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Welcome to FISH FOOD TIMES
Jan. 2024 issue No.241
| I'm sorry, but there is no English version of the first issue from 20 years ago. |
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What I was thinking back then is now...
20th anniversary
Dear readers, I wonder when in January you open the screen of this site and look at it. I don't know about it from here, but with the support of everyone viewing this page, FISH FOOD TIMES was able to celebrate its 20th anniversary this month. I would like to express my gratitude to all the readers who are looking at this screen right now.
I am not sure whether we will be able to reach our 30th anniversary in the future, but I would like to commemorate the fact that we have entered our 21st year as a milestone.
The articles in this month's January issue, which is in its 21st year, are similar to the January issue in previous years, with a slightly different trend from the usual month, but this year's content is mostly text with almost no images. This is because once a year, at the beginning of the year, I feel free to write down content without worrying about ease of understanding, and I prioritize expressing my thoughts and ideas above all else. In particular, since this is our 20th anniversary issue, please be aware that the content will be somewhat difficult, with very little information about fish, which is not typical of FISH FOOD TIMES.
For this reason, if you can't stand reading such sentences and think it's a waste of your time, it's probably best not to read on from this point. If you are still interested in reading this to kill time despite the author's preface, please read to the end. However, I hope that you will read this to the end and stop complaining that it wasn't supposed to be this way.
Launch of homepage
In January 2004, the author purchased Adobe GoLive, a web authoring tool (website related production software) from Adobe, and also purchased and read a commercially available manual explaining this software. And he slowly started FISH FOOD TIMES with his own hands without anyone's help.
The starting point was the hard copy at the beginning of the book. That's all there is to it, and it's a lot different from recent content. I don't think the content could have been so sparse if I had gotten help from a web designer. However, I really wanted to create a homepage with my own hands.
For 20 years, I have been steadily working on this process by myself, renting a rental server from an Internet service provider, uploading the content I created, and making it available to the world. At first, I didn't go to a computer class to learn the know-how, and I didn't have a reliable IT expert nearby who was knowledgeable about the internet, so I had to do all of this work on my own, even with such a small amount of content. Moreover, I remember that back then, computers would freeze suddenly and repeatedly without any warning, and it took a long time.
The first reason why I took such an action that could be seen as self-righteous is that I am a "Mac fan'' who is similar to the so-called "Apple believers'' in the world. I feel that the number of people who use Apple's MacBooks has increased considerably these days, but 20 years ago, there were still very few Mac users. At that time, whenever I happened to meet a Mac believer, it was like meeting someone who believed in the same religion and being happy. Therefore, there was no one nearby that I could rely on for the know-how of setting up a website. Also, about 10 years earlier, around 1995, I had been using a Macintosh desktop computer equipped with a Power PC microprocessor. In other words, the author himself is one of the few maniacal Mac users, and in the distribution and retail industries that I work with, there are almost no Mac users at the level that I would ask for guidance.
The second reason is that I am the type of person who wants to do everything myself. When I come across something that interests me in a certain field, I judge whether it is within the reach of my abilities or not, and I think that it is not impossible to do something at this level, I have the personality to keep working until I can do something, even if it takes some time.
I'm sorry that the following passages are just my own boasts, but I'd like you to listen to them. For example, as an example of a large-scale DIY project, I built a granite open-air bath by myself that was large enough for two adults, which took about a year, and I also built a wooden deck that was 20 meters long and 5 meters high. In addition, he did everything himself in relation to houses, including installing wooden fences and lattices, adjusting and replacing tiles on the entire roof, repainting plaster walls, replacing sliding doors and shoji, installing flooring, and pasting wallpaper. Currently, the author is working on building a second pond for Nishikigoi with a water capacity of approximately 4.5 tons. When I think something looks interesting, I often jump in and try it myself, and whether I succeed or not, I try to enjoy the process itself. As a result, I not only rejoice when I succeed, but even when I fail, I reflect with a bitter smile and think, "Ha ha, I see, this is the reason for my failure...'' and I also enjoy revenge. By the way, when it comes to computer-related DIY, Mac computers from more than 20 years ago were still able to be disassembled by removing the screws from the casing and handling the contents in various ways. I enjoyed tinkering with not only the hard disk and battery built into it, but also various other parts. For example, I once disassembled two broken MacBooks and put the parts together and used them as one MacBook.
