welovelocal.com got vocal and joined Jemima Kiss over on the Guardian’s ‘Elevator Pitch’ as part of the Tech Weekly podcast. Both Max and Dan rode the ‘lift of doom’ all the way to the food hall - and answered some good questions along the way. If you want to hear the guys talking shop about welovelocal.com it is well worth a listen. If you don’t fancy it much there are plenty of other interesting people on the Tech Weekly podcast to listen to including some good discussions about Europe’s dotcom startup’s from Aleks Krotoski, and if Sillicon Vally is really where it is at from Loic Le Meur.

If I mention Blackpool many think ‘tired seaside town a long way up North’, however whatever Blackpool may lack in fresh paint it really does make up for it in a very slick community site. By the Lights blog looks at all things Blackpool, from local events, articles and news to listing local Blackpool bloggers. Again, this is a prime example of a comprehensive first class community site. Trams, towers, donkeys, pleasure beaches, roller coasters Blackpool and By the Lights really has got it all!

I love local sites as they really do, do a great job of dispelling any myths that people hold about particular places because they are just so passionate. Personally I am a big fan of a Blackpool, as a former (very poor) Ballroom dancer the Blackpool Winter Gardens are the capital of the UK dance scene!

So, If you what to keep in the loop about what is going on in Blackpool this is the site for you. It includes gig listings, info on the local footie team and loads more – it is jam packed! If anyone else reads any great local community sites we would love to hear about them – maybe we could feature them on the blog!

Photo by Adam Mutum over on Flickr

Back in July, I posted a blog post about an image I made called London Lights, which used the welovelocal database to map all the businesses in London to a point on a map. Well, now that we’ve gone nationwide, I have even more data to play with!

So this is the second in the series, if you include the July one. This doesn’t really have a name at the moment, so if someone wants to christen it, let me know in the comments!

This is a typographical map of the UK, using the structure of welovelocal and the amount of businesses in that area. The more businesses in an area, the larger and brighter the text. The position of the text is based on the geographical position.

Some towns maybe not be as bright as you expect (for example, Manchester), as they are broken down in subtowns (e.g. Oldham, Bury, etc). It’ll make more sense when you view it.

View UK Word Map (2000×3000px)

Here at welovelocal.com we have a real thing for community sites, we previously posted regularly about great community sites all around London. However, now being a nationwide directory we decided it was time to start taking a look at some of the community sites that the rest of the country have to offer – Starting with a fine example of a site all about Swansea!

Not excited yet? You will be once you see this pretty passionate site. Pretty Shitty City is a site and project dedicated to documenting and publicising the alternative design and music culture scene in Swansea. Don’t be fooled by the name this site is all about the cultural joys of the city and none of the (excuse the pun) shitty bits, a real site for the people who live there. It was born from the idea that the cultural scene in Swansea was disjointed and needed pulling together into one place, and that’s just what these guys have done. It now acts as a useful portal to find gig listings, read articles, talk in the forum or just stop by and purchase your I heart Swansea t-shirt.

This site is pretty cool, if you are just visiting the area and want to catch a gig, or if you living near by the area and want to stay connected.

Some rather interesting news emerged today via the BBC, a survey of coffee shop chains in the UK has revealed what we all suspected - you can get a better quality brew at an independent establishment rather than at one of the hundreds of coffee chains that dominate the UK. The survey claims that you not only get a better quality coffee bean and taste but also the price is far more reasonable.

The UK’s coffee industry has an estimated annual turn-over of £2.5 billion, but surprise, surprise it is larger chains that are making the most profit! Interestingly, the survey focused largely around location, the idea that smaller (often better) coffee houses are located off high streets, so people are often unaware of their existence. Never fear, if you’re on a quest for great independent coffee the website Delocator UK is around to help you. It’s a great site and well worth a look.

Also we have a few tip’s of our own. Flat White on Berwick Street has just won Independent Coffee Shop of the Year 2007. Also the ever popular Monmouth Coffee near Borough Market is famous for its impressive brews – further afield Leoni’s Coffee House in Malton Yorkshire has been making waves in coffee circles for some time now. So get out there and get drinking - in moderation of course!

Lovely photo supplied by Synaethesia over on Flickr.

The 22nd was my birthday and while I won’t bore you with the details of my debauched night out, (actually I went to the Old Coffee House in Soho and watched Tottenham thrash Arsenal 5-1), what I do want to share is the wonderful cake that Helen baked for me.

Turns out she has talents outside of the world of the web, and from the looks of things a healthy obsession with cake! Thanks Helen.

Once you used to reach for the paper business directory to find a good driving school or electrician, but now it would appear that trends are changing. We recently commissioned a poll carried out by YouGov that aimed to investigate this very thing, the findings were really interesting and at the same time quite environmentally shocking.

