- Comments (92)
- Text Size: Down Up
moneysense.ca, 11/03/10
A New Direction
As you probably noticed, things look a little different around here. That’s because, I’m entering into a partnership with MoneySense magazine. I’m super excited about working together with MoneySense, the finest personal finance magazine in Canada, which as you know has long been a trusted source for advice on saving, planning, investing, retirement and real estate.
But you are probably wondering what it means for you. The terms of the deal are confidential but I can assure you that, apart from the look-and-feel, the blog will pretty much stay the same. I continue to own the blog and I will keep writing in the same style, manner and editorial content that you’ve come to expect. If you read my posts in your favourite RSS reader or have it delivered via e-mail, you won’t even notice anything. The blog itself looks and feels different but the intention is to keep as much of the old website features as we possibly can. Naturally, as with any change, there will be issues and if you can point them out in the comments and I’ll do my best to get it fixed. And, as always, I welcome your input in the comments.
moneysense.ca, 11/03/10
Wow, hey! What a surprise! Congratulations on your new partnership. Now… can you offer us a deal where we can get Moneysense for free? Just kidding.
hey! congrats man! this is huge!
will we see your face on the front page?
Congrats on the partnership. I’ve been following you for a little over a year and I think it’s a natural fit.
Hi CC,
I believe that you will retain control over content, editorial style, etc. and I can see how this change would be exciting. But there was something so cool, so authentic and independent about your old site. When I visit now, I’m bombarded with flashy banner adds along the top and the side of my screen which are a bit distracting and kind of give the site a corporate feel. There’s also a flickering offer to buy Money Sense for $19.95 that is kind of annoying (although my threshold for this type of advertising is low compared to most). And by the way, I don’t recall you ever saying before that Money Sense magazine was the “finest personal finance magazine in Canada.” Perhaps this topic never came up on your old site, or I missed it.
Anyway, it’s early days and maybe I’ll get used to these changes over time, I’d be surprised if I stopped visiting. I would be interested to hear what others think.
Good for you but I would prefer if you stayed independent.
What a great fit. CC and MS are like 2 peas in a pod.
I decided to turn down their multi-million dollar offer since I just didn’t feel like the synergies were quite perfect.
Mike
ps – you can ignore my email about posting a comment.
Congrats on the big move CC! At first I thought that Moneysense hacked your site.
Congratulations. This is pretty flashy stuff! I wish you continued success with your new partnership.
2 Cents
Cool. I thought it was a Perez-Hilton style takeover ad but glad to hear you’re making money either way. We’ll get used to the design. It’s good to hear they’re (finally!) wise to bloggers over there, and they’ve hired a good ‘un.
Congrats! Can’t blame you for cashing in but it is sad to see you do this. Being part of a big corp entity certainly takes away the shine of CC. However, you stayed true to your title.
Look and feel I can deal with, but if anything regarding your writing style or focus changes I’ll be really mad!
Congrats!
Pretty cool. The comments area will need some work since you cannot read peoples names when they have a website link. Also to lightish blue makes it more difficult to read the words on. Other than that the new site layout is actually pretty nice.
It does feel a little over advertised though. I’m sure that there will be a lot of changes over the next while as you get the feel of the new website all worked out. Congratulations on your partnership.
Congratulations, it is always nice to be rewarded for something that is successful like your blog. I will continue to read your blog, and possibly pick up the magazine as I learn more!
Congratulations on the new partnership!! The website looks great, a very nice change. Keep up the great work, you’re doing a fine job educating the public on finances.
Congrats, But I do concur with others that the layout need MAJOR rework. Make it easy on the eyes and make it look professional. I initially thoughtl, I accidently came into a expired domain parke by a adveritsement or spyware hacked type of site.
Wow! Congrats CC! Awesome news and a great fit for everyone!
Congrats on your new partnership CC. Nice to see that MS recognized your talents and effort from your blog, and I’m happy that you are going to benefit.
For anyone who is ‘disappointed’, please give your head a shake. Here’s a guy who clearly has a passion for helping people with investment decisions and he is gaining some benefit from the investment he has made into his blog (investment of his time & effort to share his experience and knowledge). Let the man enjoy some profit and recognition.
Congrats, I’m sure this works out well for you and happy for any financial gain that goes your way. However, I think you better change your FAQ section which says “The ads on the website helps me to defray some of the expenses of running this website”. I think you are getting a bit more than just defraying costs. A few ads are great, but all this noise is a bit much. Maybe that can be cleaned up as others have suggested. I hope this does not compromise your writing style as I think you are one of the best financial bloggers for Canadians.
The font size could be bigger and the background colour overwhelms the font colour, but congrats nonetheless….I like the emoticons
Congratulations! I would expect nothing less from Canadian Capitalist. Just as long as Moneysense and Rogers don’t affect your freedom to speak your mind, then I say good on you.
Will you be listed among the MS blogs? I don’t see you listed (http://www.moneysense.ca/blogs/).
CONGRATUALTIONS!!! I’t funny that I used to get MoneySense but found that a few of the blogs (especially yours) was more valuable and useful to me!
Thanks for your feedback everyone, especially the suggestions for improving your reading experience. I have gathered your list and you will see the site improve over time. Thanks again!
Congratulations CC!
I think this is fantastic for everyone involved. It is also quite the complement to you that they approached you on such an endeavour. I’m very happy and excited for you!
(Looks like my site. Except blue. lol )
I don’t think the fact that your blog is not searchable anymore is an improvement but a big step backwards. One has to now search the entire Moneysense magazine only which means you basically can’t find items in your blog anymore. For example, I was just trying to do a search on your blog for ‘index funds’ because you had a couple really good posts on it but now cannot find them. When I search using the only box available now, the Moneysense search box, I get a million hits.
Can you do something about this? Your blog was a great resource to consult, but now is no longer.
I’m disappointed and I’m not a fan but I don’t blame you for selling out. I was initially attracted to your website because it had the look and feel of someone’s personal blog rather than a commercial website. While you might generate additional traffic with the new partnership, new visitors might be turned off with appearance of just another financial website with advertisements.
Good luck with new site. I hope you continue with your unbiased articles and advice.
Ps. I do realize that you had advertisements before but they were quite discrete.
To those commenting negatively about the ads etc on the page now — The site’s name is Canadian CAPITALIST.
He’s out to make a buck too, folks!
Next post: ‘Why mutual funds are great! Pay high MERs!’
This colour scheme is BRUTAL!
Interesting, as long as the content is the same, I wish you good luck, and hope this means more prosperity and joy for you!
@gene: I’m pretty sure I can’t afford to get subscription to MoneySense for all of you. But, I wonder if there is a hint in there for holding a giveaway.
@DM: Thanks for your feedback. It is very important for me to hear from readers like you who care almost as much about the blog as I do.
@Cam: The comments section should already be fixed.
@badcaleb: Actually I’ll probably ditch the FAQ and rewrite the About page.
@ghandy: It’s a hard launch here but it is a soft launch on the MS website. You will see CC listed on the MS blogs real soon.
@Sean: At the very least, I’ll have a SiteMap with every post listed available. I found that the Search on the old site was seldom used but let me see what I can do to have a proper search for the blog.
@CC: I am very impressed. A turn around time of under 3 hours! You have been one of the best blogs I have read on Canadian finance. I really hope that this will give you additional resources to continue delivering hard hitting truth about finance in Canada. I would be quite disappointed if this blog mellowed out to the drivel that gets posted elsewhere on other finance blogs.
Keep up the good work, I will look forward to what great new content will be available tomorrow. (if you follow true to form it’ll be a link post so I guess I’m more excited to see what comes out Monday).
@Sean: Re: searching:
You can always Google for something like:
site:canadiancapitalist.com some “search terms”
(Assuming that the relaunch did not change URLs; if it did, it may take a little time for Google to reindex the site.)
Wow, some rough comments.
For those of you who are annoyed at Ram for doing this joint venture – would you rather pay for access to the site and keep it ad free/minimized?
@Cam, @Andrew and others: I want to assure you that I continue to maintain the same editorial control that I did before. That is, I pick the subject matter that interests me, I write the posts and I press the “publish now” button. What I’m trying to convey is that the posts don’t get vetted by anyone. I understand that it’s just words now but over time, you’ll be able to judge whether it is an accurate characterization.
@Sean: For now, you can continue to search the blog for “index funds” by typing:
http://www.canadiancapitalist.com/?s=index+funds
in the URL window. Just change the string after the “?s=” for the search you want.
Congrats! I didn’t notice since I read every day in Google Reader, so thanks for pointing it out!
Congrats CC on the new partnership. Looking forward to many more years of your insight and resulting discussion with Canadians.
Congratulations on the partnership, CC. The MoneySense site is richer for including your work.
To the negative commentators, please understand the enormous amount of work that goes into writing a good blog, and consider how much each of you have benefited from CC’s efforts over the years. To expect all of this for free and then accuse him of “selling out” is grossly unfair.
