by Mike Carey, January 04, 2010
The Year in Review 2009
Hello and welcome to our 2009 “Year in Review”, my annual attempt to summarize everything that’s been going on at WL.com.
It seems every year I could say this, but this year was BUSY! Our biggest event by far was the launch of the Premium Member section in 2009. This all new addition to WL.com was the final leg of my original vision from over ten years ago, to have a “personal online fishing diary” for anglers to use and share. The Premium Members have that and much more. One thing I never would have envisioned was Aaron Borg’s arrival several years ago and turning the site into a massive database. It was the only way to go, and it opened up possibilities I’d never even thought of. Number one in my mind was the ability to take the information from the web site’s ten years of fishing reports and, through the wonder of the modern day computer, be able to turn all that information into use-able data analysis. Which is just what the Premium Members have in their hands – lot’s of data! We can now query the database and ask any number of pertinent questions that will improve our chances at catching fish. For example a Premium Member can run a report for the BEST fishing lakes within say, a 50 mile radius of their home for the month of June. Wow – that is powerful information! With more reports (now well over 20,000) this information becomes even more accurate. If you’re not a Premium Member you really should consider it. We’ve kept it very inexpensive so most people can afford it.
Next on my list of big changes is a subtle change that occurred in 2009 – HD videos. YouTube announced in 2009 the ability to host HD videos and yours truly immediately went out and made the investment of a new HD camcorder. The results were impressive and immediate to anyone watching the Video Section (which has grown to almost 60 videos, BTW). Our new videos are crystal clear and a joy to watch. I couldn’t be happier with the results. We will continue to add videos and are proud to say no other Washington fishing web site comes close to the number of videos we have available for viewing.
2009 was also the Year of the River Report. From September to December we had a phenomenon I have never seen before. Each month we had MORE river reports than we had lake reports. (in addition because of Pink Fever we had more saltwater reports in August than lake reports). I’m so excited to see the growing number of river angler reports, for both salmon and steelhead. I tell guides at the sportsman shows that we are more than a “lake report” web site. Now I have the stats to prove it. So thanks to all of you that are growing the river report section.
And speaking of growing we continue to do just that. Here’s a few numbers to throw at you: Web site visits grew from 2 million in 2008 to 2.6 million in 2009. Forum membership grew from 3,600 to 9,500. Reports went from 3,800 to 5,266!
As always, I can’t begin to thank everyone enough for their support of WL.com. Thanks to our fine group of writers, sponsors, moderators, and especially the MEMBERS that contribute so much to make this the number fishing site in the Pacific Northwest for fishing information.
Here’s to a great 2010!