularity, media coverage, stadium and match attendance, sponsorship deals, etc. There are football leagues in more than 200 countries. However, when it comes to football it is mostly if not solely men’s football. Women’s football has a long way to go or a lot of catching up but is gaining momentum. With more top clubs committed to more matches in their main stadiums, average attendance, TV rights, and sponsorship deals are set to rise.

WSL at a Glance

Women’s Super League or Barclays Women's Super League or simply known as WSL is top league of Women’s Football in England. We all know about English Premier League or EPL but most of us hardly know anything about WSL. Right now, there are 12 clubs in WSL and they play against each other on home and away base. So, each team has to play 22 matches (11 home games and 11 away). Chelsea is the titan and then we have Arsenal, Manchester City, and Man United competing for the second position.

The clubs and stadiums

The stadiums of EPL clubs have high attendance capacity. Old Trafford of Manchester United has a capacity of 74000 while Emirates Stadium of Arsenal has a seating capacity of 60,000. However, these stadiums are mainly for their men’s team. For the women’s team, there is a much smaller stadium with a very small seating capacity. It is changing for some teams like Arsenal as the club is committing to host more matches for its women’s team at the Emirates.

Tickets and Attendance

 Arsenal Women used to play most of their matches at Meadow Park with a seating capacity of only 1700 (standing capacity of 4500). During 2024-25 season, Arsenal has decided to play 8 of their 11 home games at the Emirates in WSL. This is a huge change and will have huge impact not only for Arsenal Women but for WSL as a whole.

 While there is a long wait for a season ticket for Arsenal’s men's team, the women’s team has to struggle with selling only a few thousand tickets for most matches. Still, Arsenal is doing much better than other teams in WSL when it comes to attendance.

The price of tickets of WSL matches is quite affordable compared to the matches of men’s clubs. Still average attendance for WSL matches is just around 6700 per match. There is a big mismatch between Arsenal with an average match attendance of almost 29,000 to of Everton with just 1265.

Sponsorship

EPL is the most lucrative for companies when it comes to sponsorship. I am repeatedly comparing WSL with EPL because they are in the same country and the same market. I know that it is not fair but still, I am doing it to give you an idea of how much catching up WSL needs to do.

Sponsorship is bringing more money:

A new three-year agreement has been reached with Barclays to remain the title sponsor of the Women’s Super League and Women’s Championship.

The deal is understood to be in the region of £15m a year, including investment and marketing, double the previous arrangement which runs out at the end of this season.

There is still a room for growth for sponsorship in WSL.

Media Coverage

When it comes to TV rights, WSL is miles behind EPL. This is one area WSL and the clubs have to work really hard. Many WSL matches are available on YouTube at free of cost but there is no real effort to promote it.

Things are moving for WSL TV rights: WSL agrees record £65m domestic five-year TV deal with Sky Sports and BBC. WSL clubs have to encourage their supporters to support their women team more. Thanks to YouTube, many WSL matches are available globally and people can enjoy free of cost.

England's team performed well first in UEFA Women's Euro 2022 and then in the Women's World Cup 2023 and it resulted in more people watching the events in England.

Transfer and Salaries

WSL had yet to see a transfer fee of 1 million Pound while EPL has crossed a 100 million pound transfer fee record. Naturally,  compared to EPL, salary is extremely low too compared to EPL and some WSL players reportedly earn as little as £20,000 a year.

A league of their Own?

While I have been a great fan of Women’s Football since 2021, I feel that most of the money coming to WSL is simply because of the club’s reputation and the popularity of the men’s team. I mean, the sponsors of the men’s team often do the same thing for a women’s team as a part of the deal with the club. Of course, they spend much less money for the women’s teams’ sponsorship.

You can read more here: Can women's football stand on its own two feet?

Promising Future

The future looks to be promising for WSL as average attendance is increasing for some top clubs like Arsenal. The clubs are investing more funds to develop women’s football and as more people love to enjoy the matches via TV or the Internet, more money is going to come. What is needed now is some kind of massive TV deals as well as massive investment by a few clubs like Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool etc. After all, they can afford to splash 100 million Pounds in a year to upgrade everything related to their women’s team.

