In preparation for another post I just went through my RSS reader reviewing my list of investment bloggers that I follow. I noticed a large number of bloggers who for whatever reason have stopped blogging.* There has always been a fair amount of turnover in the blogging ranks, but for whatever reason it seems like the number of active, quality finance bloggers seems to be in decline.
It could be the case that more bloggers are ducking behind paywalls and subscriptions newsletters. For some time now I have seen a rise in the representation of professional blogs in the daily linkfest. In contrast at least among professional economists it seems like blogging is in some ascendency. Nobel prize winners are just as likely to blog as their colleagues are.
A number of explanations come to mind:
- Other outlets for expression like StockTwits, Twitter, Tumblr, etc. have displaced blogging;
- The economy is getting better and bloggers have found full-time gigs;
- The markets are such a mess that erstwhile blogger have found better things to do with their time;
- Professional bloggers have displaced the efforts of amateurs;
- Insert your best explanation ___________.
For better or worse the benefits of blogging really only accrue over the long run. Of course anybody can make a splash with a controversial blog post or two but it takes a while to really see results. I suppose the same could be said for investing as well.
I hope that that this is just a cyclical low versus some some sort of secular decline in investing. Am I missing something? If you have some insight please feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments.
*I don’t want to single out individual bloggers because people stop blogging for all sorts of good reasons.
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Update: Here is a Storify round-up of some reactions to this post.
