Last week we kicked off a series of weekly interviews with bloggers from the London Bloggers Meetup community. We started by interviewing Annie Mole who’s been blogging about the wacky world of the London Underground since 2003 – winning a gaggle of awards along the way. One of Annie’s top tips for writing a blog is to write about something for which you feel passionate and it’s clear our next interviewee does just that.
This week we’ve interviewed none other than London institution The Londoneer. I’ve known the man behind the Londoneer for a couple of years now and not only is he a fantastic blogger, but a throughly nice fella too. The things that really impress me about The Londoneer’s blog are the daily posts, often written in quite some detail, all held together with great original photography. It’s by no means an easy task to write one new post every day – believe me I tried and failed miserably at this – but the Londoneer takes this in his stride.
If you like London and want to read more about its cultural diversity and being a Londoner, there are few better places to go.
Well, without further ado, I’ll hand this post over to The Londoneer…
1. What’s your blog called and what’s the URL?
The Londoneer, and you can find it at http://thelondoneer.blogspot.com
2. What’s your blog all about ( in 20 words or less)?
It’s about my life in London and elsewhere, and it serves as a good platform for my photography too.
3. When and why did you start blogging?
I started blogging in 2007 after going to a Conference where Euan Semple, the ex-BBC journalist, was talking about the joys of blogging, and encouraging attendees to try it for themselves.
4. Which blog platform do you use?
I use Google’s Blogger (which is much improved in recent months I must say, particularly on the design side as it’s now very flexible)
5. Can you give an example of how blogging has enriched your life?
Blogging has really increased my understanding of London’s complexities, and taken me to parts of it I’m sure I would never have visited otherwise.
6. Are there any blogs you recommend reading and why?
My friend TikiChris writes (?) the London Daily Photo blog, which I find an inspiration – a new photograph every single day, and it takes some dedication to keep that up I can tell you. Tired of London, Tired of Life is another good one – it covers similar ground to my blog but the author is far more concise and doesn’t ramble on endlessly as I tend to do!
Of course I can’t miss out Annie Mole’s London Underground Blog which continues to fuel my fascination with our rather quirky public transport system.
7. What three tips would you give to someone just starting out in blogging?
Just get stuck in, and don’t worry about the quality because that will come with practice.
Screeds of text without interruption can become a bit tiring, so throw in some colour whenever you can – photographs or video work well (but as a photographer can I please ask that you don’t reproduce other people’s work without their permission. It’s an almost unforgivable sin, and completely unnecessary these days anyway because even the camera on your phone can take perfectly acceptable photographs with a little effort)
Make sure that you read other bloggers’ work in your particular area of interest regularly – the better ones will inspire you, and the others will show you what techniques and writing styles to avoid!
8. If you could change one thing about your blog what would it be?
I’m thinking about moving my blog to a unique domain, but as there will be a great deal of effort involved in making sure its a seamless transition both for my readers and the search engines, I wish I’d done it a lot sooner!
9. What is the key to getting readers to your blog?
Make sure that you Digg, Tweet and update your Facebook wall every time you post something new. At least your friends will see your blogposts if no-one else does! And of course, do make the effort to get your blog listed on all of the blog directories – it takes very little effort and you only have to do it once per site. Loaded Web, Blogtoplist, Blog Catalog, Zimbio are all good places to start but you’ll find many others.
10. And finally, why do you come to the London Bloggers Meetups?
I meet fascinating people with fascinating stories to tell, and you never know where that next conversation might take you…
If you’ve read this blog before, or attended a London Bloggers Meetup, or if you are a member of the meetup group, you’ll know that I strongly believe we have some of the most interesting bloggers in the world as members of our community. That’s right, I do mean the world.
Each and every month I run a London Bloggers Meetup, someone turns up doing something out of the ordinary simply because they want to blog about their passion. Whether it’s writing about where to get a great full english, or how to take incredible photographs (or showing off their own photos), or how to create a paperless office.
The only problem with this is trying to talk to everyone. It’s simply not possible. So from now on and on every Monday for at least the rest of this year, I’m going to post up here an interview with one of our bloggers. A good way I hope for everyong to get to know their fellow bloggers, what they write about, what we can learn from them and why we should be grabbing their attention for a chat at a future London Bloggers Meetup.
To get us kicked off, I’m going to start with that blogger extraordinaire Annie Mole. If you haven’t read Annie’s blog, it’s high time you did, no better place on the internet for news about the worlds oldest (and arguably best) underground railway system. So here goes…
1. What’s your blog called and what’s the URL?
London Underground Tube Diary – http://london-underground.blogspot.com
2. What’s your blog all about ( in 20 words or less)?
A lighthearted but hopefully informative look at travelling on the Tube – warts and all.