Final Words

WSL is moving ahead with more people following the women's teams in England. There is a proposal of: the Women’s Super League to consider scrapping relegation in major revamp. The good news is that England’s women’s national team has been doing quite well in the last few years both in Europe and in the World Cup. That is attracting more girls to women’s football. It just needs some more local-born superstars that would increase fan followings in England.

 

How to fight against Social Media Addiction? Facebook, Tiktok, Whatsapp and YouTube

 

Social media (like YouTube, Facebook and Tiktok) addiction has become a harmful addiction for 210 million of people around the world. So, it is a common problem for millions of people. In this blog post, I am going to write about the problem and then suggest some ways to come out of it. For doing that, I literally have to remain out of using Facebook and YouTube for the next few hours if I want to write this post. My plan is to write at least 2,000 words.

Staying out of Facebook is almost an impossible thing for me to try. For the last 10 years, I have sort of lived my life in Facebook entirely and to some extent in YouTube. I surely enjoyed my time and life here as I did it mostly to accomplish some missions in life and work.

Fortunately, I was never a fan of Tiktok and did not spend that much of time in YouTube either. I was not a fan of Tiktok’s funny videos and in YouTube, I missed the part of commenting. I was more of a text guy rather than video loving person.

Ten years ago, I was not a person to spend even 10 minutes of my time in social media websites like Facebook. I used to spend more time in browsing Internet and reading blog posts, world and local news items etc. I used to watch YouTube videos but not that much. Then, on November 2014, I had to promote e-Commerce Association in Bangladesh and the only way to do that was to be active in Facebook.

You see, I noticed that most people who are interested about e-Commerce in Bangladesh were young and they were mostly active in Facebook. So, I started to become active here day and night. At first, it was very boring as I did not have any habit of spending time in social media. However, within just 100 days, I started to enjoy it. I started spending 12-15 hours a day in Facebook and read almost everything related to e-Commerce in my country.

Soon, I noticed that just reading and writing about e-Commere was not enough and Facebook had the potential to bring many people under the same umbrella by a Facebook Group. I started trying for e-CAB FB Group and it clicked. It helped e-CAB to become national level association within just one year.

Anyway, this post is not for depicting my journey with Facebook for 10 years. So, in short, I spent at least 10 hours a day for 10 years and Facebook officially recognized me as one fo the 115 community builders in 2018 under their Facebook Community Leadership Program. I also managed to build one of the largest FB group in online learning with Search English FB group and it has 3.3 million members.

So, How many people are in social media? It should be around 5 billion people. The world has 8 billion people.  Facebook has 3 billion monthly active users or in other words, they log in Facebook at least once a month. It is a massive number. Here, people get connected to one another, write posts, react to posts, photos and videos. You can open a page or like and follow a page. You can open a group or join a group. You can watch long videos or reels (short videos). In short, if you want then you can spend 10-12 hours a day in Facebook.

Youtube is a very popular social media website in which More than Two and a half billion people, login, every month. It is a video sharing website in which many people upload their videos and Millions of people enjoy them. Since uploading and watching video is free of cost, There is always millions of people in YouTube every day. You can find all kinds of videos- educational, informational, entertaining, boring, funny, news, views, songs and anything you can imagine they have it. Many people spend endless hours every day here. It is a form of addiction that can disrupt your normal life.

Tiktok is a video app created by the Chinese company Byte Dance. It has 1.2 billion monthly active users. Mostly, short videos under one minute are uploaded by users around the world.  At first, it became popular manly for the funny short videos but gradually,  all kind of videos started to gain momentum. Now, Tiktok has become a serious threat for Facebook and YouTube.

This videos are highly addictive, and many people spend hours and hours every day just to enjoy them. Tiktok has been banned in different countries for different reasons.

Instagram started its journey in 2010 and become extremely popular within a very short time. It got 10 million registered users within just 1 year. Facebook acquired  Instagram with 1 billion dollar in 2012 and after that Instagram  become more popular. it is a great social media for photos and videos. However, it has some dark and negative sides as many users get depressed by looking at attractive photos of other users. They suffer from an inferiority complex. Can you blame a company for the behaviors of its users? Yes and No. Instagram has not taken any serious step to address the issue.

