Shiny Media

Tell us about ‘My Video Life’ and win £500 or some dabs.com vouchers

You use your camera to shoot video. You use your phone to shoot video. You may even be capturing the world in high definition. Now’s the time to get your footage working for you by entering our competition and scoring a great prize.

We have teamed up with Visual Networking experts, Cisco, to offer shedloads of cool prizes and all you have to do is show us a video that illustrates ‘My Video Life’.

Shiny Media - the top UK director on YouTube, * err, apart from the BBC and ITV

Ok, so we are actually number three. But ahead of us are two huge TV corporations - one of which we actually help fund - who spend millions of pounds on video content every year. We spend less than the cost of five minutes of EastEnders each year on YouTube vids yet are still not too far behind them.

Over the last few months we have averaged over a million views of our gadgets, fashion, games, green and footy vids and the number of subscribers is rocketing too. In fact we have twice as many subscribers as Gordon Brown's YouTube channel and an awful lot more than the massively hyped WebCameron, both of which you can find here.

As well as taking  advantage of YouTube's recently announced monetisation program we are  working with a variety of brands on our videos. For example LG has just finished a four month sponsorship of our Shiny Fahsion TV videos as well as working with us on a media talent competition. We have other sponsors lined up who we will be announcing shortly.

I have always felt that there was a massive opportunity for Shiny to pair our quality written content with videos presented by the same writers. It is great to be able to read someone's words and then see them in action talking about their passion. It looks as if our readers/viewers feel the same way too.

Anyhow here's our latest YouTube star, Gary Cutlack, in action, and Zara and here Wi-Fi T-shirt. If only David Cameron was into batteries...

LG Media Talent Liveblog

5:45pm: Home time!

5:31pm: The lovely Georgia has won our presenting job - she's got true Shiny style, complete with making fun of the way she fluffs her words! True Shiny presenting... And the editing job was won by Richard. Again, his editing was tres Shiny, and he's all about delivering great work fast. And they're off to Barcelona for the Mobile World Congress, so look out for their work.

5.30pm: The results are in. Who's it going to be?

5pm: Time for the results of the second challenge! All the videos are dead polished, which makes me wonder if Shiny Media willl dump their older long time video wife for this younger funkier model... Luckily I signed a pre-nup.

4.15pm: Chris has decided that we have to channel Simon Cowell and Sharon Osborne in our judging (which is perfect because I have stupid hair and he has high waisted trousers).

3pm: I've just had a little chat with everyone and checked on pastry consumption. Everyone seems to be getting on like a house on fire, and they're fine for pastries. Good news.

2pm: Having completed the first bit of our quest, everyone's now going off to record their second video. It's all about proper reviewing this time around, so we've given them a full two hours to make the video and edit it together to a final fabulous product.

1.45pm: Everyone has put together lovely packages, and there's lot of smart editing to disguise the fact that they've only just picked up the phone. That's how we roll here at Shiny Media...

1.30pm: OK. Everyone's put together their first video package and we're about to settle down with the popcorn.

12pm: The directors are now busily editing together their packages, and the presenters are trying out the phone. There's loads of specs, so luckily there's lots of lovely features to talk about. 

CES 2008: Shiny breaks all its video records

Well Shiny has left the building and the gadget-fest that was CES 2008 is now history. Yep our crack team, myself included, had an amazing time in Vegas and are already arguing about which hotel we are going to stay in next year.

Our coverage was amazing with Techdigest and Shiny Shiny between them racking up almost 500 posts in a week. If you are in a rush there's a great list of the 50 hottest products here. We also shot around 80 videos which, in the space of a week, pulled in a fantastic 585,000 views. That makes us more popular than a few TV channels we could mention.

If you want to read the coverage go here and here. For more videos (this was my favourite product at the show) go to our YouTube channel.

Shiny does CES in Vegas

There really is only one place to be in the first week of January and that is not hanging around a semi-deserted, freezing cold London listening to people moan about how long it is to their next pay day. Nope the place to be is of course in sunny Las Vegas for the world's biggest and most exciting consumer electronics show CES 2008.

This year you won't be able to move for Shiny staff - we have seven bloggers out in the city - who'll be posting all the latest news, getting hands on with the coolest new gadgets, doing strange things with video and generally having an amazing time.

So if you'd like to say hello, please get in touch via here.

Ashley

Le Web 3: Internet start-ups get a grilling

Day two of Le Web 3 and it's time to give the latest raft of internet start-ups a hard time. Over 30 companies were invited to do an 'elevator pitch' - a kind of Dragon's Den but without the pantomime - and most of them, it seemed, failed to impress the judges including renowned blogger Robert Scoble and venture capitalist Saul Klein of Index Ventures.