Purpose of the homepage
When creating the FISH FOOD TIMES homepage, we decided from the beginning that it would be updated once a month, and we also decided that the article style would be completed once a month. The purpose of creating this website is firstly to inform the world of my existence as a fisheries consultant, and to provide a sales method that will lead to requests for consulting work. Secondly, by sharing the knowledge I have cultivated in the fisheries field with the world, I hope that the content I write on my website will be of some use to the young people who will come after me in the seafood retail industry. Thirdly, I wanted to revive the paper version of FISH FOOD TIMES, which went out of print in 1995, online.
The FISH FOOD TIMES, which was printed on paper, was first published in 1991 by the author as editor, and was an 8-page A4 size publication, published once a month, and sold for 500 yen. However, it was discontinued five years later in 1995. This monthly newspaper also became a means for the supermarkets that subscribed to me to ask me to provide guidance in their fisheries department. Therefore, they were planning to use their homepage as a similar sales method. Although it had a decent number of subscribers at the time, sales were not large enough to offset printing and other costs, and it was not possible to continue beyond 1996.
On the other hand, this homepage has been able to continue for 20 years. One of the reasons why we have been able to continue this business for 20 years is because we hardly calculate the costs associated with these expenses, and that is because we feel comfortable as there are no sales from the website. I think I was able to continue working because I worked freely, without any constraints, and within the limits of my time and money.
What was the result?
The purpose of creating the homepage was as mentioned above, so I was hoping that as many people as possible would access it and that I would get jobs through this. This aim has led to several achievements over the past 20 years. There is a representative trade paper in the distribution and retail industry that covers knowledge and information on the food field in the supermarket industry, called Shokuhin Shogyo, which was published by Shokokai Co., Ltd., which has a long history of over 70 years since its founding. One of them was a request for a manuscript from here.
I remember that my first request for a manuscript was around the beginning of July 2012. I received a phone call from the editor saying, ``I saw the FISH FOOD TIMES homepage.I would like to request a manuscript for the next September issue.'' Although I pretended to be calm, I couldn't hide my joy at this. As a consultant involved in the supermarket industry, being able to receive a manuscript fee and publish my opinion in the venerable monthly magazine Shokuhin Shogyo is not a job that anyone can do just by raising their hand. It was an honor that tickled their self-esteem and was something that only a select few who were approached by the editor could do.
Unfortunately, like many others, this company's business stalled due to the publishing recession, and its long history of 70 years ended. And the monthly magazine called Shokuhin Syogyo has been taken over by a completely different company. The current new company has never requested a manuscript from me, but when the old company was publishing, I wrote and published articles about 29 times from 2012 to 2020. In this way, I was given a wonderful opportunity to let people in the supermarket industry across the country know my name and the way I think about managing the fisheries department.
Now, to be honest, I have had many requests for guidance in the fisheries department from supermarkets, which was originally my main purpose, because of my website, but to be honest, in the last 20 years, I have had almost no requests. In other words, this homepage could hardly function as a salesperson.
Start English version
However, despite these poor sales results, in March 2013 I began translating the entire text into English and publishing it in order to increase the overall appeal of this website. The goal was to spread the word about the health benefits of eating fish and the profound appeal of fish by translating it into English, the world's standard language.
Also, this is just dream-like nonsense, so please ignore it, but I have a faint hope that if possible, I would be happy to receive an offer from an American supermarket to instruct fish counters. .... This is a funny story, so please don't worry about it. However, I was a little surprised by a recent newspaper article about the seafood industry. There is a food supermarket in the United States called Wegmans that I have been paying attention to for some time and have praised its power. This is because I learned that Uoriki, a Japanese fish retail company, will be managing the fish store over the long term using the Japanese-style method of developing a fish store. At this point, I couldn't help but feel a little bit of envy deep down in my heart.
To find out how many accesses the entire FISH FOOD TIMES site, including the English version, receives from what countries, you can use the website access analysis tool Google Analytics. By using this function, access information to FISH FOOD TIMES can be obtained in real time. By using this, site administrators can not only display the overall number of users, number of impressions, session time, number of events, etc., but also the access ranking of displayed pages, display ranking by country, and user attributes by region. You can obtain various information such as details.
