Happy Holiday season! With 2024 almost over I’m resurrecting the Work, Wine and Wheels annual retrospective post. Back in the day, WordPress sent an annual report to me. I don’t know if everyone got one or if a certain traffic level needed to be met. The 2012 report is where I got the main image for this post, with a bit of crude editing.
My publishing cadence continues to decline due to the time it takes running my marketing consulting firm, but I’ll always keep the Triple W going. This year the most popular post in the Work category was my piece on original thought in the age of artificial intelligence. Large language models train on immense quantities of existing content. If they are then tasked with creating “new” content, how original will it be?
That’s where human involvement is critical. Since writing that piece in March I’ve attended AI workshops and have learned how to implement AI technology into client work in a way that combines the artificial with the human for the best possible result.
In the Wine category, my post on the Central California region attracted the most traffic. Central California is an immense territory encompassing over 90,000 acres of vineyards, and the state produces roughly 80 percent of all U.S. wine annually. Italian immigration built the industry and kept it going through a phylloxera epidemic in the 19th century and then Prohibition.
For Wheels content, the most popular post was the story of adding a Vorsteiner rear diffuser on my 2006 BMW M3. This is a common modification for the E46 M3 and there are a lot of low-quality diffusers on the market. I got lucky and was able to purchase my diffuser from a fellow CCA member who had purchased it years ago and then sold his car and no longer needed it. The fitment required a little work and I was expertly assisted by staff at the Craftsman Auto Care Alexandria location.
None of these posts will ever rival my top two for driving visitors. The #1 post is about how to unlock secret menu options in the E39 M5. This post gave me an exciting introduction into a post going viral, at least amongst BMW and car enthusiasts. First the post was promoted by Lifehacker, which at the time was part of the Gawker network of sites. (Remember them?) Then later it was promoted via the Twitter account of a Finnish security expert named Mikko Hipponen who had over 60,000 followers. (Account now deactivated.) On a single day 2,068 visitors hit the Triple W – heady numbers in 2012.
My #2 post is the one that has given the Triple W a very nichey sort of visibility in BMW enthusiast circles. BMW produced a special kind of low emission vehicles known as Super Ultra Low Emission Vehicles, SULEVs. These vehicles came with a special, 15-year warranty on all fuel-related components of the car. For whatever reason, this warranty was not being communicated well to owners (IMO of course). They were going in for relatively simple (a la fuel filter replacement) service and were being hit with estimates of $6,000 – $8,000.
So I reported on the subject to raise awareness. A number of owners posted comments on how they used this information to get dealers to repair their cars under warranty. That gives me a lot of satisfaction and I still get emails on this issue today. These posts generated a lot of comments – 115 to the #2 post!
I’ve maintained this site since 2008, probably the golden age of blogging. So much has changed since then. LinkedIn is a better environment for work-related posts. There are specialty forums and communities for BMW and wine posts. All that granted, the Triple W is my small contribution to the ethos of the Open Internet, and the power of the long tail. Whether you’ve been here for years or just subscribed, thank you for visiting.
And have a very Merry 2025!