Whelp friends, we hit 5 Million page views earlier this month! How awesome is that? :) That’s almost a million for each year I’ve been blogging – pretty sick stuff (we’ve also had over 1,850 articles published and over 50,000 comments! CRAZY!!). I can kinda get now when people say “the first million is always the hardest,” haha… it’s true at least in the blogging world!
With all these changes in my life lately, I’ve also been asking myself what the future will/should hold in terms of this blog. When you’ve been around the block for a few years certain questions start bubbling up, and at some point you have to listen to them. Things like, “Is this blog still doing what it was meant to do?” “Are people getting anything from it still?” “Am *I* getting anything from it still?” “Should I spend more time growing it or less?” And on and on…
Now I don’t know the answers to all of them, but I can tell you I’m not ready to stop just yet regardless of the answers :) I do still enjoy rambling on to you folks, and I love confusing people when I tell them I blog full-time for a living, haha… And I DO think it’s still doing what it was supposed to back in the day – which is:
To start conversations about money in an open and friendly environment.
It may not have been that way at first (I was just trying to keep myself busy at work instead of getting on MySpace 24/7! Which tells you how long I’ve been blogging for, haha..), but over the years that’s what I’ve turned its mission to. Chatting about the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to our personal finances. Or rather, MY personal finances. I forget there was a time when I thought it was taboo to spill it all out in the open ;) It’s much more fun aired out!
I also have to point out that after all these years the level of haters here still remains at an incredibly low level. Almost non-existent even, which is a tribute to YOU guys and shows y’all have some good respect for your fellow financial neighbor. I’m amazed at all the blogs I go to where people are bashing each other left and right, and I’m just SO thankful we don’t have any of that nastiness here on this site. We may get heated at times and disagree (which is great!! We love passion and perspectives!) but rarely do I have to go in and delete someone’s nonsense.
SO THANKS TO ALL OF YOU FOR BEING SO COURTEOUS AND NICE!!! There’s no way I’d still be blogging if I had to deal with jokers all day and night. You guys really are the best, I mean it.
In fact, here… Let dig up my old prize for people I used to hand out back in 2008. These were fun to make when I had like a billion extra hours every week to play ;) Here you go:
Click the picture or download it, and then print! Extra brownie points for snapping a picture of it on your wall or fridge or somewhere else cool :) It’s the little things in life that turn me on, haha…
So I think things will stay business as usual here for the most part, but I do want to figure out a way to add even MORE ways to get the convos flowing better. Perhaps by adding a forum of some sort on the site? Or some other doodad where we can all get to learn from each other more and share ideas? I know the point of blogs is usually to get one person’s perspective on stuff, but I feel like adding an extra level on that to continue the conversations would be even sexier. Maybe a more secretive place where we can share that’s even more private? (cue evil laugh) I dunno…
What do you think about that? Would you participate if we started some sort of forum here? I’m going to research it more and see what I can come up with… In the meantime, keep on sharing your thoughts in the comments as they really are the heart of this whole operation here. I’m just the guy who kicks it off and helps you waste a little time at work ;) You know, instead of getting on MySpace.
On a side note, this site now qualifies as the longest job I’ve ever held in my entire life. Pretty wild.
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[Awesome t-shirt pic by Rochelle, just rochelle]
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Congratulations! One million is awesome, but five million is amazing. I am only a fairly recent commenter, but I enjoy your stories and content. Here is to another five million in the next 2 years!
Thank you so much! And for always participating too :)
Congratulations on finding success in something you love! I never was into blogs until I discovered this one. I guess it’s right up my alley. A forum would be awesome, but might attract haters. It’s worth a try though! What’s the worst that can happen?
haha that’s true. glad you now enjoy blogs!
Congrats on the pageviews! That’s awesome! As far as a forum, it’d be a lot of work but I enjoy going through them every once in a while :) You’d need a moderator or else it’ll take up a ton of your time.
are you applying for it? ;)
Firstly, congratulations on 5 million. Now if only you could trade in those page views for $’s…
Forums would be neat at first , but I think after a few months its use would dramatically drop off. As a reader, I love reading about other readers situations and setting the comments section jump in with opinions and help. What about if instead of doing boring old forums, you change the game up by providing sub-blogs for readers who have a story to tell about their path to financial success. I think the gawker network uses something called kinja and it has a more fluid comment system that had a user level blog. I haven’t used it yet, but that was what I could gleam from their explanation of what it was.