3. When and why did you start blogging?
January 2003. Prior that I’d been running a static site about the Tube since 1999 and I thought that blogging would be a much easier way to update the news section. I also wanted something to act as a commuter’s diary and blogging seemed to be the best way forward for this.
4. Which blog platform do you use?
Blogger
5. Can you give an example of how blogging has enriched your life?
It’s meant that I’ve got to meet lots of people who are now very good friends of mine. However, I’m also lucky enough to have gained a good relationship with London Underground themselves and with the London Transport Museum. They both treat me as a news outlet – which is quite flattering and send me press releases and invites to events.
I’ve also been invited to some fantastic events by companies related to transport – the best I have to say was a trip on the Orient Express, thanks to Dell. It’s clearly the best way to travel by train and although we only went to Eastleigh, I’ve always wanted to travel on it.
6. Are there any blogs you recommend reading and why?
Brian Pigeon’s Blog - as it’s very funny and how I would imagine a pigeon to speak if it had vocal chords. There’s a strong laddish cockiness about him being the under-dog of the bird world.
IanVisits – Ian spends tons of time visiting unusual parts of London and also has an events calendar of happenings that are off the beaten track
OmNomLondon – I read a lot of food blogs but am impressed by how Melanie has been able to build this up in two years, purely based on the food she eats out. I’m amazed she’s not the size of a horse!
7. What three tips would you give to someone just starting out in blogging?
a) Write about something that you feel passionate about, but don’t feel compelled to write something every day. People will forgive you more for a great post once a week, than so-so posts every day.
b) Don’t be too apologetic or sell yourself down. I see a number of blogs with a subtitle or about this section like “My little piece on the web, which no one probably wants to read, where I meander about nonsense that’s possibly only interesting to me”. That might be true, but it’s not exactly encouraging to hear that up front and doesn’t put the reader in a positive state of mind.
c) Spend at least as much time commenting on other people’s blogs as you do writing your own blog. I don’t mean spam them with links to your blog, but leave a comment on blogs that you admire. Everyone likes to receive feedback on their posts and even if it’s one line – the chances are the blogger will return to look at your blog – specially if you comment regularly.
8. If you could change one thing about your blog what would it be?
I wish Blogspot had a commenting tool when I started. I introduced an external commenting platform onto the blog many moons ago – Haloscan – which was all very well until it was taken over by Echo earlier this year. I had the choice of losing six years worth of comments or migrating to their new system. I chose the latter, because I’m un-techy, but I really don’t like it and will look for a new option early next year.
9. What is the key to getting readers to your blog?
Write regularly – I know I said above don’t feel you need to blog every day, but if people know that you update your blog a few times a week, they’re more likely to bookmark it or put it in their RSS feed. Most people arrive at my blog through a general “london underground” search and as they see the top post was only at most two or three days old, they know it might be worth returning for new content. If your last post was written a month ago, people may think you’ve given up and will be less likely to return.
Add your blog to blog directories like Technorati, Google Blog Search, BritishBlogs and others like it.
Reach out to other bloggers. I mention above that it’s good to comment on other blogs. After a while ask if they might add you to their blog roll or offer to write a guest post, if you feel you can add an interesting perspective to their blog. The more links you have to your blog, this will really help your position in search engines
10. And finally, why do you come to the London Bloggers Meetups?
It’s a great way to meet a whole range of bloggers. From people who’ve been blogging for years, to ones who are just starting out. Eveyone has similar issues and problems and can learn from each other. The bloggers who attend are very open & friendly and happy to share ideas.
Plus you normally find a great sponsor and it’s hard to say no to a free drink in good company!
Posted in Meetup on 21. Jul, 2010
It’s always interesting to see the blog posts and tweets after an LBM, none more so that Ill and Ancient’s posts. Who else would have thought to evaluate a social evening with a graph depicting his engagement with fellow bloggers over the course of the evening.. an example of why I always say the bloggers meetup is full of phenomenally interesting people.
Anyway, it was once again a pleasure to host the London Bloggers Meetup, particularly as we were being hosted by Talk Talk in their snazzy new Customer Experience Centre and Rob from the Real Cycling blog was giving a presentation on how to add podcasting to your online world.
I have to thank Rob for what was a detailed and well thought out talk, which, if I’d thought about it, I would have recorded with audioboo and made available on the blog. But never mind, if you want to get the gist of his talk, head to the Real Cycling blog which has all the info he presented on the night. It’s the first time we’ve had a presenter heckled / corrected during their presentation (thanks @radiokate) which thankfully didn’t throw Rob too much.
