Every 100 posts or so, I take a step back and think about where I have been, and maybe, where things are heading. ?This time, things are a little different.
It started when there was a series of articles published where they were measuring the amount of social media influence various RIAs that blog have. ?The early ones placed me twelfth, and then one placed me fourth, without making a big thing?that the group was limited to RIAs. ?At present (thanks Michael Kitces!), I may be ranked fifth, for what it is worth.
That said, I don’t blog to be at or near the top of anyone’s rankings. ?I’ve learned over the years that blogging is a fickle thing. ?It’s one reason why I keep a wide variety of topics on hand, because those that specialize in one area (such as scandal or crisis) get put out to pasture when everything normalizes.
After that, I decided to write one post to explain my blog to those who were new readers, because there were a lot of them. ?Okay, that was the last century post. ?For what it is worth, that one was around 2530, and this one around 2615.
In the middle of this, I decided to update the WordPress software at my blog, and improve the ability of people to comment here using Jetpack, enhance social sharing, and allow people to log in using WordPress, among other things. ?If the ability to use my blog as a reader hasn’t improved, please let me know.
Then another weird thing happened. ?Yahoo Finance finally decided to cleanse the shire, and tossed out what I felt were a number of subpar content providers. ?That’s when I noticed the replacement which was Yahoo Finance Contributors. ?I asked to be admitted, and I was happily waved in.
What I didn’t expect was that it would roughly double the readers coming to?my blog natively. ?Email and RSS are up also. ?I suspect that there will be some fall-off from these levels, but it is interesting to see this happen after 7.5 years of blogging and?a relatively stable audience over the last five years.
About the only change long time readers should see is a picture at the top of almost all of my pieces from now on, unless like this post, I am not sending it onto Yahoo Finance via my intermediary tumblr blog. ?Additional note: if you want to comment at my blog using DISQUS, it is operational on the tumblr site.
I don’t intend on changing anything else at this blog — not topics, style, etc. ?I remain happy to answer questions via blog posts, and I have a number of book reviews coming, but the one thing I don’t have any more of are long series of posts on a related topic. ?I think all of those are out of my system.
As I end many of these memorial posts, I thank you for spending time on my blog reading my musings. ?I hope you always find it valuable, but I realize there are seasons in life, so if you eventually find me not as useful, well, that’s normal for many. ?My topics change over time, usually in sync with the markets. ?Phrasing it another way, if you find me less useful, you might want to check back in when?market events change, because you might find me relevant again (or not).
One final note: if anyone knows a cartoonist that might like to work with me, let me know. ?No guarantee that I will do anything there, but I have been musing about a few ideas. ?Bye for now!