A new year is upon us…

Jan 2, 2008 in Miscellaneous

And with it, more hope of better things to come; after all, this is a time for rebirths and new beginnings. At least I know my life and agenda will definitely change a lot this year, as I’m moving to another city for collage, which should either mean I’ll have a heck lot of more time on my hands, or little to nothing, depending on what school I get in I guess. Anyway, what I think I mean to say is that this is a good time to look back a bit upon the past year; what progresses have you made (blogging wise) ? Did you manage to attract a loyal readership ? How did your traffic fluctuate compared to last year (if you’ve been around for that long)? etc.

It’s important to trace your steps, analyze and process, thus you can avoid the mistakes you’ve made and repeat what worked well for you. I know I’ve learned a great deal in this past year and while I’ve been blogging for some while now, it was only after I opened Lost Art Of Blogging back in September, that I was enlightened on how the blogging phenomenon truly works. Being until that time, a experienced and somewhat successful niche blogger, my insights were somewhat limited, particularly on the financial side of blogging. I launched this blog at the time, because I felt, much like now, that I had a accumulated plenty of experience and expertise to share with other, willing to learn, people and felt like I needed to externalized these thoughts somehow. Although I never really managed to promote the blog seriously enough, due to lack of time (senior year), by keeping myself to a light schedule and through solid, insightful content, I surprisingly managed to attract some attention; both on the blog and myself. Thus I came in contact with a few A class bloggers, that through their constant work have been a beacon of light and source of inspiration for me. There’s no point in mentioning any names here, as I’ve managed to meet so many wonderful people in the past year, both online and offline, that it would take till tomorrow just name them.

Ok, I’ve reflected a bit on a few things shaped me as a blogger in 2007, so I’m gonna dwell a bit on what are my future expectations for 2008. I don’t really enjoy setting goals and all that, but they do a good job in motivating me. Here are just a few of my expectations for the year of 2008:

Meet at least as many interesting and remarkable bloggers, like the fine people I’ve managed to encounter in the past year.
Travel to a off-shore blogging conference, like the fancy ones going on in Las Vegas.
Complete financial independence is something I’ve always worked for; last year my income was very inconsistent, which translated in a unreliable income and insecurity. Lately the cash flow has apparently stabilized and constant, with a slight upper trend. If I keep this up for next year, I’ll have more then enough money to sustain me and my needs, coupled with me going to collage, means I’ll hopefully move into my own place this summer.
A redesign. Still thinking about it.
Grow my blogs even more, both traffic and monetization wise.
Build more blogs. I’ve already bought the domains and made the necessary plans for two blogs, that will hopefully see the light of day sometime next month.
Learn to play the guitar. I’ve been lying myself with picking up my dusty guitar out of the basement and practicing riffs, for some time now. Guess I haven’t been motivated enough lately, the fact that I suck at it doesn’t help either.
And not ultimately, be a better person.

And for those of you who might have missed some of my more interesting posts in 2008, I’ve compiled a month by month list of the most insightful and intriguing posts from the past year.

September

October

November

December

The A new year is upon us… by Tibi Puiu, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.