Today marks the ninth anniversary of the Abnormal Returns blog. In that time I have published some 4,800 posts and have garnered a dedicated following on Twitter and StockTwits. In that time I have noticed that the financial blogosphere is somewhat transient space. In short, it is deceptively easy to start a blog but devilishly difficult to keep it going. That is in part what I pay such close attention to the lessons learned by long-term bloggers.
In this post up at the Enterprising Investor I note some of these lessons by long time bloggers like Barry Ritholtz and Anil Dash. Not unlike the financial markets, we bloggers get out of our efforts what we put in. That it why it is heartening when I see younger bloggers like Ben Carlson of A Wealth of Common Sense and Patrick O’Shaughnessy of Millennial Invest enter the financial blogging game.
Looking back it is interesting that many of the first few bloggers who took note of what we were doing at Abnormal Returns are still around and kicking.
- Roger Nusbaum at Random Roger recently celebrated ten years at his blog.
- Eddy Elfenbein at Crossing Wall Street this summer celebrated a nine year blogiversary.
- Joe Weisenthal, formerly of The Stalwart, is a big shot at Business Insider.
- Dr. Brett Steenbarger is back up and running at a revitalized TraderFeed.
I am not sure what that says about us collectively. Either our tastes in financial content haven’t changed all that much or maybe those interested in grinding it out in the financial blogosphere are a small, self-selected bunch. Either way I am glad to have made this journey.
As I did last year take a few moments to to kick back and listen to this from Cracker. “Feel thankful for the small things today” and substitute “blogiversary” for “birthday”:
