BlogTag – You’re It

I realised recently that the London Bloggers Meetup community has become really quite large. In fact at the last count there are 574 of us! That’s an awful lot of bloggers and it’s great that we are all coming together either online of offline with one thing in common, blogging.

However, it got me to thinking how few of your blogs I’ve actually read. I don’t know whether this is a time issue, or whether I just keep reading the same blogs all the time, or if it’s because there are just so many of us in the community that I haven’t got around to it yet. In reality it’s probably a mixture of all of the above.

In any case, one thing’s for sure, I want to get to know everyone’s blogs a little better and to become a little better connected both on and off line. So what better way than to do that than with a game of blog tag. Thanks by the way to Farhan for this fantastic idea!

How does it work.

1.    I’m going to choose three blogs from the members list, which I’ll read and write a short intro blog post about – see below.

2.    I will include a link / trackback to each blog and tag my post with each blog / blogger’s name

3.    I will also tag my post with ‘LBM BlogTag’

4.    When you spot you have been tagged, you have to write about three other LBM member blogs (click for members list) that have not already been written about and so on…

5.    You will also need to include a trackback to this post to help me monitor when everyone’s blog has been tagged

If everyone participates, we should cover all 574 members blogs (well, those who have included a blog in their profile in any case) within a few weeks..

So here goes, the three blogs to be tagged are:

Farham Rehamn

Thanks Farhan for this great idea. When I found your blog I realised two things very quickly:

1.    I hadn’t been there before
2.    You write about social communities so I shouldn’t be at all surprised you had a great idea like this

I hope this little project will help to rebalance your social currency, giving you a little back, filling up that depleted account and building your reservoir of Twollars. I like some of your predictions for the year ahead, which some might say are already becoming true. Is Facebook still struggling to show value to its advertisers, is Twitter taking over, a yes on both counts I believe. Will FriendFeed and other platforms designed to aggregate and organise your social media kick-off, I strongly hope so. Will 2009 be the year of the “Social Browser” let’s wait and see.

I will definitely be reading Farhan’s blog again, not only because he writes about everything in such well thought out detail, but I am sure there are a lot of ideas I can glean from Farhan’s writing to help me with the various community building projects I am involved in. Thanks Farhan.

Consider yourself tagged!

Epicurienne

Epicurienne probably needs very little introduction to regular LBM’ers. She often pops down to our monthly socials and more importantly she frequently wins a prize. It started with a trip to Amsterdam for the Blog08 event, but then she went on to win a trip in the Stella Artois airship and more recently a T-Shirt from the Fashion Targets Breast Cancer folks. I have to say, the second I pulled Epicurienne’s name out of the hat for the T-Shirt I just couldn’t believe my eyes, how could she win again! The suggestion from her brother that there might be something going on probably expresses the shock in more clarity – just to clarify, there isn’t anything going on.. : – ). Well, there probably couldn’t be a nicer winner, so it seems fair play to me.

Epicirienne’s blog is actually a pretty entertaining read. It’s generally about life, travel , food, fashion and all sorts to be honest. But really, cold spaghetti, that truly is a “Snack of Shame”!

Chris Applegate

Now on to my third blog and I’ve plumped for the interesting world of “marketing wonk” Chris Applegate. Chris has been around LBM for a while and much to my delight brought his client Berocca along last year with a few free samples and a host of free beers. I’ve got to say I’m not sure I’ll be enjoying a Guinness with Berocca again, but a cocktail perhaps worth investigating Mr Diageo – think of the health benefits of a Guinness packed full of life giving vitamins.

In any case, Chris’ blog qwghlm is another interesting read, particularly if you like controversial and highly opinionated political comment – see latest post about a petition for Gordon Brown to resign, which, if you’ve signed makes you a “fucking idiot”, at leats in Chris’ eyes. Chris was behind the even more controversial video of Hitler’s membership of BNP when the BNP lost its membership database last year. If you haven’t see it, it is very funny.

So Chris, consider yourself tagged too. Who will you choose to tag next..?

Happy BlogTagging folks!

Win A Ticket to Blog 08

Folks, we have a new competition open to members of the London Bloggers meetup. The organisers of the Blog08 conference in Amsterdam have kindly donated a ticket for one lucky punter to attend the conference on the 24th October free of charge. These tickets normally cost 195 Euro, or at todays exchange rate around £154, so this is a fantastic prize for any blogger.

Why would you want to go to Blog08 I hear you ask?

Well, check out the website for more details but essentially if you want to meet high profile bloggers, network and learn about how to take your blog from good to great, you could do a lot worse than popping over to Amsterdam for the day.

What do you have to do to win this ticket then?

It’s another prize based on the quality of your comments, whether that is written, video or audio. Simply answer the following question:

I am a blogger and I deserve to win the free ticket to Blog08 because…?

The comments will be judged based on entertainment, the more entertaining your comment, the more likely you are to win. The deadline for entries is Friday October 3rd.

Good luck everyone!

UPDATE, STOP THE PRESS: Our friends over at Essential Travel have now bundled in return flights to Amsterdam along with travel insurance for the lucky winner.

What are you waiting for? Record your video, or audio, or of course feel free to write your entry now… all of which can be done in the comments below!!

Blogology Coming Soon

It’s 8 days now until the next meetup and we have a completely full house . I don’t know whether this has anything to do with the support from our generous sponsors Smirnoff, or just because the last few socials really have been pretty great… either way suits me, but I have to say I’m particularly looking forward to the next event. We have a waiting list by the way, so if you can no longer make it along, please let me know or release your place on meetup. There are others waiting in the wings to join us.

Smirnoff are hosting us in the bar of parent company Diageo and have promised to give everyone a cocktail making lesson, along with designing a custom cocktail for everyone’s blog. Something I’m sure every discerning blogger would be delighted with. Because of the venue there will also be a strict guest list on the door and as they say: “if you’re name’s not down, you’re not coming in!”

Personally I’m looking forward to trying one of their famous Moscow Mules…

Mosco Mule on YouTube

I’ve just added a video and audio commenting plugin to the blog which I’m going to trial for a short while. So please everyone, give it a road test so that I can see how well it works.

Along with that I’ve created a FriendFeed for the London Bloggers community where I’ll be publishing your tweets – let me know if you’d like to be included (@Annie Mole – I’ve added you just to test it out, hope you’re ok with that..? )

I’m hoping to setup another competition for this month too, so keep checking back for news on that.

See you all on the 30th.

Stella’s Joining us for the Summer Party

No not Stella McCartney, but Stella Artois. That’s right our friends at Stella Artois have decided London’s hard working bloggers deserve some cool, crisp, liquid refreshment and have agreed to sponsor our summer party. They’ve promised to buy everyone a couple of pints of cold Stella, or a glass of wine, or a soft drink as you fancy.

Not only is Stella buying the beers, but they also are running a fabulous competition just for members of the London Bloggers Meetup. The prize is a trip in the Stella Artois: Star Over London airship.. to take in London from above. Currently retailing at £185.00, this really is a fantastic opportunity! Thanks Stella!

So how do you win such a fantastic prize?

It’s simple, in 150 words or less, describe your local pub and what it is that makes you keep going back..?’

Simply post your answer as a comment to this post by close of play on Friday 25th July. The entries will be judged based on entertainment value – the more entertaining the more likely you are to win!

There are SIX places up for grabs!

Well, what are you waiting for..!

We’ll announce the winners at the Summer Social on the 29th. Get writing folks and I’ll see you all on the 29th!

Andy