It highlighted that people really are making a technological leap of faith and are increasingly using the Internet to find local businesses. 51% of people asked, reported that they used the Internet most to find a local business, and a whopping 67% said that they trusted word of mouth more than an advert when finding local businesses. This is good news for welovelocal.com as we endeavor to bring word of mouth and all its quality online.

It is not a case of just looking at the technological benefits of people migrating their local search to the Internet; this could go a long way in reducing waste. Over 17.5 million unwanted directories are delivered to homes in Britain every year this is a staggering amount of waste especially seeing as our poll showed that 35% of Brits no longer want to receive printed business directories. We did some calculations and if you placed all the unwanted directories end to end they would stretch 2,833 miles, and if stacked on top of each other they would be 50 times the height of Mount Everest – crazy!

Check out the rest of our results here.

We don’t usually mention the coverage we receive, but yesterday the Technology Guardian gave not only a very flattering mention to welovelocal.com, but also highlighted an important emerging trend – SUNs!

The article’s focus is around the growing popularity and success of ‘social sites with a social conscience’ – sites that do more than just allow people to talk about what they are going to do at the weekend, sites that facilitate people to make an impact on the real world around them. welovelocal.com was mentioned amongst others to be in ‘the middle of a mini- boom in services that use the unique properties of the internet to help people manage and enrich their lives in a way that was not possible before.’ We are pretty pleased with this description - accurate recognition can be hard to come by.

Such descriptions are a breath of fresh air as welovelocal.com has always aimed to nurture online communities that hold a real and relevant place in the physical world.The site sees people from different areas encouraging others to shop locally, or try a particular local service, all through the words they write in reviews. Mixing new ideas and technology with the age old idea of ‘word of mouth’ creates a great local community resource.

This is not our only mention either, recently we have been lucky enough to receive quite a bit of coverage from Guardian Travel, BBC and NMA which we are very grateful for and proud of. This is all well and good but we have to say ‘thank you’ to our great reviewers who really make the site the awesome community it is.

Photo supplied by gigijin over at Flickr.

I know this is another London related post, but from now on we will be posting more about all the great things that are going, and go on all over the country. However, what is going on in London this weekend is too good and culture packed to ignore.

First of all this weekend is the last to gather up all your old and obsolete tapes and VHS and take them the Tatty Devine Gallery on Brick Lane, where the last Amnesty day is being held. The exhibition, titled Analogue Amnesty and is run by the wonderful Prick Your Finger. It is here that you can place your order for them to spin your old cassettes into yarn, you can then use the yarn to knit or weave clothes – what a brilliant idea, recycling at its craziest and finest! If you go along there is not only yarn spinning and other rumpelstiltskin inspired activities but also a very lovely exhibition of what your yarn could be one day. Seeing is believing.

Secondly, here is one for all you culture vultures, the Russian winter festival is taking over Trafalgar Square on Sunday. This is not just for all you Russians out there; it’s a perfect opportunity for everyone else to sample and stock up on some traditional Russian produce, with stalls offering food and crafts. There will also be theatrical and music performances for the full line up see the official page. If you don’t much fancy standing out in the winter temperatures on street, you can still celebrate all things Russian by heading over to the Barbican to catch a taste of Russian cinema. Films are free, but you will need to book in advance.

If anyone goes to either would love to know if they enjoyed?

Enjoy - whatever you decide to do!

If you’re reading a blog on a site called welovelocal, then you may have watched Hugh’s Chicken Run on Channel 4 over the past few nights. If you didn’t, the programme was about Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall getting the town of Axminster in East Devon to become the UK’s first free-range chicken town. He also showed the locals the large differences between the conditions of battery-farmed and free-range chickens. By the end of the experiment, the battery-farmed chickens were weak and full of pox marks due to their cramped conditions (one chicken per A4-sized piece of land), whereas the free-range chickens were strong, healthy and tasted better.

Hugh’s experiment was to get the public to think about the way they consume chicken and the environment that they live in. From the programme, it seemed like a lot of the Axminster locals didn’t know the process of how a chicken comes from egg to plate.

The welovelocal team are big fans of Hugh’s campaign, and like Hugh, we know that everyone can’t shop at local shops all the time for chicken and they will go to supermarkets, so we’re urging everyone to get behind the Chicken Out campaign and buy free-range and organic chicken. If you do buy it at a supermarket, it will send out a message to the supermarket buyers that there is a demand for ethically sourced poultry. Yes, it is a bit more expensive, but it is worth it, not only for the chickens, but the farmers and your taste buds too.

Hugh has a petition over at his great Chicken Out site that we would recommend signing.