Excuse me, but I've been remiss in my responsibilities.

If you're a frequent reader of IU.com, then no doubt you've seen the many comments at the end of our stories.

Most bring up very good points and make interesting observations. You should know we're not ignoring them. It's just difficult in the rush of keeping up with the news to also look back and see what points people are commenting on at any given time. (In our defense, I'll lamely add that many of the best pearls come days and weeks after the original stories are published. In journalism time, that can seem like eons after the fact!)

I've got a suggestion. While the comments at the end of stories are great, why not use our discussion area to create a better venue to probe interesting new angles and ideas that've originated from different articles? Some readers even do both—post a comment about a specific article and follow that up with a broader thread on the discussion boards to gain greater appeal.

In a future column, I'd like to address some of your comments regarding my articles in particular. As already noted, there are some great ones and I apologize for being remiss in responding. But it's hard to put into a few quick sentences some very explicit thoughts ... again, perhaps a better forum would be the discussion area?

In any case, that's just a suggestion on my part. After all, this is your forum. We hope to provide you with the resources to learn more about intelligent investing.

Let Me Present... 

Along those lines, I'd like to introduce you to the newest member of the IU.com team. He's Eric Rosenbaum and you might've read some of his articles when he worked at Institutional Investor. A New York City native, the veteran financial journalist started this week covering U.S. index mutual funds, exchange-traded funds and global indexes.

"The chance to bring the experience of more than a decade of covering financial institutions to the rapidly growing ETF marketplace is an exciting opportunity," Rosenbaum said. "I'm looking forward to leveraging my industry knowledge on behalf of retail and institutional investors."

In 2002, he left a rising career with Institutional Investor to follow his wife, Anna. She's working on her doctorate in comparative literature. That means she has to research works in at least three different languages. As a result, Anna has been traveling between the U.S., Russia and South America.

For the past several years, Eric has been juggling his globe-trotting lifestyle with an equally impressive career freelancing for major financial publications. Fortunately for Eric, IU.com's parent company is set up so that reporters and editors can work remotely from anywhere in the world.

Currently, the couple lives in Buenos Aires. "By default, I guess this makes me IndexUniverse's Buenos Aires bureau chief," joked Rosenbaum.

It's actually odd that more publications don't do the same. Eric and I both have noticed that even though reporters work mainly over the phone using personal computers, very few established newspapers or magazines give their employees flexibility to work at home. I don't know how many editors and publishers over the years I've debated the economics of such a proposition with—wouldn't it save a lot of money letting people work where they want and feel they're most productive?

It's no wonder the newspaper industry is dying and all of publishing is going through difficult times. At the very least, IU.com stands to gain some great new talent in the coming years as a result. Eric is just the latest example. Stay tuned ...

Of course, IU.com isn't the only game in town. There's another great Web site that offers tremendous tools for investors focusing on low costs and the advantages of ETFs and index mutual funds. That's the wonderful Bogleheads.org site that should be on everyone's bookmarked Web reading list.

This year, we've started highlighting some of the best discussions at Bogleheads.org. Some have asked me why, and I've related that some of the best information on indexing is born out of such online conversations. As such, when they're really onto something, IU.com feels an obligation to let you know and point it out to you.

To make it short and sweet, Bogleheads.org has grown to become a significant player in the world of mutual funds and ETFs for individual investors. Now some 10,000-strong full-time members, they're a voice of reason in the mad, sometimes baffling mutual fund world of self-interest and tedious overhype.

Diehards VII 

They've become such a force that IU.com is sending a contingent to San Diego for Diehards VII ... well, actually me and IU.com Editor Matt Hougan, also a member in good standing at Bogleheads.org. (The group used to call themselves Diehards, but recently switched after opening a new and improved Web site.) 

The three-day event starts on Sept. 22 and will feature John Bogle as the keynote speaker. Bill Bernstein and Rick Ferri will be there, along with "The Coffeehouse Investor" author Bill Schultheis and academic Ed Tower (who probably doesn't remember a certain business reporter for the local Durham, N.C., paper roaming around the Duke University campus looking for any type of interesting investing research available several moons ago).

I'll let you know how that goes later ... in the meantime, I really appreciate all of the input and encouraging words from indexers around the world lately. Even though the market's down, your sage observations and comments are helping me to keep afloat ... and not panic. And I'm expressing such sentiment both as a writer and as an investor.