I would like to take a moment to tell you about a blog I read on a daily basis: John Chow dot ComJohn Chow is a man who made a small fortune during the first dot com boom of the 90's. He weathered the bust years well and is still on top.
He runs several tech web sites but I'm not here to talk about those, I' here to tell you about his personal blog: John Chow dot Com.
John Chow dot Com is a very interesting blog. Unlike the millions of blogs that ramble and gush with a daily dose of nonsense John's blog is worth reading.
He covers technology issues, investing, what he has for diner...
Now, you might think he rambles and his blog is labeled, "The Miscellaneous Ramblings of a Dot Com Mogul" so you have to give him some credit for being up front about the issue.
John also makes it a point to respond in the comments of each article. It is not uncommon for a blog entry to reach 30 comments or more!
John also responds to questions sent in via email.
There is the occasional spelling or grammar error in his entries but he fixes them when notified and you can't blame him too much, he is Canadian after all...
Never the less, I suggest you read his blog.
Let me take a moment to tell you about some of my favorite blog entries that he has posted:
1) Banned from Digg - Yes, you read the title correctly, John was indeed banned from Digg. See, some people were getting jealous of the fact that so many posts on John's blog were making it to the Digg homepage so they banded together, marked him as spam and emailed Digg to complain about him. This resulted in him getting banned.
2) The Internet's Biggest Google Whores - This is the post that got me to read John's blog in the first place. It was also his first big hit on Digg! Prior to this entry (according to Alexa) John's blog had a very flat traffic pattern. This one entry brought his blog into the mainstream and kept it there. Even after being banned from Digg John has been able to keep his readership level high. Why? Because his blog is a good read!
3) Making Money with a Blog: October Recap - This was the beginning of his rise in revenue. If you look at this graph you can see the effects of getting on Digg. This is also the beginning of the "I hate John Chow" mob on Digg. Perhaps it was just jealousy on the part of others who knew they lacked the talent to be a success with blogging? We don't know for sure. What we do know is that John steadily increased his profits and began writing a series of articles teaching all of us how to follow in his footsteps.
4) A Time to Give Back - This post is for all of the jealous people out there. See, many folks complained about John "flaunting" his earnings and writing about his $1,300 diner parties. They saw him as wasting his money and being a show off. In this post he tells us just what he plans to do with his earnings... Donate them to charity. I tried to convince him that I was a charity case but to no avail, he gave the money to a real charity.
Well, I don't have much more to say than that. I highly suggest you read his blog and decide for yourself if his blog is worth adding to your RSS feed reader, it's on mine.
John Chow dot Com