In many instances, there was a suspicion that they weren't even solving a real problem, but simply showing off some neat looking technology that had little value in the real world. Presentations were generally unprepared, they weren't very slick and they also seemed talk an awful lot about how great they were without actually showing the product at any point (I did wonder how Shiny Media would fare if we were asked to do our pitch to venture capitalists again!)

Basic questions were left unanswered (such as how is this even going to make money) and while a lot of them seemed keen to let everyone know about how cool their technology was, they didn't actually spend much time showing the technology. As Robert Scoble pointed out:

"Don’t talk about the team. Show us some sex appeal. Wow us. It’s like dating a girl. Make sure you have a story to tell to nail your pitch," said Scoble.

Le Web 3: Emily Bell vs. Andrew Keen

Highlight of the afternoon so far was the bunfight between Emily Bell of The Guardian Unlimited and controversial 'Cult of the Amateur' author Andrew Keen - the Floyd Mayweather and Ricky 'Hitman' Hatton of the Web 2.0 world.

Whereas Emily believes that the internet is generally a good thing for established media organisations, Andrew believes user generated content and social networking generally is undermining traditional media.

Round one = Emily Bell gets off to a great start with lightening quick comments. "We would be more and more irrelevant if we didn’t let people interact."

Round two = Andrew Keen fights back. "Guardian is a very valuable resource. Unlike other sites it doesn't allow kids to spew their crap and their journalists are paid."

Round three = "Internet is a fantastically vibrant right of reply. Your history follows you around. It needs to be an iterative process" (Emily Bell)

Le Web 3: Shiny Media goes mad in Paris

Here we are in Paris at Le Web 3 - a big Web 2.0 party, sorry, conference, where the great and good of the internet world - and bonkers designer Phillipe Starck - come together to chat, eat pastries and watch the ebullient host Loic Le Meur bounce around the stage like a mad thing.

Typically, it's gone midday and I've only just got the flakey wi-fi working, but here are the highlights so far. Designer Philippe Starck talked at length about sexual ergononomics - how to make sexy furniture that you're not ashamed to show your granny. He was also doorstepped on stage by uber-blogger Robert Scoble who asked him to evaulate the design of Amazon e-book reader, the Kindle. Surprisingly, unlike Scoble, he didn't think it was rubbish but questioned whether the designer had really gone far enough in losing 'his identity'.

Want to be a Shiny Media video presenter / producer? You have just over a week...

... to enter our fantastic competition to win a Shiny Media internship! Yep, the LG Video Media Talent Award closes on 16th December. So, if you want to a) bag a trip to the 3GSM conference in Barcelona, b) learn about videoblogging from the Shiny Media team and c) win your very own LG Viewty to document your Shiny Media internship; you need to click here quick sharp.

Some eager individuals have already stolen a march on the competition by getting their entries in early - check out the below entry from Pollyanna Woodward. If you think you can do better you know what you need to do!

 

Pies footy sites attract over 600,000 readers in November

When we launched the Pies clubs sites (Arsenal Pies, Chelsea Pies, Liverpool Pies, Manunited Pies and Spurs Pies) back in August we hoped that they, in conjunction with the main Pies site, would pull in over half a million readers per month by the end of 2007.

Well thanks to some amazing growth, particularly on Spurspies, we not only reached our target a month early but have actually smashed through the 600,000 barrier.

It is all down to some fantastic content from Ollie Irish, Jonathan Weinberg and the rest of the team.

We are now aiming for one million readers per month across the whole network by the end of the season.

LG and Shiny team up to find the UK's video talent

Forget The X Factor. If you want to be famous, or at least get your first step on the showbiz ladder, then you need to enter our exciting new talent competition. We've got together with our friends at LG to create the LG Video Media Talent Award.

Two internships at Shiny are up for grabs for the lucky winners - one for a budding video presenter and one for a video production person. So if you fancy becoming the next "Gadget Guru" like our own Susi Weaser (below), a star of Shiny Fashion TV or a behind-the-scenes production wiz, then watch the video below. 

Entering requires you to submit your own videos to our YouTube channel - click here to see what other people have submitted so far! So how do you enter the LG Video Media Talent Award? By simply clicking here that's how! The competition runs until December 16th - so not much time to dust off your camcorder and editing software.

Shiny joins forces with LG to moblog Europe

First there was the Eurovision song contest, then the European Cup (OK the least said about that one the better right now). Now the latest competition to excite us here at Shiny Towers is judging which is the best photographic image in Europe - finally a competition that us Brits might be able to win.

We've got together with our friends at LG to create a 'moblog' (a blog where you e-mail your images from your camera phone) called City Clickers. Just take a picture on your mobile, e-mail it directly to the site and you could be in with a chance of winning one of ten LG Viewty phones plus free phone bill for two months. The winners - as voted for by a panel of judges comprising the main European blog networks - get to become our official photographers for 8 weeks.

