Baker - fresh, cool, hip, young cat, who in a lot of ways is leading my dream life, and inspiring envy. JD eats up anything "international", although Kiwistan barely qualifies as foreign living. Would make a great addition to GRS; he is almost everything that JD is not, although a little rough around the edges and may need coaching to polish up and make more accessible.
Karawynn - Yawn ...
April Dykman - hit the ball out of the park with the first post, and definitely the most GRS-like. Being female definitely puts her at advantage, and she is the best writer in the group. I'm not convinced she could consistently turn out such high quality, (although I don't doubt either), I just need to see more.
A.J. Clark - Zzzz… student debt bloggers are a dime a dozen.
Lynn - Move along, nothing to see here.
Neal Frankle - guy who wears a suit, the reason JD needs him is because he is CFP. Problem is, his writing is boring, not even in a smug/arrogant way, but just corporate and soulless. Reminds me of Jon Katz. He managed to squeeze a comment out of me, though.
Jason Barr - He seemed a little bit too straight for me, also GRS-like but lacking a certain character and wit I would expect. He has potential, and also squeezed a comment out of me, but he is fairly generic.
I think JD is looking for the following in order of priority:
- With Children
- Female
- Young (20-something)
- Investment Knowledge
- Non-USA
I feel that the introduction of regular staff writing into GRS is a significant, and game-changing move in the personal finance blogs. I haven't seen this done on another blog. My prediction is that JD goes mostly into a manager/owner role, mostly steps away from writing much on GRS himself by the end of the year, and lets his staff writers take the spotlight and develop big. This will free him up to move on to bigger and better things. It also suggests consolidation in the blogging industry. I don't think it will have any impact on small independent blogs, but I think it could impact some of the top 10 bloggers as eyeballs get increasingly focused on a few big blogs instead of little blogs spread all over. I also doubt TSD will change anything, since Trent seems to prefer to do everything all by himself, and has almost no precedent for employing any sort of guest writers. In any case, sounds like lots of changes coming up, which should spice up the blogs a little bit, and make them better and more interesting.
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4 comments:
Pretty much agree with your assessments here. I liked April Dykman's post best. I wonder if this Baker guy is better off doing his own thing and I'm not sure his all over the internetness and salesy vibe fits the GRS brand but what the hell do I know, JD's got my attention and subscription already. I'd prefer him to have more guest posts than a staff writer but get the sense the readership's opinions aren't the driving factor in this selection.
Is it just me, or has the Simple Dollar gotten b-o-r-i-n-g? I can't take his lack of writing ability anymore, (grammar/spelling issues too), and those how low can you go meals, as pictured, -- i wouldn't feed any to my dog, much less my family! He's no cook either.
So you think the future of blogging is to turn back into an "online newspaper"-format? Apparently, it works for wisebread, although I don't know if that is edited. Yet, I thought the reason behind the popularity of GRS was that so many people can directly identify with JD and his very personal accounts. With guest posts, I see the same kind of danger as Coke changing their recipe. Perhaps the bigger problem is: "What are you now going to find on GRS" that you couldn't find on the guest writers' own blogs already? In conclusion, I do not really see the strategic upside to this move for JD. For the guest writers it's another matter. Obviously, there will be some flowback to their own blogs.
I tend to agree with your selections FB - I liked Baker and April the best. I already read Baker's blog though, so not sure what added value I'd get out of him being the choice.
However, I tend to agree with ERE that this move could end up hurting GRS. Like ERE said, JD is the reason I read the blog (and I suspect most others as well). If his posting vanishes, the readers will too. I'm sure he knows this and will probably keep his # of posts at an optimal level to keep people coming back and yet let him step away enough to free up his schedule. (Remember him writing a month or so ago that he was soooo busy with the blog and didn't want that to continue?)
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