It seems like just three weeks ago that a small team was preparing for the launch (above is one or our first promos, featured on AOL Money & Finance to attract our first few visitors). Weblogs veteran Sarah Gilbert was teaching me, new to AOL, how to use the Blogsmith publishing tools and we were both frantically recruiting bloggers.

Brian White, who covers technology for us now, was one of the first bloggers to sign on, writing post after post, even before launch. Peter Cohan and Tom Taulli, both sources of mine from my BusinessWeek Online days, were early recruits, as was Sheldon Liber, who corresponded with me over my stock articles back in the heyday of the Internet boom. These writers are still with us, plus many more investing veterans and new voices who contribute to the site today.

In those early days of financial blogging, I had to beg my publishing industry friends and former colleagues to help me out on the editing front. Amazingly, our editing staff on BloggingStocks has had zero attrition (and believe me, it's not because we pay such high wages) since those early days. I want to thank Melly Alazraki, Sarah Burns, Tobias Buckell, Maura McCormack and Trey Thoelke for all their hard work (often invisible) to keep BloggingStocks fresh, accurate, and filled with actionable investing ideas.

BloggingStocks also boasts a bunch of spin-offs. First BloggingBuyouts debuted in March, 2007, to cover the private equity world. Then WalletPop launched as a blog in December, 2007. It has grown into a full-fledged personal finance site with many millions of visitors each month. Most recently, we launched DailyFinance, a business and financial news site, which is still in beta. Many of your favorite BloggingStocks columnists are contributing there.

Also in recent months, BloggingStocks has consistently ranked in the top 10 on Technorati's list of the most authoritative blogs. Our high ranking won us a spot on BurrellesLuce list of the top 25 blogs.

Through the years, BloggingStocks has become something of an extended family to the writers and editors who have toiled away on the site for years. I remember fondly the outpouring of well wishes I got following the birth of my son two years ago. The team has celebrated many events together, including marriages, births, graduations, and book publishings.

Hopefully we'll soon be celebrating our first national journalism award. But for now, it's a thrill to have this finalist nod.

So congratulations and happy birthday to our BloggingStocks team. And thanks, last but not least, to our loyal readers who contribute their questions, critiques and compliments and who inspire us to keep posting day after day. And now, amazingly, year after year.