BloggingStocks: A year in review

About this time 366 days ago, I was madly preparing for the launch of what I then thought was the most important project for which I'd ever been ready to work 'til 1 a.m. I had hopes of making, maybe two million pageviews a month, in the next year.

By February 2007, we'd reached three million pageviews according to MediaMetrix. And my universe of eight stocks, which I hoped to expand to 25 by this time, has now crested 350. Naturally, we've shifted strategy a bit since the beginning and no longer expect our writers to explore each stock we cover quite so deeply. But I think you'll find our coverage on Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) (which Brian White was recommending when it was in the $30s; it's now at $62.60 though most of the rest of BloggingStocks still thinks it's overpriced) and Huaneng Power International ADS (NYSE: HNP) (which Sheldon Liber recommended at $32.68 and is now over $41) and Crocs Inc. (NASDAQ:CROX) (Julie Tilsner liked Crocs around $42 and it's now up to $54.69) to be more in-depth than most and more interesting than any other media outlet's.

It turns out I was right: this has been the most important (and fun, and productive) project upon which I've ever worked. I wasn't so right about eBay, Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY), which was just as good a buy a year ago as it is today. Other bloggers have highlighted the things we were writing about a year ago and what has happened in the financial world since April 27, 2006. Some have made bold predictions for what will have happened by April 27, 2008; I like Gary Sattler's prediction that RadioShack Corp. (NYSE: RSH) and Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) might merge, and have to agree with Tom Barlow's prediction that exclusive, private wifi 'islands' will become quaint as community-based wifi operators compete with their wifi clouds.

We've discovered the things you want to read about; Wal-Mart, for one, and organics, for another. You like reading about Starbucks (and whether or not it's evil, or the next McDonald's), you like to read about the iPhone and its release date. You love scandals, like those involving Maria Bartiromo and Julie Roehm.

And naturally, the one thing I can predict with absolute certainty for the upcoming year: we'll give you more of the same, more Wal-Mart, more big calls, more iPhone, more tales of evil corporations, more scandals. And if Maria Bartiromo or Suze Orman does anything of note? We'll tell you exactly what we think about it, right here on BloggingStocks.