Published Dec 31. 2016 - 7 years ago
Updated or edited Dec 31. 2016

2017, here we come

So another year has passed... and what then, did that year bring for the Global FlyFisher... and what about 2017?

2017
Bring on 2017!
Martin Joergensen

We're on the brink of 2017 and the Global FlyFisher has added another year to its long history. The first bits and bytes were laid down already in 1994 while the site as you know it now was started for real in 1999, so sometime in 2017, the Global FlyFisher as a site has existed at least 19 years, but parts can be traced back 23 years.
20 years give or take is a century in Internet terms. Google started in 1998, Amazon in 1999, Wikipedia around 2001, so we came before any of these quite old giants.

So what did 2016 bring?
Well, more of the same to be honest.
Yup, I admit it. The latest major change to GFF was in 2015 where I changed the publishing system from something pretty shaky and home made to something a little more sleek and stable.

But new things did happen in 2016, though.
I upgraded the very popular LeaderCalc section and changed it from being a very old, downloadable spreadsheet file to be a new and modern web based application, much more flexible and not requiring an Office program.
I also revived the newsletter. We started a newsletter almost two decades ago, but stopped sending it again after a few years. I saved all the subscription addresses, and early this year I started sending it again. It’s not really a major blockbuster or traffic driver, but it keeps a few hundred users in contact with the site. I have sent out 11 newsletters during 2016 and will probably send one more before the year ends.
The Tying Cribs haven't exactly started flying, but I intend to slowly fill it up with interesting tying corners. Wanna know how Bob Popovics has arranged his tying room? Go check it out!

That was about it on the feature front. Apart from that I added new content as always. About 70 articles and blog posts during the year – plus of course a lot of videos, close to 1200, actually.
So in spite of the feeling I had of a fairly slow year, the year wasn’t that bad. A new article or a little more per week plus about 3-4 daily videos.

The video section is still one of the features that draws most visitors. With more than 8,000 videos in the channel and up towards 5,000 video plays a day, it does attract a lot of traffic and outdoes the second and third most visited sections with a factor of 3-4.
Patterns and fly tying are the most popular article sections, but they still only attract maybe 1,000-1,200 visitors a day – way less than the videos. The fishing section called Fish Better is about half that and from there it's the long tail.

On the article front we have the good old stuff, still clocking in as the most read:

But some new contenders are in the race now:

And what's on its way then?
Well, more of the same, you could say. It seems to be a pretty good recipe to keep publishing good, solid, well researched articles, fly patterns, tying and fishing tips and of course videos. So that's what's on tab. I have a few articles underway already:

  • Tool holders
  • Articulated flies
  • Tools for tying big flies
  • Plus a handful of patterns and more.

So now I just need some time. And maybe a little help...

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Since you got this far …


The GFF money box

… I have a small favor to ask.

Long story short

Support the Global FlyFisher through several different channels, including PayPal.

Long story longer

The Global FlyFisher has been online since the mid-90's and has been free to access for everybody since day one – and will stay free for as long as I run it.
But that doesn't mean that it's free to run.
It costs money to drive a large site like this.

See more details about what you can do to help in this blog post.