secretlondon got too big for its Facebook home! Follow us as we blog about our experiences of turning secretlondon into the website we hope Londoners will love.
Secret Cities of the World Unite!
18 February, 2010
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In a previous blog I called upon secret city groups to get in touch! I have heard from all around the world; Dubai, Cape Town, Boston, Johannesburg, New York, Sydney and Athens to name just a few. I’ve created a facebook group for us all so we can discuss what best ways we can work together to turn the secrets global. The success of these groups proves there is a global demand for this format of exchanging secrets of cities.
The secret facebook group appears to have a winning formula. Secret Bangalore grew to 300 members in just three days! And Secret Cape Town gained 200 members in one day. It’s so exciting that this secret city trend is born out of London, but we want to take it global and bring you all into the fold. Please get in touch with me if you have a secret city and want to get involved. For now, I am asking secret cities to fill in a spreadsheet which monitors their growth and also how many photos and discussions take place each day. secretlondon’s success is not just the number of people joined, but the way in which they engage so it’s important to see if other cities choose to use the groups in the same way as in London.
So secretcities of the world unite! Email me
Categories: Updates
Feed us your feedback
17 February, 2010
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Join the feedback discussion on the new website
The site has launched! But we know it is nowhere near perfect, how could it be in the short time we have put it together? So please be patient and let us know of any bugs you come across. We are working round the clock to make it better and need your help to make it happen.
Following the article on techcrunch we have been inundated with feedback, which is fantastic! I wrote a response to some of the comments on techcrunch the summary of which is:
- We’re sorry if you don’t like .us – we thought it was cool because the site was a community project and also lots of domain names had gone :(
- We’re sorry if you think we spent too much money on bagels, we needed to feed all the talented people who worked throughout the night on the site over the weekend.
- We’re also sorry if you felt that we spent too much buying other domains or that it was a waste to do so. But we’re in touch with the secret city groups around the world and they are very excited to get involved.
We are considering all other feedback, in response to one post we are currently rewriting the intro header and are dealing with all bug reports. Please keep the feedback coming, we are really listening and trying to make the site better for you to enjoy.
Categories: Updates
secretlondon.us is now live!
16 February, 2010
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secretlondon is now live – check it out here!
Please be gentle while we blat the last few bugs…
Categories: Updates
How to build a website in 48 hours for £3,000
16 February, 2010
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The website build weekend drew to a close two days ago and it is only beginning to dawn on me that we might just have achieved the impossible. Building a website for £3,000 and in only 48 hours.
One week ago, secretlondon put the call out on its blog, Facebook wall and Twitter feed for volunteers to help us build a site for the rapidly growing ‘Secret London’ Facebook Group and migrate the existing content across to a new home. We had more than 100 responses from across the London tech community, and over 40 people committed their weekend to make it happen.
The challenge we were trying to solve was simple enough. The Facebook Group in just a few weeks had already attracted over 195,000 users, and completely outgrown its Facebook home. In particular the group features don’t allow people to search through the content. Insights and suggestions were getting buried in the discussion boards and wall. Members were telling me that there was too much information for them to possibly trawl through. We had to find somewhere for this restless and growing crowd to go before they lost interest, and quickly.
The problem was there were only really four of us (me, plus the guys at onefinestay), and we had almost no money.
What’s amazing, though, is how much you can do cheaply if you are working on a project that inspires people. As well as the incredible talent we got on board, we also got a printer from Freecycle.org, brought some equipment from home, and borrowed the rest. The folks at the Finsbury Centre in particular were really generous with their time and help.
Including the domain names for us and future secretcities, catering and all the other out of pocket costs, our total cost for the entire process have been less than £3,000.
When I went round the room on Sunday night and asked all the contributing designers, developers product managers and editors what motivated them to give up their weekend they said it was the feeling of being part of something amazing. They astonished us with their enthusiasm and talent.
secretlondon has shown the power of the community. The group has always been about engaging its members every step of the way. We ran a logo competition to get a logo design, and then asked members on our blog to vote for their favourite. We sought the opinions of the community on the functionality of the site and tried to incorporate as many of the ideas as possible into the launch site.
