Blog: MyVillage

January 7 2008
So here it is...2008.  And it seems the Boss was visited by three ghosts this festive season.  That's right folks, the big man is crowbarring open his dusty old wallet and promising to give some dough to charity.  We're in the process of picking five lovely charities to give a lovely 2.5% of each sale to.  Yes, really. 

But all things come with a proviso.  And MyVillage staff could be given the option to donate a portion of their wage to charity too...we're not talking the Editorial Team beer fund either.  Tsk.

So there you have it, MyVillage.  Touchy.  Feely.  Give us a cuddle, you know you want to...x

November 20 2007
Christmas is almost upon us...again.  It seems like only three weeks ago we were trawling through our listings to update local folk with local festivities for 2006.  But here we are again, spending our days in the exciting world of Christmas markets and ice rinks, panto and pressies.  Meanwhile our inboxes overflow with offers of tickets to events that, quite frankly, put us in a rather satanic frame of mind (snotty children, flashing lights, plastic overkill).  By the time December 25 comes round turkey’s the last thing we want on our plates.

That said, our techie spods couldn’t have festivities further from their minds.  Their glasses are steaming up in frustration, their Star Trek DVDs gathering dust as they continue with the ever spiralling task of bringing MyNearest to the masses.  They’ve even hooked up with some mysterious Romanian geeks to help them do, er...whatever it is they’re doing.

So what else’s going on round these parts?  Well, we’ve invited some lovely new people to give us their take on the world.  Check out columns from singer Laura Proudman and traveller Jimmy.  Meanwhile Meg has Manchester all sewn up, Sarah’s our Belfast Princess, Leigh’s not mincing her words about London while Emmanuelle and Charlotte are taking things down to a local level in Brixton and North London.

If you fancy joining our raft of contributors to get your voice heard, give us some tips on your local areas or get a portfolio up and running why not join us on our board?  Don’t be shy, we won’t bite...x

September 2007
Everyone’s got a blog these days – Britney keeps us up to date on her newest pooch purchases on hers, Lily Allen slags off the rest of the celeb world on hers and it seems that half of the Western world are getting theirs published in paperback (in case we should ever need a hard copy for posterity or legal reasons).

So there we were brainstorming during one of our impressive Editorial Meetings – think lots of glossy, impeccably be-suited whizkid types, seated around an expansive table in a gleaming white office (Ugly Betty’s Mode offices but more stylish) throwing great ideas out from behind matching Macs.  Ok, ok…if you want the truth it’s four of us shouting ‘YOU’RE BREAKING UP…HELLO?  Hellooooo?  Can you HEAR ME?’ over Skype while the Boss silently weeps in to his tea.  Anyway, there we are, the news that MyVillage is in for a major overhaul there, dangling in front of us like a slightly menacing carrot, and it’s down to us to keep our loyal readership up to date with what shiny, new features they’ll find on the site, why everything’s upside down all of a sudden and when they can expect MyVillage to not only be able to tell them what’s on but programme their Sky+, put their washing on and tell them what to have for tea tonight.  And what do we do?  ‘Ah, let’s just do a blog…’ you’ve got to give us ten out of ten for being well behind the times.  Welcome to the 67millionth blog to enter cyberspace.

But that’s enough about how the GENIUS idea for a blog came about, let’s tell you about what’s been happening at MyVillage Towers over the last few weeks.

Firstly you may have noticed that some of our pages are suddenly looking a bit different.  That’s to say they’ve been redesigned, just ignore the bits where the text is huge then tiny…and the bits where the pictures don’t fit or the title’s gone wonky.  We’re getting there, ok?  The technical team and the design folk have been working, literally, day and night to get all the pages done. There have been tears and recriminations, there have been moments where it looked like the Boss may meet his maker prematurely as he asked ‘could we move that bit along three pixels and change that from royal blue to cyan?’  But we’re getting there and we hope you like it.

Elsewhere, the Big Ideas team are arguing over what is known as Social Networking/MyNearest.  From what we slow Editorial people can tell (look, we just waft about the place coming up with an alternative way to say ‘nice’ and thinking up witty rhymes) this means you’ll be able to join MyVillage and have your own page whilst also seeing listings, reviews, previews and more in any part of the UK you like.  Well, it sounds pretty good...we’ve got a beta site going if you fancy having a nose.

Anyway, it’s back to the shiny desks and big ideas for me.  If you’ve got anything to say about the new look site or, for that matter, anything MyVillage related hit Post A Comment (it’s up there by the picture now if you’re lost) x

Laura Heaps, MyVillage, 14th September