Is the colour scheme final? I think a darker shade of blue combined with a bit more whitespace might make the main page easier to read.
Well, no doubt you did not partner with Moneysense simply because you are being altruistic and are now getting paid for writing your blog, which means it is not as unbiased as it used to be, which was one of the main reasons I read your blog. It was so nice to read something that was totally independent (but now does not have the perception of being so because it is associated with a publication one has to buy, regardless if that is the case in fact). Are you allowed to write anything you want without any editorial control by Moneysense?
Also, what if there is an idiotic article in Moneysense that you want to criticize. Can you do that?
I’m an avid MS subscriber, MoneySense introduced me to the world of personal finance and investing. Great to see you colaborate with them. The new layout will take some getting used too, I hope the page load performance can be tightened up a bit, because its considerably slower then your old site.
Good luck with this new venture, hopefully we still see the same great content we’ve grown to love.
On second thought, it seems as though MoneySense as consumed all page realestate with their links. Would be nice if the blog content was more emphasized, enstead of MoneySense.ca links, which we can always just go to ourselves.
Congratulations… I suspect it is difficult to claim a bias-free perspective now with such a partnership? Good luck!
Congrats!
Personally I preferred you as you were, I feel a bit like I am visiting http://www.moneysense.ca, which I try my best to avoid, hence why I seek out independent blogs. Given all the adverts and feeling like I am on some corporate site I will probably move on from here. But I do think it’s a great, strategic partnership you’ve created.
Good luck!
Adam
We here at MoneySense are thrilled to be working with the Canadian Capitalist. And don’t worry, we will not be changing the content or the direction of the blog. We’re still tweaking some technical things but hope to have the blog fully integrated into http://www.moneysense.ca soon.
cheers, Sarah
@Canadian Couch Potato:
You make a good point highlighting how CC’s site has been such a great resource. I didn’t post anything negative about the move, but you inspired me to publicly thank CC here for his years of blogging. A huge example of this was his post about RBC’s offer to give a 1% bonus for all funds transferred to their Direct Investing discount brokerage (in 2008 I think). That post alone made me a few thousand dollars, risk free! Turns out RBC operates a decent discount brokerage, too.
Great job with the partnership – hope the synergy brings even more informative info into the blog. I do tend to agree with the others regarding the glaring ads – so I’m going to make my own stance and just boycott Moneysense magazine!
Moneysense is a terrible magazine.
Congrats CC! I’m a huge fan of MoneySense and it’s great that you’re with them!
Since you are now under the MoneySense moniker, they do and will reserve right as to what you get to publish.
By definition that will limit and censor what you can say.
Now you want to criticize a product, service or company that advertises on MoneySense? I don’t think so.
On top of that MoneySense is a lousy magazine.
Good luck in your partnership with MoneySense. I sincerely hope the content of your blog will not change as much as its design. I’m afraid I must agree with multiple comments before mine, this blog has lost a lot of its original uncluttered appeal and is now much harder to navigate. As an established reader, I don’t care all that much, I read your posts via RSS, but if this was my first visit here, I doubt I would subscribe. You have wealth of excellent material in your archives, as a new visitor I wouldn’t be able to find it.
If you can, please make *your* content easier to filter out of the rest. A tag cloud or a site map of *your* articles would be nice. Other than that, all the best, congrats and welcome into the world of pro-bloggers!
Congrats on the deal CC!
If any of the naysayers were in your place, they’d have done the exact same thing.
Congrats CC! It’s an appropriate move. I know your regular readers will understand that change was inevitable.
As others have mentioned, anything you can do to keep your past content easily accessible would be fantastic.
@Ben, @Sergei: I’m acutely aware that the entire archives and content should be as easily navigable as possible. It is a high priority. You will find the site evolve.
@Joseph: Since I don’t think you are privy to the partnership agreement, I don’t know how you can confidently state that “they do and will reserve the right as to what you get to publish”. All I can do is assure you that the content and *control* remains exactly the same as before. Like I said before, it is empty words now but after the next little while, judge for yourself.
Congratulations, CC !
. He’s out to make a buck too, folks!”
However, I could not help laughing to the comment: “The site’s name is Canadian CAPITALIST
The wedding bells are ringin’…
Congratulations, have a great honeymoon, and many great years together!