As with any new website, we may stumble across a few problems along the way (and should that happen, we have own answer to the fail whale!). There were also a couple of hairy moments. Tim had a particularly tough time on Friday night when we realised that Amazon’s RDS service was still only available in the East Coast.
But, with a little help from our friends, we did it. And that community spirit is one of secretlondon’s strongest features.
Since this is an ongoing project, anyone who wants to get involved to take the site to the next level – whether that’s helping Tim maintain the code, or making improvements and widgets – is extremely welcome. We’ll be building an API shortly, so if you’re an iPhone developer and want to work on an app to access the thousands of secrets then we want to hear from you. We also want to cluster data for better recommendations and make recommendations based on places your friends have liked. Get in touch if this is something you can help with.
Meantime, we hope you enjoy the new site: secretlondon.us.
Categories: Announcements
The last mile
16 February, 2010
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A tired Tim
Tim takes a breather for a few minutes after a second all-night coding session, along with Greg, Tom, Andy from Groupspaces and Matthew from Glasses Direct lending a hand.
The end is finally in view for work on our new website. It’s been an unbelievable group effort. We’re hoping to be able to issue the first invitations this afternoon. If you want to be on the list, please add your name to the list at secretlondon.us.
It’s all happening
14 February, 2010
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Progress update:
- Andy, Robert and Greg worked though the night on the technology and design, getting it all ready for the rest of us to take over this am. We are getting there!
- There is a Secret London article in the Sunday Times.
- Miss Led’s mural is looking absolutely fabulous.
Miss Led's wall mural at secretlondon towers
Categories: Updates
We have a new home: secretlondon.us
13 February, 2010
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Lots of people told us to register a domain name. All the good .com names have gone, and we don’t have the money to buy one. Plus that didn’t feel quite right as we weren’t started by a company — we’re a community, and secretlondon is all of us.
And then we saw all the other secret cities popping up all over the world, and realised that if we were going to join forces, we were all going to need homes on the web.
So, we went and found a home. Or rather, many homes. One for each city.
And for everywhere else (because we had to draw a line somewhere before we maxed out our credit cards): secretcities.us/yourcity
The blog’s new home is blog.secretlondon.us.
If you’re running a secretcities group, and we haven’t already spoken, please get in touch!
Categories: Announcements, Updates
Cushions, conquered.
13 February, 2010
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My fellow Romans…
The editorial team have the cushions! Ok, we aren’t working on them at present but still.
Taking a well deserved little catch up and screen break (well, except me. I’m playing Canabalt, an excessively awesome and addictive game).
We’re listening to Fleetwood Mac (The Chain) and chatting about the gems that we’ve found in the discussions.
Back to free-running for me and comfortable cushions for the weary editorial bones.
Long live comfort!
Categories: Updates
Content, content, content (and Wordles) at the secretlondon big build
13 February, 2010
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Activity is buzzing in secretlondon towers. Over 270 discussions uploaded, 200+ comments, 100+ secrets, and 4 boxes of Cadbury’s fingers consumed. Your new secretlondon website is going to rock!
The first task was to get the discussion topics tagged and uploaded. This gives a unique opportunity to get an overview of the questions posed to the community via the magic of Wordle…
Wordle creates a word cloud based on the number of times a word is used, the larger the word, the more times it was mentioned. Applying this to the discussion tags gives some interesting results – food and drink are most popular (no secret that Londoners love to socialise!), with music, art, and coffee culture following closely. While the Wordle gives a great overview it misses the gems that the team have been shouting to each other across the room. What’s the best date in London? I want to visit graveyards in London, where should I go? Know any scary tube escalators? You can’t see these unique topics in aggregate!
The next major hurdle is to get all the secrets uploaded. We can’t wait to find more secretlondon gems.
Categories: Updates
Tiffany unveils the Secret London logo
13 February, 2010
1 comment
Everyone is hard at work today… quick break for Tiffany to unveil the logo (as well as the fancy T-shirt !). It’s all happening here.
Categories: Updates
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