Happy birthday! I’m one year old. Well, this site is one year old. After almost 20 years working in the NBC/MSNBC universe, I struck out on my own last year, with great trepidation. The Red Tape Chronicles became BobSullivan.net. Honestly, I was worried that nobody (outside my mom) would follow me.
Twelve months later, the site is still standing, which makes me positively giddy. In fact, September is by far my best month ever, with 33,000 people having stopped by. In one year, I’ve reached nearly 200,000 people, which is modest by dot-com standards, but fantastic when you consider the subject matter. I’m not writing about cats or wardrobe malfunctions or 97 reasons you should love the new iPhone. I’m trying to help people with news that levels the playing field for them.
Our world is increasingly complex. We all sense it: We’ve been hacked. We’ve been hacked by criminals looking to exploit our digital lives, and we’ve been hacked by corporations looking to trick us into becoming greater ARPUs (average revenue per user). We are victims of surveillance both by our government and by corporations to a level never imagined by George Orwell. The Economist just called this phenomenon Stalkers, Inc.
My job is to explain this big mess to you. I can’t thank you enough for listening. But I’m going to try. All week, I’ll be posting special offers of one kind or another. Today, I’m going to offer a signed copy of my latest book, The Plateau Effect, for anyone who signs up for my 30-Day Getting Unstuck email challenge, which costs $10. So, $10 gets you the email and a hardcover book at no extra charge (while supplies last). I will mail the book to you, signed and dedicated to whomever you choose. You can place an order on this page.
If you are so inclined, please support my efforts, primarily by reading my stories and sharing them when you see fit. You can also:
- Sign up for my free email newsletter, which is the best way to make sure you never miss a story
- Click on an ad and support my advertisers. This is the part of the business that makes me most uncomfortable, but it is reality
- Tell others about my 30-day challenge, which is a great way to digest the concepts of The Plateau Effect
- Do you work at a company that would like the halo effect of sponsoring authentically helpful content? Let’s talk…
In addition to informing folks about scams, privacy issues, and other 21st Century headaches, I want you to know that I have a loftier goal for this site: I want to prove that independent subject-matter expert journalists can survive on their own. I think that’s going to be an incredibly important part of the journalism landscape in the future. You’d have to be foolish to ignore current trends which make clear it’s very hard to do anything other than “popularity contest” journalism at big corporations. The pressures are immense and the data on users is just too plentiful. To fill in the gaps, independent journalists must emerge. I’d like to prove that it’s possible, so the next time a great school board reporter for a city like Sioux Falls or Spokane or Columbus gets laid off, she or he won’t feel the only option is a PR job at a bank. I’d like those journalists to have a fighting chance to keep their press cards as indy writers.
When I launched the site, I looked for Brian Krebs for inspiration. He’s among the first, and the best, fighting cyber-crime over at KrebsonSecurity.com. It was foolish when the Washington Post let him go, but it was the best break he ever got. Brian encouraged me to set out my own shingle and I’ll always be indebted.
There’s no way I could be running this experiment without help. I’m not ashamed to share that Google ads don’t come anywhere close to paying for this site, so I have needed lots of help from partners along the way. My key partner is Credit.com, an innovative site that employs a wide variety of financial experts offering critical advice on everything from student loans to mortgages to credit cards. Credit.com also has a great tool that lets you see your credit score for free. Yes, they pay me for free-lance work, but I can confirm their heart is in the right place, their advice is solid, and their free tool is great. You should try it. Huge thanks to editor in chief Michael Schrieber and founder Adam Levin for their support and encouragement along the way. Our latest joint effort, the Debt Collection Files, is really gaining traction and helping shine light on a major problem facing America. I might even argue it’s the civil rights issue of our time.
I’d also like to thank the folks at CNBC.com, who have embraced my recent reporting on work-life issues, and Stacy Johnson at MoneyTalksNews.com, who has embraced The Restless Project.
Many thanks to every source who has put his/her future on the line by sharing important inside stories with me.
Most of all, I’d like to thank you, dear reader — for clicking, for your time, for arguing with me, for encouraging me. I read every email, so please keep them coming at Bob at BobSullivan.net.
Next year is going to be bigger and better. And hopefully, a little more fair, too.
All the best,
Bob