Very nice and congratulations! I like the new layout, more colourful than the older site :p
Regarding fears of CC losing control over content, I’ve been writing a blog for MoneySense’s sister publication Canadian Business Online for a few years and not once has there been a suggestion to write about something or to avoid certain topics. I post directly to the site without any editing. The sense of freedom has been great.
@CC…Congrats on the new venture! MoneySense is a great resource for Cdn based financial info. You both find the balance between catering to both your more advanced and mainstream readers. I have no problem with your partnership. Small business owners/ entrepenuers do what we have to do as our own employers. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Best of luck CC.
Congrats, CC, all the best success in your new incarnation. It seems a good fit to me. The MoneySense stuff I’ve read makes sense and looks generally quite fair and neutral.
Congrats!
I actually was pointed to your blog due to a mention of your site in Money Sense mag a couple of years ago. Your approach and theirs to money management go hand in hand.
CC,
WOW! Way to go! I think it’s a good fit over all. I have to agree the light blue text is hard to read on white, so hopefully that will get fixed.
Best of luck and I look forward to your new direction.
Tim
Congratulation on your move. It’s great to see that your work is appreciated and wish you all the best. Just keep up your good work and unique personality and it will be all good.
I am a long time reader of CC and I have double feelings. I loved you blog because it was independent, well written and informative. I’m glad for your success and congratulation on your move. Hope over time you won’t change and your style will remain the same. Time will tell if the new direction will change your content or not.
Wish you all the best.
This is really too bad as you will now have to be in philsohical alignment with MS whether you admit it or not. Good for MS and you, but bad for us!
CC: a few more suggestions in terms of the blog design.
1. Restore the tags for all of your posts
2. If you could make the “preview” posts much bigger, or even the show the entire post. 4 lines is not enough and clicking deeper to read what you were already reading is one extra step rather then just nicely scrolling down. Most blog layouts do this nicely and your previous did as well I believe.
3. Put the blogRoll backup, it will return more of the “community” feel to the blog.
4. Images on your posts are not “fitting” in the columns correctly, e.g: http://www.canadiancapitalist.com/sleepy-mini-portfolio-q1-2010-update/. Maybe play around with the spacing to give your posts more space.
5. Does the MoneySense “Current Issue” need to be seen on every post? Its a blaring ad that has no direct relation to the post your actually reading.
Good luck with addressing peoples concerns. I hope this partnership goes will for you.
Hey CC, well done my friend! Nice to see an Ottawa-boy make the big time!
I will continue to stay in touch and read your blog. Again, great news!
Cheers, Mark
I have and always will, love you. You had me at ETF.
I hope all the nay-sayers will be man enough to come back and acknowledge that they were wrong.
Well you got to EAT….but MS is a crap mag.
Congrats CC. I have to admit that I was starting to get frustrated with the quality of MS over the past year or so. It seemed to be going more and more down hill with every issue. That is until Duncan Hood made his way back to the publication as editor. Now it would seem that CC & MS would go great together.
congrats! Can you still have a page or sidebar that has topic links (ie DRIPs, taxes, etc)
Congrats on your partnership! I was a bit bewildered when I came across the new look as I was compiling my Weekend Financial Roll Call!
All the best with your arrangement; will continue to visit your blog!
[...] A New Direction @ Canadian Capitalist (congrats CC!) [...]
A new direction indeed: it’s called downhill!
The irony of being bombarded by that new issue of MS, on reading every new entry, with its “We rank Canada’s best mutual funds” tagline; a concept that has been debunked and even ridiculed on this very website. Why associate yourself with these smut peddlers?
Assurances that nothing will change ring hollow especially when we are treated to this gem only a paragraph above. “I’m super excited about working together with MoneySense, the finest personal finance magazine in Canada, which as you know has long been a trusted source for advice on saving, planning, investing, retirement and real estate.” Hmm, yeah ok.
I’m loving the supportive comments from fellow bloggers who are encouraged by CC’s sellout that their turn is just about to come. Any day now. LOL.
Not a big fan of change, even less so when there is zero upside for the reader. That being said CC, perhaps if you go on a month long rampage blasting the latest MS personal finance porn you can regain your credibility. Make no mistake, it has taken a substantial hit. I’d love to be proven wrong.
[...] A New Direction @ Canadian Capitalist (congrats CC!) [...]
Dunno – can’t say I’m a fan of the switch and I don’t know what’s the biggest culprit.
Could be the color scheme and layout of the new site – sorry but it’s horrible and is just distracting enough for me to stay away and not visit at all. Baby blue for a financial voice? No way – it’s more suited for the 100 Most Popular Baby Names for 2010 – not a cutting edge discussion on finances.