When it comes to messaging, WhatsApp is the most popular app with 2 billion monthly active users. It came into existence in 2009. The first few years did not go very smoothly for the app and the company. In 2014, Facebook acquired WhatsApp for US$19 billion. After that, the app became even more and more popular. Many people are addicted with WhatsApp in the level that they often lose touch with the real world. In India, the term WhatsApp University has gained wide use in the most negative sense. It simply indicates the fake information and knowledge derived from other WhatsApp users that people view as more credible than universities and mainstream media.

Snapchat is extremely popular among the young generation and it has 800 million monthly active users. it is very popular among the American young people and many of them are addicted in the extreme level and spend too much of their time. it is like having a different word in which they are living and they are cut off from the real world.

Snapchat started its journey in 2011. Since it is very popular among the teenagers, when they get addicted, it is the parents who suffer even more than them. Controlling and restraining children from excessive use of Snapchat has become a problem for many parents in America.

So, you can see that most of the social media websites are extremely addictive as users spend a lot of time here. of course it is the users who are ultimately responsible for their own activities in any website. you cannot blame a website or a company for what you do online. However, the social media companies are always looking for new ways to increase user experience and engagement so that they can earn more money. Yes, almost all of the social media websites do not charge any money from the users but they earn their revenue from displaying advertisements.

After all, they are just for profit companies and their main goal is to increase their revenue and profit. To do so, they have to ensure that their users spend a lot of time within the website or app. More login, more views, more likes, more messages, more comments- yes, only this can bring more money for the companies. So, they need your time and engagement to make more money. You are the product and your time is valuable for them.

Now, let us come to the important question of how to get rid of such addiction. First of all, you have to accept that a problem exists and there is no quick fix or solution that you can become get rid of such addiction overnight. Most people actually struggle to accept the situation or addiction and they think that it is not abnormal because many people around them are using social media websites day and night. They are updating their Lifestyle related news and people around them are reacting and reacting to the posts. They feel that it is a normal and natural part of everyday life.

You have to talk to yourself and convince your mind that it is a serious problem. Why did you become active in social media? Is there any particular reason? Which part of social media activities do you enjoy most? If you can find answers to these questions, then it will become easier to deal with the addiction. I have already stated that I became active in social media because I had to promote e-CAB or e-Commerce Association of Bangladesh. I enjoyed Facebook because here I could promote and implement some of my ideas by bringing under a lot of people in a Facebook Group.

I got addicted with Facebook because I wanted to prove that you can use Internet even Facebook for good causes. People can learn in Facebook and even do business with f-Commerce. Sadly, I got too much carried away and sacrificed my sleep for many years. I used to stay awake whole night and read many posts in Facebook, think about what they say and feel and then motivate or guide them to a common cause. For example, under my guidance, many people could improve their Bangla Typing skill. They formed habit of reading newspapers and classic books.

At first, quitting social media can become quite a painful experience. I have experienced it for the last 3 days. Suddenly, you will feel that your life is empty and you have no peace and happiness. You are out of energy and life is boring, dull and hopeless. You are curious about the people you follow in social media. What are they doing now? Do they miss you? If you just avoid social media only for 100 days then you may find yourself in another world like Rip Van Winkle. If you reduce your social media time by 90% then you will feel extremely tired and out of energy.

if you spend 6-7 hours a day in social media, then after quitting, the first thing that you have to encounter will be what to do with so much free time now. You have simply lost habit of doing any other type of work while you are addicted to social media. Even many of us lose the habit of watching a hour long movie because with excessive use of social media we lose the ability to focus on any work that takes more than 10 minutes. So, what I am doing is that instead of spending anytime in Facebook at all, I am trying to write this long article in a single day.

