Last week was the 5th anniversary of my 1st blog post, and as you may see here, it looked very different then (even if the topic still as present as then). In fact the only reason I did that one was to see how it worked, as the Squarespace template in which I developed my website has as part of the package an image gallery and blog… hence if I’m paying of it, I better use it was my take. So here is blog about writing this blog
If someone had told me then that 5 years later 61700 unique visitors would have 117000 page views! I would have just laughed out loud and asked for a bit of whatever they were having… but yeah those are the numbers.
I honestly had no idea that so many people had an interest in fisheries, 24400 in 2018 alone… I'm sure it is less… I don’t know if it counts people visiting more than once as separated… in any case, I would have never thought that an abysmal writer like me would ever be a blogger (even I was presented as a blogger recently!!)
Reality is that all this blog thing started as a way to disseminate information I think is important, also to show that while a lot of things are wrong, there is a lot of people trying to do the right thing. Finally also to express my personal view on topics from an angle that is not usually covered. I’m quite lucky to have had vessel experience and I spend lots of time on the wharves and offices of the people that are at the beginning of the fisheries value chain. I guess the fact that I don't get paid to write this or have a “paid” angle to promote, keeps me “independent”.
A few months ago a student from a well known fisheries school contacted me and told me that when with his friends they have assignments, they do a search on the topic on my blog search engine, and use it as reference source! It blew my mind!
The other massive surprise is the geographical coverage of the readership. For 2018 I just counted IPs of 182 countries and territories including Syria and Mayotte for example! Interestingly my most significant readership is in the country I work the less: the US with 25% of the readership, followed at a distance by the UK Australia and NZ all with a bit more of 5% each, and then it goes wide open with the Philippines, Spain, India, Canada, Fiji (8th biggest) all around 3 to 2%.
So yeah wholly humbled by this, mainly because this is nothing that I planned or even tried hard, I had no idea of “new media” or anything like that when I started… and now I have been proposed for something called the Seafood Champion Awards under the advocacy category!
Btw… if you feel like supporting my nomination before the 15 January, use the link above (or here) and fill the gaps with some nice words – otherwise contact me and I sent you the blurb that my nominators (who want to remain anonymous have written), they (and myself) will appreciate if you could donate some minutes to support me. Thanks
Back to the blog… I have no idea for how long I will maintain it, decidedly people read it. There are more sources of material to present than I ever could go through… B
But the best thing is the number of people that either personally or electronically have contacted me and say: Hi I’m so and so, and I read your blog and just wanted to say hello! That makes my day (and my years now!).
To all of you that read this fishy blog, a huge thank you!! I Hope you all have a good break and start 2019 in great style.
My thankfulness and respect to you all!