It’s hard to believe, but three years ago today I started The Loop. We’ve gone through a lot of changes since then, many of the biggest in the last year.

I suppose the most significant change the site has seen was moving from a cluttered ad-filled design to a clean, mostly text site. I removed 99 percent of the ads on the site and joined The Deck Network, which allowed the site to run with only one small ad.

Peter Cohen, my best friend and colleague of the last 20 years, has continued to help a great deal on the site with his writing and advice. I can’t thank him enough. This year we also added Your Mac Life’s Shawn King to The Loop, bringing a different perspective to the posts you see on the site everyday.

With the site design changes I also launched a membership option for readers. I know that $3 a month doesn’t sound like a lot, but it helped me buy new servers and have the site on one of the best content delivery networks in the world. These changes brought page load times down from over 10 seconds to 1 second in many parts of the world.

A membership doesn’t offer you fancy gifts or coupons, but it’s not about that. It’s about supporting independent writing. Thank you for your support.

My biggest thanks goes out to you, the reader. By helping to spread the word about what we do here at The Loop, traffic has increased, sponsorships from companies and independent developers have increased and we are successful.

Thank you.

Jim