One Guy's Investments: 10 Things I WILL Tell You ...

OK, so I just read a cute little article from SmartMoney entitled "10 Things Your Blogger Won't Tell You," one in a series of their small-time "exposes" of various businesses and operations (ie, 10 things your pet groomer won't tell you, 10 things your car dealer won't tell you, etc.)

And I've got a response to all of their 10 things, from the odd to the painfully obvious, and I'll lay them out here in the interest of full disclosure -- who are you going to believe, me or Dow Jones?

Here's what I say:

1. "Hardly anybody reads me"
This is undoubtedly true for me, too -- I'm well above what Eric Shmidt calls the average readership of 1, but far from Engadget and the big boys. According to my stats, I get anywhere from a couple hundred to about 1,500 visitors a day and have between 400-450 subscribers at the moment. That doesn't include all the people who read my stuff as republished at SeekingAlpha or elsewhere, the stats for which I have no way of knowing, but I don't kid myself into believing that I'm influencing the multitudes.

2. "The companies pay me, the more I like their stuff"
This is more or less about payola from PayPerPost and others -- I'd say it doesn't really apply to me, though I sell advertising space to Google, Washington Post/Newsweek Interactive, and Feedburner, and have sold small ads to other concerns, and have some other minor affiliate agreements with advertisers -- I get $20 for anyone who opens a SogoInvest account from my page, for example, or $1.50 for anyone who opens a free account from ADVFN from my page (though I think both services are valuable, I probably wouldn't link to them if I wasn't paid for it). I don't think hosting AdSense ads on my site means I'm biased in writing about my investment in Google, or that working through Commission Junction (that's the affiliate company I work with for SogoInvest, ADVFN and a few others from time to time) means I'm biased about their parent, ValueClick. Nothing that direct in my relationships, although I do get "paid", in some respects, when the companies I choose to invest in do well (not that their stock moving up or down has any relationship with my words, I'm sure).

3. "Did I mention I'm not a real reporter?"
Well, duh. See the name of my site -- I'm just one guy, I don't interview people or attempt to do journalism, and any editing of my words comes from republishers. The typos or other mistakes are all mine, unintentional though they may be, so caveat emptor. I've attained the SeekingAlpha "Gold Standard Certification" by promising to disclose my holdings and my identity and any conflicts of interest, but that definitely doesn't make me as reliable a source as the Wall Street Journal.

4. "I might infect your computer with a virus"
Jeez, I hope not. Definitely not on purpose. I guess I can't vouch for any advertising links I include, but they're all from reliable providers or are obviously plain old links to relevant websites so I'm not to worried. I pay for the hosting of this site and control that and I'm sure I'm not actively putting any malware or spyware or whatever out there.

5. "I'm revealing company secrets"
This doesn't probably apply to me, since I work in higher education and for a state agency -- though I do have to disclose this work to them every year. In the few cases where I have some relationship with a company I write about or own or one of its competitors, I try to disclose that (as with Blackboard, for example). I don't have any secrets to share, as far as I know, just a personal perspective that may or may not do you any good.

6. "Just because my name's on it doesn't mean I wrote it"
I'm afraid I wrote all the stuff on here, even the stuff that has later turned out to be very misguided ... with the exception of the comments and ad copy, and the one clearly labeled guest post I've so far hosted (I'm happy to host other guest posters who don't want to have their own blog, but I'll always disclose when the words aren't mine).

7. "My blog is just a stepping stone to bigger and better things"
I don't think I'm heading to anything bigger or better in this field -- I'm not a professional investor or investment advisor, I'm an academic who is likely to remain so. My blog is a way for me to share my perspective and, perhaps more importantly, to force some discipline on myself (if you have to write about something, odds are you're going to think about it more clearly). I'm not trying to win your brokerage account, or sell you a newsletter, though I'm happy to take your money if you want to donate to the cause by clicking on the PayPal button in the left sidebar (the cause being, paying for hosting this site and feeding my voracious Mentos habit).

8. "I can control what you see on the Internet"
I can't even control the barking of my own dog. I don't think I'm skewing search results, except for searches for my own site (which skewed the wrong direction when I moved on to my own domain a few months ago and forfeited my high pagerank).

9. "Blogging just about ruined my life"
Well, not yet -- but there's still time. Not writing about your job or employer, and not being personally offensive or radical, tends to downplay the likelihood of this. It may be a waste of time, but it's not ruining much.

10. "I'm already obsolete"
This is almost definitely true. I certainly write fewer posts per week than I used to when this was new, and now try to write only when I have something to say, a transaction to disclose and explain, or a stock or investment to think through (usually a few times a week instead of a few times a day). And my daugher is only 3, but I'm sure if you give her a few days to learn what "obsolete" means she'll readily agree that I'm the poster child for it.

Hey, I'm just one guy.