The SoGlos.com Blog

Sizzling start to the summer for SoGlos.com

It’s not just the recent Gloucestershire weather that’s put smiles on the SoGlos.com team’s faces, as May 2009 saw the online magazine’s busiest month yet in its two-year history – with a staggering count of just over 70,000 individual readers flocking to www.soglos.com.

 

The most popular article of the month was, unsurprisingly, SoGlos.com’s review of the Gloucestershire Cheese Rolling 2009, while news that Gok Wan was coming to Gloucester, the third La Vie en Blue event in Prescott near Cheltenham and The Shambles Victorian Museum auction in the Forest of Dean all racked up thousands of readers.

 

The burgeoning readership comes as SoGlos.com embarks on an exciting new project planned for release in the summer, further cementing its position over all other websites, newspapers, magazines and radio stations as Gloucestershire’s number one guide to making the most of the county.

 

A huge thank you to all of SoGlos.com readers and advertisers for making the independent online magazine the success it is today.

Gloucestershire music venues on the map

As part of a series of developments and improvements the team are currently working on - and following on from reader demand over the past few months - Gloucestershire's fantastic array of live music venues can now be found on the SoGlos.com's interactive Google-powered Gloucestershire map. Just tick the pink box on the left-hand menu and voilà! So from local B&Bs and restaurants to attractions and, now music venues, you'll know where to find it.

Reflections on JEEcamp 2009

Doubling in size since last year’s event, the Paul Bradshaw-organised JEEcamp 2009 attracted around 70 attendees – descending on the Birmingham-based ‘unconference’ in a bid to unravel the future of journalism – including SoGlos.com’s founders Michelle Byrne and James Fryer.

Kyle Macrae’s keynote speech was a highlight of the day, with the seasoned entrepreneur giving a heartfelt and honest insight into his experience with Scoopt – a UGC-driven website offering members of the public the opportunity to upload and have their newsworthy pictures sold into the media.

While after years of hard graft the website was acquired by picture giant Getty – before sadly bring shut down earlier this year – Kyle’s insights on the issue of scalability, and realising the profit-generating potential of the model he founded, provided cautionary food for thought, in despite of what may have at first appeared a dream scenario for the budding entrepreneurs in attendance at JEEcamp.

Later in the day and it was James Hatts’ turn to reveal his insights 10 years into running the community-focused website SE1, which covers news in the eponymous postcode district of London. Although James cited plans to launch into neighbouring areas of the capital city – a development fuelled by reader demand to see the popular hyper-local model spread its wings – it was a surprise to hear that the family-run business had never been profit-driven or -motivated.

Deputy editor James Fryer was also fortunate enough to present during the unconference, giving a brief insight into some of the lessons learnt during SoGlos.com’s two-year history as an independent online arts and entertainment magazine for the county of Gloucestershire. It was great to see Martin Belam summarising some of the key points in his Guardian online article, which also provided a succinct round-up of the day as a whole.

Michael Haddon referenced SoGlos.com in his Telegraph online article, while SoGlos.com has also had the fortune of being covered by Kasper Sorenson of Created in Birmingham.

While the enthusiasm and optimism for the future of journalism and the undeniable impact the Internet would continue to have on media was unsurprising – considering the crowd! – what was a little astonishing was the absence of more real life examples of independent publishers and professional journalists alike making a commercial impact regionally.

Kyle Macrae’s thoughts on SoGlos.com as a model which could be rolled out across the country – giving journalists the power to embrace a tried and test model – might not be too far from the mark. Watch this space...

Back office updates

While loyal readers might have noticed a series of subtle changes being implemented across SoGlos.com today, they're unlikely to know that the team have been hard at work deliberating, 'speccing', implementing and testing a number of back office improvements for some weeks now.

Gloucestershire live music venues can now be found listed on the online magazine, some canonical URL issues have been addressed, the Interactive Map has been refined and SoGlos.com's bespoke content management system has also been spruced up... all setting the foundations for some exciting new developments planned to take place later this year.

SoGlos.com trials Gloucestershire news coverage

While Gloucestershire arts and entertainment event previews, reviews and interviews have long been SoGlos.com's specialist areas, reader demands mean the online magazine will be trialing publishing Gloucestershire arts and entertainment news from April 2009 - spanning the Cotswolds, Cheltenham, Forest of Dean, Gloucester, Stroud and Tewkesbury respectively.

Gloucestershire goes Twitter crazy

While the SoGlos.com team first delved into the world of Twitter in 2008, we too were left wondering ‘what exactly is the point?’ and ‘doesn’t Facebook already do this?’ before being tempted to close the door on the Twittersphere forever.

The last few weeks, however, have seen the social networking cum micro-blogging platform take Gloucestershire, the UK and indeed the world by storm – as everyone clambers aboard to answer just ‘what are you doing?’.

You’ll usually find SoGlos.com’s journos glued to their desks writing about glorious Gloucestershire, and the online magazine has already been gathering some followers via http://twitter.com/soglos. But it’s also great to see other early adopters from across the county – including Gloucester City Council, Gloucestershire Tourism and The Cotswold Chef, for example – joining in on the action.

We’re waiting with anticipation to see which Gloucestershire individual, organisation or business is going to start Twittering next.

Cheltenham Festival fever

While we all know it's one of Gloucestershire's largest and most established events, the Cheltenham Festival really has to be seen to be believed as, now into the second day, the streets have been transformed with hopeful betters, opportunist street performers and Sun newspaper-sellers galore who have all turned up hoping to get in on the action.

The betting shops have been packed from dusk til dawn, television blimps can be seen hovering overhead and Cheltenham Racecourse itself is, of course, an absolute hubbub of exhilaration.

So, if you haven't already made it to the world-famous event, check out SoGlos.com's guide to Cheltenham Festival and Gold Cup 2009 - already read by over 10,000 people in the last few days - and place your bets while you still can.

New Gloucestershire mini widget

While website links to SoGlos.com come in all shapes and sizes, after receiving enquires about how best to link-in to the online magazine in recent months we thought it was about time we lent a helping hand - with a dedicated Link to us page and new mini widget. We really hope the latter in particular will help local webmasters quickily and easily show their visitors the way to Gloucestershire's leading arts, entertainment and leisure resource...

New year, new offices

With January being the perfect time to get those New Year's resolutions off to a great start, the SoGlos.com team is delighted to have now, just about, completed the move into its new offices - making for the perfect start to 2009.

SoGlos.com can now be found in the centre of Cheltenham, situated at 30 St George's Place, with climate change charity Vision 21 - and it's friendly team of passionate staff - as its neighbours.

Hopefully just a taste of things to come for 2009.

Happy New Year Gloucestershire

The SoGlos.com team would like to wish all of its Gloucestershire readers, and indeed all those residing across the UK and even further afield, a very happy New Year! Many thanks for all the ongoing support and as we're already in the midst of working on some exciting new developments for the online magazine, we're sure you'll agreed 2009 will be a fantastic year indeed.