It is not possible to describe here the details of the numerical information regarding FISH FOOD TIMES, which Google Analytics compiles and publishes in real time on a second-by-second basis. However, if we look at the number of accesses by country for the past three months prior to the present, 85% were from Japan, 3.8% from the United States, 1.5% from Thailand, 1.2% from Singapore, 1.1% from Australia, and 1.0% from the United Kingdom. The total number of countries is 55.
Of course, I do not translate 100% into English using my own English ability, but I use several free translation services available online, such as Google Translate, in parallel. I feel that the Japanese to English translation capabilities of these tools have improved significantly since I started the English version in 2013. However, the seafood-related content covered by FISH FOOD TIMES includes many less common words, such as fish names, fish part names, and terms related to specialized cuisine. For this reason, simply letting a translation tool translate the text often results in completely meaningless sentences. Therefore, I spend about one day every month translating the Japanese homepages I create into English, in order to get the English text closer to the original I created in Japanese, until I can understand it using my own English skills. I am also working on revising this so that the meaning of the text is correct and understandable. By the way, it takes an average of three days to create the original text in Japanese, excluding the time required to create the product. Adding the one day required for translation work, the monthly update process takes an average of four days in total.
Redesigned display style
I decided to change the homepage style that I had maintained from the first issue until June 2015, starting the following month in July. At this point, Adobe's web authoring tool Adobe GoLive had been reborn as Dreamweaver, and I had already switched to this new software, so it was a convenient time to change my style. The impetus for updating the display style was that a person in charge of an IT company that operates a smartphone site pointed out that the display style of FISH FOOD TIMES was a little outdated.
The company that made this point and the author had a contract to reprint a partial copy of FISH FOOD TIMES for a fee, with the condition that it would be limited to this smartphone site. This company was distributing information on fishing ports across the country on its smartphone site. By using smartphones to connect contract fishermen in production areas with commercial suppliers, they created a system called Buyer''S, which arranges for delivery and makes payments for fish purchases. However, the business did not last long and was halted due to the wishes of the parent company, who determined that it was not possible to generate profits as planned.
For me, the relationship with this company was a blessing because it gave me the opportunity to point out issues for improvement that I had not noticed on my own. FISH FOOD TIMES has continued to use its current style for eight years since then, and just like before, it has not felt the need to change its current style. Therefore, unless someone gives me strong advice, I think this display style will continue for the time being.
For example, in the direction of improving the style of the site, it may be necessary to support videos in the future. However, this is basically impossible for someone who is running a site using a rental server. It may be possible to upload parts of the site's articles to YouTube, etc., to compensate for the lack of explanations with still images. However, it is impossible to take a video that consumes a large amount of file size and upload the process to the FISH FOOD TIMES server. If we did that, the rental capacity of the server would quickly become full, so it would be absolutely impossible. In other words, as of January 2024, there are no plans to make any major changes to the site's display style, but I am beginning to think that the time has come to change the site's management style.
Trends in pages that are viewed frequently
Lately, when I open Google Analytics and check the access status of the site, the author, who is in charge of FISH FOOD TIMES' site operations, has a question in mind. Every month, when the author updates the site on the 1st, the number of accesses to the new page peaks on the first day of the month, which is the same every month. However, the curve goes downhill after that, and once it reaches a certain level, it doesn't end in one month, but continues to be read for two or three months. I feel that the meaning of the name TIMES, which is intended to be read in a timely manner with content planned with fish seasons in mind, has been lost.
Specifically, as of late December last month, the number one page viewed in the past three months was the previous month's November 2023 issue, "he origin of the land of the rising sun." 2nd place goes to the October 2023 issue "Domestic farmed row salmon", 3rd place goes to the August 2016 issue "Longtail tuna", and in 4th place is the December 2023 issue "Stone flounder". I would go so far as to say that it is because the theme of the December 2023 issue is not attractive in the first place, but the results of such a high ranking make me feel like "Is this a good thing...?'' Furthermore, not only is the old August 2016 issue in 3rd place, but 5th place is the March 2017 issue "Hairy stingfijsh'', and 6th place is the December 2015 issue "Skewers of abacus ball (mullet)''. In this way, old pages from the past are gradually appearing at the top of the list.
