Comments on: What Fire Finance’s Top 100 PF Blog List Can Teach Us About Investing, Bestsellers and Cheerleaders

By: Greg Go / Wise Bread

Greg Go / Wise Bread — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 23:40:43 +0000

re: luck factor

I hate the idea that luck plays a major role in the success of a pf blog (or really, any venture). I hate the idea not because I don’t think luck plays any role in success, but because it’s out of our control. And if our successes (and failures) are largely out of our control, why bother playing the game?

Am I destined to be rich or poor? Famous or forgotten? If destiny holds the final decision, then I might as well just sit here watching TV until destiny figures it out — my guess, however, is that if I’m waiting for destiny to decide, then the outcome is that I will be poor and forgotten.

I prefer to assume that everyone gets a more-or-less equivalent share of luck (ie., totally random opportunities appearing), and that the difference between success and failure is how to choose to “spend” that lucky opportunity.

By: DR

DR — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 21:36:52 +0000

Radford, you make a good point. From an investing perspective, though, it would be very difficult to predict the winners. If you look at the top 10 pf blogs, however measured, their writing styles vary greatly.

By: Radford Emerson Personal Finance

Radford Emerson Personal Finance — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 08:58:35 +0000

A factor that may play into the success of the top blogs, is that the style in which they are written causes readers to connect with the publisher, either allowing them to identify with their lifestyle or personal finance style as being similar to theirs, or motivating them to duplicate their methods and improve their habits. All of this will tend to cause “word of mouth advertising” or I suppose that would be “link advertising” to happen. People will read what they are comfortable with, and they will talk or write about it. Of course this is only dealing with content, all of the other technical site boosters also have to come together to drive traffic to your site. I do think that content is the most important to keep readers, but I suppose that also depends on what your motivation is for publishing a PF blog.

By: DR

DR — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 12:01:56 +0000

If that’s the required combination, I guess you can count me out

By: Shadox

Shadox — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 05:34:03 +0000

Napoleon said: “Give me a lucky general”.

My uncle, may he rest in peace, used to say: “Better to be rich and healthy than sick and poor.”

Personally, I think that being lucky, talented, healthy and rich is a great combination. Get all four and you are virtually assured a place in the top 10 PF blogging list…

By: DR

DR — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 14:42:57 +0000

Jon, you make a good point, and it is a limitation of all index funds. Even in a market weighted S&P 500 fund, when number 501 becomes 500, it gets bought and the former 500 gets sold. I still prefer a market weighted index fund, though, because it better reflects the allocation of capital.

FYI, Jon hails from http://patientinvesting.blogspot.com/ and if you’ve never visited his blog, you should. I particularly enjoy the “dontclickit” link in the right sidebar.

By: Jon

Jon — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 14:13:15 +0000

Sometimes equal-weight funds may be a better investment choice. Consider this point: In a fund weighted by market cap, as stock price goes up the fund buys more, then as it goes down it sells — buy high and sell low! In an equal-weight fund, you buy more when the price goes down and sell when it goes up.

Sometimes that would be a bad idea, like when there are many, many risky companies (VTSMX). But in something like the S&P500 or DJIA, where pretty much all the companies are fairly solid, it’s an attractive proposition.

By: DR

DR — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 23:31:51 +0000

I wonder if they could replicate their success with a new blog. My point here is not that successful blogging is all about luck. The top 10 have worked extremely hard to achieve what they have. And they have found ways to connect with many readers. But so much more must come together to achieve such success, and timing is critical. Trying to repeat that same success today given the number of PF blogs would present a formidable challenge.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 14:59:58 +0000

Interesting article. I think as with everything else luck does play a factor, but I enjoy all the blogs in the top 10 and I think they are obviously doing many things correctly and would be able to replicate much of their success if they started fresh.

I believe the content on my site is good, but I know that as a blogger, I do not do many other things as well as I could – such as network with other bloggers as much as I should, use social networking sites, design a good theme, maximize use of plugins, program/code, etc. There is a lot more to blogging than just content, though content should remain the most important.

The good thing is — I am working on all these things!

By: DR

DR — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 23:08:18 +0000

Paidtwice, it’s both in my opinion. Being a top blogger on any subject takes a lot of hard work, writing talent that appeals to a large audience, and so on. But to get to the top, I do think certain things are required that are outside of the blogger’s control. What are those things? It varies from one situation to another. But it proves the saying that the harder you work, the luckier you become.