TalkTalk were as generous a host as we could have hoped for, providing a good array of beers and some wonderful canapés. At one point the venue manager tapped me on the shoulder and said:
“we’ve already got through most fo the beers, do you think I should order more, or will everyone be happy with the wine.”
I think she knew the answer before she’d finished the question and organised a few more cases. I was surprised just how good a venue the Talk Talk centre is and if you didn’t get the chance, do pop back and check out the lounge and business incubator spaces on the 1st floor and above. A great little centre and I must applaud Talk Talk for finding a creative use for the space they acquired on buying Tiscali. A huge thanks to Maggie, Leanne and team for hosting us so well. We’ll be back (if for nothing else but to use the free internet).
So who did I speak to on the evening. Well, a lot of people, new faces and old and I’m not going to name check the lot of you. But a few notable peeps as ever:
Lolly – a pleasure as always, let me know on the LBM paternity cover
Matt – good to see you being one of the last to leave as usual. Drop me a line on that potential sponsor
Peter – you’ll have to wear a health warning with the number of times I saw your flash going off, but the usual great pics online already I see
Proactive Paul – the paperless office, interesting read and let’s chat about how you could shape into a talk for a future LBM
Pete – now you’re selling ads, perhaps you can teach the rest of us how to do that on our blogs…?
Mehrdad – there’s no way you are that old, just no way.
Heading back to Ill and Ancient for a second, he asked the question…
“would Andy the LBM organiser consider hosting a special, where all the regular bloggery meetuppery people had to do a 60 second talk. Some deal with twenty slides in a minutes or something. Would that entertain?”
The answer is absolutely. If we have enough people interested in doing a 60 second talk, then I’m well up for that. Volunteers please.
Well, enough from me. A fantastic evening had by all I hope and look forward to the August edition (more details coming soon).
This might perhaps be the most belated blog posts I’ve written in some time, but what the hell, it’s worth the effort. If for nothing else than to thank the guys at Best Buy again for bringing their show to the last London Bloggers Meetup.
For some reason I wasn’t entirely sure how everyone would take to me bringing an electronics retailer to the meetup, but it seemed like everyone was genuinely interested in what Paul (Best Buy UK boss) had to say. Maybe it’s because they’re taking a very customer focussed approach to retailing, which if you think about Curry’s, PC world etc, it’s fairly clear they don’t. Or maybe because they actually know what they’re talking about.
I was once talking to a salesman in Curry’s when trying to buy a camera. I was comparing two brands and asked him for his opinion on the two cameras, the answer went something like:
it’s just down personal brand preference. Like with cars, some poeple prefer BMW, others Mercedes, they’re both the same really.
Needless to say I didn’t buy the camera. I’m pretty confident I wouldn’t get the same experience at Best Buy.
Over the years I’ve been running LBM, we’ve had some pretty cool prizes given away: big screen TVs, trips over London in an airship, weekends away in Amsterdam. But this was the first time we’ve had something signed by Dr Dre. And it has to be said, Mauricio looked like the cat that got the cream when he drew the winning prize – a set of Monster Beats headphones. Presumably you’ve road tested those headphones by now Mauricio..? Any good?
Now I think about it, perhaps people were pleased with Best Buy too because of the seemingly endless supply of Bon Jovi tickets given away. I think I was one of the few people to have not walked away with a pair of tickets, but then I guess I was drawing the lucky winners.
Of course, the night wouldn’t have been the same without Tom Tired of London Tired of Life and his cracking presentation on politics and blogging. Who else would have shared the fact that John Prescot’s manhood is the size of a chipolata was first broken as a story on a blog. Can I say that now he is a Baron..?
In case you want to catch-up on any of the polticial blogs Tom talked about, here’s a link to them all.
Guido Fawkes – http://www.order-order.com/
Iain Dale – http://www.iaindale.blogspot.com/
Conservative Home - http://conservativehome.blogs.com/
Spectator Coffee House – http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/
Paul Waugh - http://waugh.standard.co.uk/
Tom, thanks again for a hugely entertaining presentation. I always like to have regular LBM’ers as speakers and if anyone else fancies taking the stage, please drop me a line. It’s not as daunting as you might think and it’s pretty much always a friendly crowd – unless you are a brand coming to sell something.
The other news that night was that regular LBM’er and entrepreneur Navin found out his Love@Tube iPhone app was approved by Apple that very night. Congrats Navin.
If you are single and looking for love, check out his app in the App store now.
Well that’s it. Look forward to seeing you all again on July 14th for the next edition of the London Bloggers Meetup.
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