The trend that emerges from this access situation is that FISH FOOD TIMES does not meet the "temporal appropriateness'' that befits the name TIMES. In other words, the FISH FOOD TIMES site is likely to be used more as a reference dictionary than for information on fish seasons and seasonal business opportunities for seafood. This is probably why, even in late December, the previous month's November issue still ranks at the top in terms of page views. If the site bearing the name TIMES can be accessed and viewed without any problems even if it is delayed by two or three months, there is no need to access the site immediately after it is updated at the beginning of the month. This diminishes the meaning of the timely content, and as the author, who is in charge of managing the site, I feel that it is a little different from the intended direction, and is not a very welcome phenomenon.
This trend in the number of page views was not new; it had been going on for a long time, and I thought something had to be done about it. My hope is that at least you can access and view the updated version of the site by the end of the month.
Unique style from the beginning
There is no need to explain this to avid readers who access FISH FOOD TIMES every month, but since this site is a monthly one-shot type, the following month's text is rewritten from the first line with a new theme that is completely different from the previous month's issue. I don't think there are many homepages with this style even if you search on the internet. In addition, although the FISH FOOD TIMES site has site banners that introduce other pages, there are no advertising banners that are vulgar or obtrusive. The image is to look like a newspaper or magazine article without advertisements.
As a site administrator, I have intentionally avoided advertising banners that involve money because it means I have no choice but to show serious reservations to advertisers. If I approach fisheries-related companies, I think some of them will express their interest in placing advertising banners on this site. However, if I were to do that, I would not be able to maintain my current stance of freely writing what I want without any constraints. Since the establishment of the FISH FOOD TIMES website, I have maintained a style in which the content of articles is not influenced by monetary considerations, allowing us to maintain our independence.
I would like to maintain this style as much as possible, but in many ways I don't know what will happen to FISH FOOD TIMES in the future. For example, according to the data displayed by my home body composition monitor, my internal age had remained in the 50s until last summer, but recently I have finally turned 60. However, in reality, I will turn 75 in May of this year and will enter the latter stage of the elderly. According to the general wisdom of the world, this is a year where it can't be helped that people say, ”How long will I be willing to do this?''
Lately, I've been thinking more often than before about how long I want to continue using this website. The author's idea for when this will end is when the author's job as a fisheries consultant, which is his livelihood, ceases to exist. I think that will be a turning point, but for the time being, it looks like I will be able to continue working with multiple companies for this year, 2024, so I don't think I will be discontinuing my homepage before the end of the year.
However, one might wonder whether the author, who is now 75 years old, has the physical strength and willpower to continue working as a fisheries consultant. First of all, regarding my physical strength, my physical ability is not limited to the numbers shown on my body composition monitor, and although I take several types of supplements every day, I do not take any regular medicines that I have been prescribed by my doctor due to my chronic illness. I still have enough physical strength to be able to run up and down the stairs at home. I'm still very curious about my energy, so this year I'm thinking, "I want to do that, I want to do that...''
In other words, in terms of the environment, physical strength, and willpower required for me to continue my work, I think that unless something serious happens in 2024, I will probably be okay this year as well. However, regarding the management style of FISH FOOD TIMES that has been running for the past 20 years, I have doubts about whether it is okay to continue in the same manner this year, our 21st year, and for many years to come.
In particular, I believe that the time has come to fundamentally reconsider what methods are available to make FISH FOOD TIMES a form that satisfies the "time appropriateness'' that is appropriate to the word TIMES.
Changes in site management style
Since FISH FOOD TIMES is updated on the 1st of every month, the number of accesses on the first day of the month is extremely high, and as a result, the line graph goes extremely upwards, as mentioned above. Thankfully, there are readers who can be described as passionate and fixed fans, and there is no doubt that the access behavior of such people is what creates this phenomenon. Although this phenomenon is a welcome one, in terms of overall numerical trends, there is an unwelcome phenomenon in that even in late December, the November issue is accessed more often than the December issue. I would like to change this by changing the structure of the site's management style.