Globe and Mail might not be everyone’s favorite rag of choice – but they get huge credit for a sharp Business Page. Excellent layout – easily navigated and a color scheme that speaks authority.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/
Could be that this new CC / MoneySense layout is a 70/30 split – with you owning the minor share. Your own site gave you a louder voice and I think this new forum might neuter youa bit with all the MS chatter surrounding it. I may be wrong on that – and I hope I am ’cause yours was easily one of the top 4 or -5 independent finance sites I frequent.
But I don’t think I’m wrong on the color scheme. I’d say run a poll and let your readers vote. After all they put you in the position where you could entertain such an offer from MS right?
@GSP: You can’t deny that MS has long advocated a couch potato portfolio, far longer than I have on this blog. A number of MS columns in the past have stressed the importance of low-cost investing and staying the course. To say that there is nothing in common between this blog and MS is simply incorrect.
“zero upside for the reader”
I beg to differ because this partnership will free me to focus on my writing and lessen my burden with a lot of stuff that goes on behind the scenes in running a blog. That’s a solid benefit to the reader.
There is nothing in the partnership agreement that says I can’t disagree with MS. If I disagree with something in the magazine, of course, I’ll say so.
@RMB: Every point you raise is already on my list of things to do. You’ll see the site improve.
congrats CC, from a long time reader.
but i can honestly say i no longer have the personal vibe i used to have with your blog. it now feels heavily commericalized much like reading CNET reviews, and nobody takes those seriously. i’m sure my perception is far from reality though.
Good Luck Sir It’s sound good! When I saw your blog on The Star News paper I subscribe on my google reader.
This is good news you gonna partnership with moneysense, Because that’s my favorite magazine.
For the readers that are distraught by the new layout, I would suggest subscribing to the RSS feed so that you can get content directly to your reader.
I checked the website and my initial thought was “WTF”…. lol.. it’s all good. I access your blog via google feedburner.
With the layout, it just looks like MoneySense magazine instead of CanadianCapitalist. You might as well just forward your domain to MoneySense website and be the writer to MoneySense Magazine. The brand is lost.
Good work though but from now on, everything changes as you will have restrictions. My feeling is that you’ll be careful of what you write as it might affect their brand.
I’ve been reading this blog for a while now and loved the fact that it was independent and didn’t bombard me with adds. Can’t blame you CC for capitalizing on your blog, it’ll make you more $$$ now.
Can some people recommend some other financial blogs out there they follow in addition to this one??
I commend you on what you’ve achieved over the years while being able to deliver some valuable opinions and insight for your investing peers.
If the ads become too annoying we can always use Firefox Ad-Blocker or something similar, and just get the content we want.
I think you should mention that, as long as doing so does not violate the terms of your partnership.
[...] week, Canadian Capitalist announced the merger of his blog with the well known finance magazine Money Sense. I was actually quite happy for him as I know how [...]
Congratulations CC. I have read your blog and been quietly sponging up your knowledge, tips, and advice for quite a while. I am glad you will continue to write your blog and I think Moneysense is a great place to be anchored. Best wishes.
I wanted to point out that a few issues have already been addressed:
1. The main website publishes the latest post in its entirety.
2. Tags have been restored for the posts. You can find it in the byline.
3. The reading area for the posts has been increased. All the old posts should fit within the reading area. If you find posts that are not fitting, please let me know and I’ll fix it.
As I said before, I’ll try and address as many of the issues you have raised. Thanks again for your feedback.
I found out about your merger on TFB’s site. I just wanted to stop by and say “Congratulations!” I’m a big fan of Money Sense magazine and I like the new style. I’m also a big fan of your blog, too!
Best wishes! =)
Great to see that you’ve made those design changes for the feedback! It’s much much nicer now.
Congrats… as far as partnership moves go, this is a good fit for you. However, I’m afraid that I will now switch to reading your blog through an RSS reader… I find that the site design and the ads distract from the content of your posts.
Congratulations on the new partnership, it’s so great this will allow you to be supported in doing the great work you have been doing for all of your readers for so many years. Well done!
CC, I am embarassed for you, aligning with such an unfortunately bad magazine. Removed you from my blog roll.
[...] Canadian Capitalist announced last month a re-branding of his site and a partnership with MoneySense magazine. I wanted to let the immediate reactions die down, but thought there were a few interesting [...]
Hey CC,
I just wanted to say congrats on this and it is well deserved. Good luck to you in the future!