My initial target was to write for 2000 words but now I feel that I will be able to write 2500 words in a single day. Yes, I miss all the Facebook updates and reading all the posts but writing is something that I always enjoyed in my life. Because of becoming addicted to Facebook, I lost the habit of trying to write about anything 100 words at a stretch. if I could just keep writing 1000 words everyday then by now I would have become a very successful writer at least in my own country.  Anyway, I am very happy that today I am writing almost 2500 words today.

if you quit social media or reduce the time that you spend by 90% then the first thing you will notice is complete lack of energy both physical and mental.  You may even feel depressed and gloomy, but believe me, this is not real depression or real problem.  Instead, it is a sign of improvement and  you are coming out of the addiction.  Just tell yourself repeatedly that you are doing a very good thing and there is light at the end of the tunnel.  I am trying to repeatedly tell myself that from now on I will become a serious writer.

You have to find the alternative and think in advance about what you will do when you quit social media. otherwise you will become so much demotivated and depressed you will be forced to go back to your social media addiction. For the first few days or even few weeks, you will simply be out of energy and will find it difficult to focus on anything else.

Always remember that you developed your social media addiction by spending time for many hours’ month after month.  Therefore, it will take time to get out of it. However, be optimistic that you will come out of it sooner or later.

You should try to visualize about the aftermath of coming out of social media addiction. Just imagine what good things can happen once you give up your social media addiction. You can have a lot of free time to do some other works. You can have free time for exercising, reading, doing something that is your hobby etc. This visualization is very important will give you mental relief.

Getting rid of social media attention does not mean that you have get rid of it totally. You just limit your time to more logical and period. You can limit yourself to just one hour. You can think of participating in groups that help you to learn something or related to your career or hobby. Even there, you should not spend more than one hour. If you are a student, then do not think that you have a lot of free time to waste. You have to study about 5-6 subjects. If you are not serious about your studies, then there is a good chance that you will suffer in your career.

Look, remember that social media companies like Facebook, YouTube spend billions of dollars to keep people like you and me in their website or app. They have the smartest engineers and marketers to do their job. So, it is very difficult to get out of the addiction because they are investing heavily to keep us addicted. So, it is not easy to get out of the addiction but if you really want then you can do it. Try to visualize that you can do it then you will really be able to come out of the addiction.

Finally, I started writing this post almost 10 hours ago. I just kept on writing 100-200 words and thus, after 10 hours I am heading towards 2500 words. This is an article that will be read by hundreds of people who are looking for a way to get rid of social media addiction. However, sadly, most of them will not read more than 2-3 paragraphs. If you have come to the end, I think that there is a strong chance of winning the battle. So, believe in yourself and keep on trying. 

Why am I a Hobby Economist?

 Is there anything called hobby economist? Google gave me the following definition:

It's someone who enjoys learning about and discussing economic principles, trends, and events, but doesn't work as an economist or have formal qualifications in the field.

This really describes me and my passion for business and economics for the last 30 years or even more. So, I am talking about 1995 and those days, we did not have Internet. So, BBC World Service Radio was the best source of getting information about business and economy. I do not have any formal academic degree in this field but I have got the passion to pursue it for many years.

I used to write in newspapers and magazines in Bangladesh about international affairs and naturally I used to cover about business related topics and events. Then, I started writing about Information Technology in 1999 and I mainly covered about the business aspects of IT since I was not a tech guy.

I studied English Literature and then English Language Teaching (ELT) but I know that I have spent more time on economics than any other field.

Then in 2005, I opened my first blog in Blogpost and it was called Asianbiz. It helped me to land a work with California based Know More Media with their blog called SouthAsiaBIz and then IndianRaj. It was fun for me to write about South Asian Business and Economy. For five years, I wrote about Sotth Asian business.

I enjoyed writing about all the 7 countries of South Asia but wrote mostly about India as it was easy for me to find news about Indian economy. In 5 years, my 4 blogs about South Asia had I guess 7-8 thousand posts. Yes, I had two bloggers with me. I felt that my passion about economy has helped me a lot to write and enjoy writing about South Asian business.

In 2014, my life took a sudden turn and I became the founder president of e-Commerce Association of Bangladesh. Then for the next year, I become totally involved with e-Commerce and f-commerce (Facebook based commerce or business) in Bangladesh. I wrote at least 10 thousand posts in Facebook, gave many Interviews in newspapers and TV channels, spoke in at least 10 universities, took online classes and workshops etc.