Just a thought
oh cool, okay – I’ll check it out. hadn’t heard of kinja before but I do check out Gawker here and there. and I think that’s really at the end of the day what’s best about all this online blog stuff – hearing stories and ideas from real-life people and not companies or people with agendas 24/7. so i most def. like the idea of sub-blogs, thanks :)
Wow, big congrats on the pageviews sir – that’s freaking awesome! I think the forum could be a great idea, though I would tend to agree with Lance that you’d likely need a moderator of some sort so it does not become a massive time suck.
yeah, you guys bring up some good points. hadn’t thought that far into it yet (or have ever run one) so I’m glad I threw it out there to get some good feedback!
Congrats on 5 million. That is awesome!
Congrats on the 5 million views! Wow!
I think a forum would be awesome — would definitely help those of us trying to get the foundations of our financial plans (i.e. trying to get back to a positive net worth, basic savings, etc.) find support from those that have gone through it before.
Those are awesome stats! I’m just finishing my first year of blogging. Can’t imagine having done it for five. I enjoy what I read here so hope you continue. Congrats again!
I couldn’t imagine it either when at year one :) I do hope you continue to enjoy it and get your thoughts out though! It really can be life changing and lead you to all sorts of new opportunities.
Congrats, man! You’re one of the good ones, for sure. I remember the first time I read your stuff, I was like “I hate finance, but at least this guy makes it interesting. I think I’ll be business partners with him and talk to him every dang day for the next 3 years.”
(Okay I didn’t say that last part, but it happened, and I’m happy with that. :) )
HAH!! Much better than my first thoughts about you ;)
“MAN this guy is good – I hate him.”
Haha… And now here we are best friends! Love it bro. And I love you too. Couldn’t ask for a better biz partner :)
Congrats on 5 million! That’s an awesome accomplishment. As for a forum or something similar, I think that it would be interesting and may be beneficial. It all depends on how many people read and post to it, though, which you won’t know unless you try it.
Congrats to 5 years and 5 million views!
Congrats on 5 million! I love your blog!
J,
Love your blog so much–just became a follower!!
;-)
Leona
Awesome! Thanks for stopping by :)
I rather leave a short comment: Congratulations on the success of your blog. That surely confirms the fact that folks like it.
Congrats J, you rock my world.
P.S. I would absolutely participate in a forum here.
Wow, 5 million?! Congrats! Double-congrats to it being your longest job ever.
I’m with everyone else who thinks a forum is a great idea, as long as it still upholds the values of the site.
It would def. be along the same lines, for sure. Probably a lot more work than it looks too, haha…
Wow, congratulations! 5 million pageviews!?! You’re my absolute hero.
Congrats on 5 years! :)
I laughed out loud when I read the picture at the top. Congratulations on all your hard work!
It’s great, right? :) I need that shirt.
That is an incredible amount. Congratulations on the volume and your longevity
Nice work on the page views. Great accomplishment. When I used to run a forum, there was so much spam, it got out of hand. Even the moderator didn’t want to do it, so you would have to be careful of that.
Even the moderator didn’t want to do it?? Haha.. wow. That’s not very comforting!
Congratulations. Here’s to a million more! I do love this site a lot! Also, where can I get that t-shirt??
I don’t know but I want it too!
Congratulations! 5 million is amazing! Kudos to all your hard work and time keeping this blog fun and interesting.
CONGRATULATIONS! I’m hitting the one year mark and JUST starting to head into the world of monetization. Thank goodness for the people that came before me, otherwise I’d have no clue what I was doing (not that I really do anyway ;)
Haha… don’t worry, I still learn stuff now that I should have 5 years ago ;) You can never stop tweaking/learning/growing w/ blogs, that’s for sure. There’s always something!
(And congrats on hitting 1 year – you bet out 95% of every other blogger!)