Specifically, this method is such that if you don't access the site and read the current month's articles during the month, you won't be able to read them the next month. FISH FOOD TIMES has been created with the style of ”anyone can read it anytime, for free, on any page, without limit.'' However, the author is thinking of changing this to something like, ”The current month's issue, which has been updated on the site, can be read for free in the same way, but the previously published issues are different.''
In other words, for example, the December 2023 issue will no longer be available for free in January 2024. In other words, in 2024, all the past 240 issues will be paid, and the popular pages such as the August 2016 issue "Longtail tuna", the March 2017 issue "Hairy stingfijsh'', the December 2015 issue "Skewers of abacus ball (mullet )” etc, these are no longer ”free of charge for anyone, anytime.'' Therefore, those who really want to read it can pay money to secure an access key and enter the desired page to view it.
In the first place, as the name of the site FISH FOOD TIMES suggests, I have been trying to write timely articles about fish, keeping in mind the season of fish. Basically, this month's issue has meaning, and previous issues are just footprints, records that have not been erased. Google Analytics confirms that there are a significant number of readers who find past records valuable. If that's the case, I thought it would be a good idea to charge a fee for existing issues by allowing users to view the updated site for free within the month.
If we charge a fee for existing issues, it is possible that the number of accesses to this site will decrease dramatically. However, since the main purpose of changing the site management style is to have the updated site read within the month, I predict that the concentration level during the updated month will definitely increase. Even if the number of site accesses decreased significantly, there would be no problem. This is because there is no mechanism by which an increase or decrease in the number of accesses will affect advertising revenue, and since the revenue is originally zero, this will not cause any pain.
Toward charging for existing issues
Now, the question is what to do about the system for charging for already published issues. I'm not a web designer, so I'm completely ignorant when it comes to this, and now I have to study how it works and build it from scratch. It will probably take a considerable amount of time to study the necessary things in order to build it from now on. If possible, we are planning to change the current management style by February and start a new style from the March issue, if possible, given the time limit.
March 2024 will be the 11th anniversary of the English version, and we are actually planning to charge a fee for the existing issues of the English version, so I think the timing is perfect in that sense. The price is assumed to be ``1 dollar per access'', and when converted to Japanese yen, it is approximately ``150 yen per access'', so there is a proposal to make the Japanese page 150 yen per month. Alternatively, I am thinking of a subscription membership system where you can pay a monthly or annual fee to read everything, including the past 20 years and 240 issues, as well as existing issues that will be added.
As of now, it is completely unknown to me whether it will be possible to construct a system that requires payment for digital content on the Internet. As for the plan, we have two months from now, so I think things will work out somehow. However, since I am planning to build the system all by myself, there may be limits to my ability and I may not be able to complete it within the planned period. If I couldn't do this, I think there would be many people who would clap their hands and rejoice. At the very least, there is no doubt that the latest issue of each renewal month will continue to be free as before, so readers can rest assured.
There will also be a two-month grace period until the end of February when the new management style will be transitioned to. The author has some recommendations for avid readers who are still young, have little experience in the fisheries sector, and are looking to acquire fish knowledge and techniques. That is, if there is a page in an existing issue that you are interested in as reference material, you should take measures such as copying it. Please understand that I am not trying to extort large sums of money from my loyal readers.
There is still a grace period until the end of February when the new style will be adopted. I have no intention of extorting large sums of money from my loyal readers. I don't know what kind of attractive and readable content FISH FOOD TIMES will be able to publish every month in the future, but viewing the updated month is still free. However, please keep in mind that from March onwards, you will not be able to access the service for free unless you access it within the renewal month. If you think there are pages in existing issues that could be useful as reference materials, we recommend that you take measures such as taking screenshots or making copies by February.
Conclusion of the 20th anniversary issue
I wonder how many readers of this month's long article have read all the way to the last sentence. Most of the content in this month's issue has nothing to do with fish, and I am amazed at how many words the author has kept listing. This is a special 20th anniversary issue, so please forgive me.
This year as well, I intend to continue disseminating meaningful information for those who sell fish, and I hope that you will continue to read this article.
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An opinion and the communication are to iinfo@fish food times
Date of updating 1 Jan. 2024