 If you search my name in Google and Facebook with the word e-CAB or e-Commerce then you will notice how much I was active for 10 years. Well the only problem is that I did 99% of the works in my own language Bangla. So, you have to search in Bangla.

I attended almost 1 thousand events, meetings online and offline and all of them were about e-Commerce. I was particularly vocal about the matter that e-Commerce will become the driving force of Bangladeshi economy. Many people used to laugh at me during 2014-2016 but then many of them were forced to adopt some form of online business during Covid 19 in the year 2020.

So, for the last 20 years I have been actively related to the field of business and economics. It gives me a lot of satisfaction to remember the achievements of past 20 years. Now, I have started my journey again as a blogger. I want to write about business and economy again with all my passion. I’m optimistic that this time I will achieve a lot of success with my writing. I also want to make videos for YouTube and speak in different universities and in tv channels about this topic.

Going back to the original topic of why I am a hobby economist, I hope that I have been able to address the issue quite well. Now, I have decided to take this matter very seriously and become a full time Hobby economist. Actually, I have decided to become a full time writer and I will mostly write about business topic. My journey starts with this blog and I will take this matter very seriously. It is like a do or die type matter for me. Yes, I want to become successful but more than that I want to dedicate my life for it.

At my age , most people think of retiring in life and have a peaceful life but I have found my passion again and I want to try for my dream with all my heart. I know that if I can spend 10 to 12 hours a day then success will come. I just want to try my best and do not have any regret.

I want to write articles about different countries and I want to write about different industries. I want to forget everything else and just focus on my writing. I had a dream of coming out with some new theories but I failed. At this age, I’m not sure that if I can do it but I surely want to spend every hour of my life for my writing.

I know that writing is a very lonely type of work and most people are not interested to read about business and economy. How about, I do not care about it but I just want to keep on writing and keep on reading. I know how to use Facebook for promoting my activities and that is why I know that if I can do something then thousands of people will read about it.

I just want to write and write every day. I know that In our time, most people are not interested to read long articles but I do not want to feel discouraged from this. I want to keep on trying and try my best.

I am very happy to write a thousand-word long blog post now. It has taken one hour but I felt that it has motivated me a lot to start my journey as a hobby economist. May be, one day, 10 thousand people will read this post and I welcome you in advance.

 

10 Important Useful life Lessons

 No matter how old we are, we need to have some ideas to move forward in life. These lessons in life can make or break our life. We search for lessons from others. Fortunately, in this age of Internet, Google can give you a lot of life lessons but the problem is that we have lost habit of reading a long article.   

1. Health is really important: You see I used to be physically super active until the age of 25 but after finishing university education, I became lazy and became obsessed with anything related to sitting on a chair. I regret it a lot as I could not utilize my full potential in life and career. If I could go back in time, then I would never neglect my health even for a single day.

2. Money Talks: While money may not be the solution for all of your problems but if you have enough money then you can deal with most challenges with ease. So, do not neglect your work. I know that creative people often lose their track and suffer mental burnout or reach to a dead end. It happens when you try too much to do something but you fail or you cannot move forward.

3. Relationships are valuable: Many people are unhappy despite having a happy marriage life or a supporting family. They often seek fame and fortune at the cost of family life. It happens to many people and they later regret. It is a kind of trade off you should avoid if you want to be happy.

4. Life is not easy: Life is full of ups and downs. You cannot always have smooth days. The challenges in life should be embraced with peace and happiness because after it you will have a better phase. If you study seriously and regularly then you will get good grades. If you are hardworking and attentive in your job then you will get promotion and earn more money.

5. Reading can be your biggest wealth: Many people stop reading from the day they finish their university education. This is a suicidal thing as it can only bring misery in your job and life. You will notice that you are finding it difficult to adjust with new ideas, new technology and young people. You may get stuck in your 20s forever. Try to read even if it is for just 10-15 minutes a day. Even this can help you more than you can imagine.

6. Try to accept reality: You are not a popular person at college or in your office. No problem. Most people are like you. Only 10% people may get popular and famous but for the rest 90% life is normal but that should not make you depressed.

