When I first started writing this daily blog back in August 2013, I was using Tumblr. I had already been using Tumblr to share random stuff, and so when I decided to venture into longer-form writing, I just adapted what I had already been using. Here's what I consider to be my first real blog post, which was over 11 years ago.

But then Tumblr got sold to Yahoo (and became generally less popular) and it started to feel like the wrong place for me to be writing about city building. So I packed up and moved over to Wordpress. Here's my last post on Tumblr, which was some 4 years ago.

Wordpress has been working out just fine for me, but the world is changing and the internet is starting to move from web2 to web3 platforms. So this week, I made the decision to once again pack up and move -- this time to Paragraph.xyz. I moved over all of my old posts, my email subscribers, and my domain (brandondonnelly.com).

A lot of you may not notice much of a difference. If you type in my domain, you'll find all of my old posts. And all new posts will continue to show up in your inbox every day (I don't think I can do a weekly digest with Paragraph, which was an option I had with Wordpress + Mailchimp). The important part, though, is that the backend is now completely different.

All of my posts are now stored on a blockchain called Arweave, which is a permanent and fully decentralized protocol. Meaning, if I were to get hit by a bus tomorrow, all of my writing would still live on forever, even if Paragraph goes bankrupt and shuts down. It is now also possible for readers to "collect" my posts just as they would an NFT.

I don't know how many people will actually do this and what utility it will serve today, but I think all of this is just the tip of the iceberg. I'm a firm believer in crypto and blockchain technologies, and so it was time to walk the talk with my daily blog for city builders. Change is good. Welcome to brandondonnelly.com 3.0.

Regularly scheduled programming will resume tomorrow.

This week marks the 10 year anniversary of this daily blog. In some ways it’s hard to believe that it’s been a decade and in other ways it’s hard to imagine a time when I didn’t write/post something every day. What a habit this has become.

A lot has changed since 2013.

Back then, I was still trying to find my way in real estate development. Instagram was only 3 years old. TikTok hadn’t been created yet. And the idea of writing a daily blog didn’t feel as antiquated as it does today. I probably should be vlogging at this point.

But here’s what hasn’t changed:

- I enjoy writing, and I think it’s personally beneficial — even if I don’t derive any direct benefits (such as money)

- I like having my own little corner of the internet that I control — instead of relying exclusively on centralized platforms like Instagram or X

Today this corner is brandondonnelly.com, but I suspect that brandondonnelly.eth will become just as important over the next decade. The world is heading toward more decentralization. And if/when that does happen, I’ll be sure to write about it on this daily blog.

Thanks for reading everyone. As usual, I’ll see you tomorrow.

Sometimes I stop and think to myself, "my god, I've been writing my daily blog for over 9 years. That's a huge commitment. Should I stop? Is it really worth it?"

But of course I do think it is worth it, mostly because I enjoy writing, I enjoy thinking about things, and I enjoy connecting with people through this blog. I don't want to stop. It's perhaps also important for me to keep in mind that 9 years maybe isn't all that long.

I read this FT article today about investor Howard Marks. Marks is co-founder of Oaktree Capital Management, a person with billions of dollars, and the author of a popular investing memo (200,000+ subscribers) that I generally never miss. And after reading about his backstory, I now feel very much like a blogging baby:

He began writing the memos in 1990, initially sending them by post to Oaktree’s 50 or so clients. For the first 10 years, “I never had one response,” he says. And then, on January 2 2000, Marks distributed a memo called “bubble.com”, in which he made the “overwhelming” case for “an overheated, speculative market in technology, internet and telecommunications stocks”, similar to past manias such as the 18th-century South Sea Bubble. The memo “had two virtues”, says Marks. “It was right and it was right quickly.” The technology-heavy Nasdaq index slumped four-fifths from peak to trough between March 2000 and October 2002. “After 10 years, I became an overnight success.”

I have no particular end goal in mind for this blog. I have no need to become an overnight success. My plan is to just continue writing as an adjunct to all of the other things I do. However, I am attracted to the value of discipline, compounding consistency, and long-term thinking.

It's not easy doing something for a decade and having nobody respond. At least with this blog, I get the occasional heckler telling me that I'm a greedy developer out to destroy our cities.

P.S.: If you're into longish memos about investing, I would encourage you to check out Marks' latest memo about what really matters. In it, he talks about why short-term events -- such as, interest rates might do this -- are by far the least important thing to focus on.