7. You can bounce back at any age: Many of us give up at the age of 30 if they do not have a good career and good income. They fail to look at the fact that you will retire at the age of 60. So, you have 30 full years ahead of you to try. So, do not give up. Really, you should not give up and keep on trying.

8. Life can change: We have some aim in life from childhood. May be you wanted to be a doctor but you have become a graphics designer. Many of us put too much emotion on our goals and get heart broken when we fail. It is ok to fail and even get sad but do not get depressed for a long time. It will only make your life more miserable.

9. Use your experience: If you can use your experience in life then you will surely become successful and happy one day. You see, our experience tells us what to do and not to do, whom to avoid etc. So, if you can learn from your failures then it becomes a part of your experience.

10. Focus on your life: Remember one thing- in the end it is you who has to live your own life. You will have some people here and there traveling with you but hardly anyone will stay with you for a long time. So, focus on your life or else you will face many problems.

“I don't know the secret to success, but the secret to failure is trying to please everyone” - Bill Cosby.

Finally, life can be great or miserable. It is not  a problem. If you can remain calm then bad times will pass and good times will become great. 

Can Lip-Bu Tan change Intel’s Ailing Fortune?

 Lip-Bu Tan is the new CEO of Intel. It has come at a time when Intel is struggling in all fronts. It is no longer the sole market leader in chip making industry. Its long time rival AMD is no longer the distant competitor it once was. Then came Nvidia and managed to make chips for AI technology and is now the market leader.

So, Lip-Bu Tan has got the job of CEO at a very tough time. Just 3 months ago, Pat Gelsinger was forced to resign after Intel suffered massive loss in revenue and as a result, share prices took a huge beating:

Why did directors conclude Gelsinger’s plan was not working? Many reasons, including insufficient revenue from chip manufacturing contracts with Microsoft and Amazon, a 33 percent drop in Intel’s revenue, and a 66 percent plunge in the company’s stock price under his tenure, noted CTech, as well as a $16.6 billion loss in the quarter ending in Q3 2024, according to CNBC.

 Things look only bad at the moment. 15% of workforce is to be removed and that cut down in jobs is not a good news for a company like Intel. Intel did not do enough to address the growing market of smartphones during 2006-16 and its failure here has now come back to haunt them as smart phone has become a lucrative market for the tech companies.

So, is there any good news for Lip-Bu Tan. Yes, there is. There has been a sense of relief to have a CEO and its stock jumps 12%.

So, all the best for Lip-Bu Tan to change things for Intel. 

Top Ten Fast Food Items in The World

When it comes to Fast food, we have the idea that the food is not expensive but tasty. Fast Food is more or less an American invention during the 20^th century and it became popular all over the world due to American fast food giants like McDonalds, Pizza Hut etc. It is a multi-billion industry globally. Food items like burger, pizza, hot dog are perhaps more popular than any other food items. The market has still a lot of room for growth in Asia and Africa. Here, I have made a list of 10 most popular fast food items.

Chicken Nuggets

Chicken nugget came into existence during 1950s. There is no bone in a nugget. Flesh of a chicken is either fried or baked. It is extremely popular not in the US but also in many parts of the world. People eat in large quantity despite the fact that it is not healthy at all. For health conscious people, there is vegetable nuggets offered in some restaurants.

People like chicken nuggets mostly because they are crispy and not spicy. However, as they are not healthy, many people are trying to eat less and this can have a negative impact on the sales of chicken nuggets.

Taco

Taco is a popular Mexican food item that has become popular in many parts of the world including the United States. In Taco what we have first is a tortilla (flat bread) and then meat and other ingredients on and finally folded. It has to be eaten with your hands instead of knife and forks. The bread part is common and then you have meat, vegetables, cheese, fish etc to eb added to make a taco.

It is one of the most popular street foods in the world. Have you heard of the name Taco Bell? They sell many varieties of tacos.

Doughnut

I had no idea that Doughnut is so popular- In the U.S. alone, more than 10 billion donuts are made every year. It is a sweet snack with pershaps German or Dutch origin. The credit of spreading and making it popular in the US has to be with the Dutch people. It contains a lot of sugar and may not be so healthy for many people. Then, almost all the popular fast food items to some degree unhealthy to many people.

Soft Drinks

I wanted to write about milk shakes but I feel that soft drinks are much more popular. You have Coke, Fanta, Sprite, Pepsi, 7Up, Mirinda, Mountain Dew. 1.9 billion of servings are sold for Coca Cola alone. For Pepsi, the number is around 1 billion servings a day. There are nearly 8 billion people on earth. Needless to say that they are unhealthy yet people love them and they get addicted. It is very difficult to come out of the addiction. Coke and Pepsi spent millions of dollars in sponsorship in all kinds of events.

Pizza

Pizza is a well-known and popular food. Although it is an Italian dish, it has now spread to various countries around the world. The main ingredients for making pizza include flatbread, tomato, onion, mozzarella cheese, green chili, and tomato sauce. However, people can customize it with their preferred choice of fish, meat, or vegetables. In this way, different countries have adapted pizza to match their local flavors, culture, and traditions, making it their own.

Although Pizza is originally an Italian food, capital of Argentina, Buenos Aires, the city with the highest consumption of pizzas in the world, is known as “Capital of Pizza”. In the United States alone, 3 billion pizzas are sold every year.

Hot Dog

Hot dogs are a favorite fast food for almost all of us. Interestingly, every year on July 4th, a hot dog eating competition is held at Nathan’s, a restaurant in New York. A hot dog primarily consists of a sliced, long-shaped bun filled with a steamed or grilled sausage, garnished with complementary sauces like mayonnaise. Initially, hot dog sausages were imported from Germany, but they are sold the most in America. You might be surprised to know that in 2024, frozen frankfurter sausages were sold for $222.37 million in America, which is the main ingredient of hot dogs.

Sandwich

The word "sandwich" might make one wonder about the connection between an old witch and sand, and how it became the name of a food. However, it is a heavy yet easily portable meal, usually eaten for lunch or dinner. It is a favorite among children. A sandwich can be made by placing any preferred ingredients such as eggs, vegetables, fish, or meat between two slices of bread. Since there are endless possibilities for sandwich variations, the exact number of types worldwide is unknown. According to Cognitive Market Research, the global sandwich market is expected to grow at an average rate of 5.50% per year between 2023 and 2030.

Burger

Burger is perhaps the most popular item in the fast food sector. It has a market size of US$73 billion. There are more than 50,000 restaurants in USA that sell mainly burgers. They are called burger joints. They have huge annual sales in the US. McDonald’s is famous for their burgers. Then, there is Burger King.

Burger is basically a food in which a meat patty is included inside a round bread. Cheese, onion, sauce are also added. Many people love cheese burgers but then there are some people who are not fond of adding cheese.

French Fries

French Fries can be referred to as "fried potatoes." In terms of origin, they were found in the city of Nacimiento, Chile, in the year 1632. Although French Fries are a popular food in Commonwealth countries, they are also commonly included in lunch and dinner menus across various countries worldwide.

French Fries are made by peeling potatoes, cutting them into long strips, and deep-frying them. They are often double-fried to make them crispy and are served with salt, sauce, mayonnaise, ketchup, or vinegar.

In terms of production, McCain is the leading producer of French Fries, as it supplies fries to McDonald's. You might be surprised that between April and October of 2024 alone, India exported 106,506 tons of French Fries, worth ₹1,056.92 crore. This is because India is the second-largest potato-producing country in the world. Nowadays, French Fries are commonly prepared in households as well.

Fried Chicken

It’s hard to find someone who doesn’t enjoy fried chicken. Although this dish originated in America, it is now known as a tasty food in almost every country. Despite being deep-fried, it is a protein-rich food because of the chicken. The chicken is usually marinated with mild spices, coated with flour or batter, and then deep-fried in oil.

The reason fried chicken is so beloved by everyone is its crispy texture on the outside and juicy tenderness on the inside.

The biggest company in the fried chicken industry is KFC. The market size of fried chicken franchises was $52.25 billion in 2024 and is expected to reach $73.15 billion by 2033. Fried chicken is such a delicious food that its demand will continue to rise, and the production of broiler chickens is closely tied to this growing demand.