Thanks to all at Moblog.co.uk, especially Alfie, for their support plus all of European partners, including http://feschsamma.de/, http://daily-gadget.de/, http://fashion.blog.nl/, http://nieuwemedia.blog.nl/, http://www.trendencias.com/, http://xataka.com/, http://www.journaldugeek.com/. We love you all, though we still secretly think the entries from the UK are the best!

PS. My personal favourite - and the one that I think sums up Britain more than anything is the Winter Swim pictured here. Ouch!!

Shiny goes social networking - join the Pies Community

Wayhey - we've gone all community. Shiny now has its first very own social network via its Who Ate All The Pies footy blog which we have developed in collaboration with Tagworld. Just click on the button market 'community' and you'll be whisked away to a place where you can create your own page, start you own debate and upload your favourite football vids and images.

Not all the functionality is live - so it is in cough, cough, beta - but I think it illustrates that blogs and community sites can live happily together.

We are working on some very clever community type stuff for our wedding blog Bridalwave and will soon have some interesting things happening on our fashion blogs.

Shiny doubles its traffic in six months

Ok, so I don't want to labour the point, but... I went back and checked our traffic figures for six months ago in February.

Unique visitors - 1,754,954 Page impressions - 2,619,855

compare this with August

Unique visitors - 3,521,976 Page impressions - 5,379,535

Which in my book means that we have doubled our traffic in six months. Ok, so we have launched several new blogs in that time, but most of the growth has been around established blogs like Catwalk Queen, TechDigest and Who ate all the Pies? What could be really exciting is that if we double our traffic again (and given that we are approaching the busiest web months of the year this is a strong possibility) we will have hit 7 million readers per month. This is an astounding figure for a UK company, especially given that we didn't really exist two years ago and also that we haven't spent a penny on buying Google Ad words.

Shiny launches new women's football blog in time for World Cup - Kickster.tv

Following hot on the heels of our latest Club Pies launches, our Scrumbag relaunch and Who Ate All The Pies' spiffing new redesign, Shiny Media today announces the launch of its blog dedicated to women's football - Kickster.tv.

With the women's World Cup just days away, Kickster will bring you all the latest news in the lead-up to the tournament, plus expert match reports as the cup progresses. After that it'll be back to the domestic season - which was dominated last year by Arsenal Ladies, giving poor fans of the male Gunners something to cheer in an otherwise trophy-free season.

Edited by Carrie Dunn, who has been writing for our cricket site The Googly for some time while also making contributions to The Times, The Guardian and thelondonpaper, Kickster aims to show that women's football can be every bit as exciting as its male counterpart. Carrie is ably assisted by Georgina Turner, winner of the 2005 "New Online Journalist of the Year" award, who has written for FourFourTwo magazine and also contributes to The Guardian.

With professional women's soccer slated to relaunch Stateside in 2009, plus next year's Olympics to look forward to, there's plenty to indicate that women's football is set to continue the growth which has seen it become one of the most popular sports among women in the US.

Stick with Kickster for all the best coverage!

Shiny hits 3.5 million monthly visitors

August is usually a bit of a rubbish month for websites as many would-be surfers are otherwise engaged basting themselves on European beaches. So it is a tad amazing that in August Shiny posted its best ever figure of 3.5 million visitors to its sites.

To put that in some kind of perspective that's up 700,000 readers on July. If we keep up this level of growth those BBC online execs should start to worry sometime around 2011.

There are some obvious reasons for the growth. We have had a few technical problems of late most of which were resolved in July. Also we launched five new footy blogs and have seen some wonderful organic growth on sites like Bridalwave and Kiss and Make Up.

So let's hope that four million user figure isn't too far off.

Also we have also just signed a huge sponsorship deal (our biggest yet) and seen ad revenues start to rocket. Good times indeed!

Shiny launches US blog network - Shiny US

Shiny launches the Shiny US blog network with Shiny Style and Shiny Gloss.

Are we bonkers? A couple of weeks back I told someone that we were on the verge of launching a blog network in the US. They told me that I was trying to sell ice to the Eskimos. Mmm.

Over the past few decades many Brits have tried to crack America. Some like Simon Cowell have charmed our transatlantic cousins with his high buttoned trousers and snarling sarcasm. Others like Oasis, Ainsley Harriot and have been back in Blighty with their tails between their legs.

So is Shiny stupid having a crack at the US? Well we are actually already in the Cowell camp stateside as many of our blogs boast strong and devoted US readerships. None more so than our fashion blogs Catwalk Queen, Shoewawa and The Bag Lady all of which featured in a top ten fashion blogs read by American survey conducted by FashionIq. Needless to say they are well clear of any potential rivals in the UK.

Shiny launches five new football blogs

Britain in July was a pretty miserable place. Rubbish weather, Biblical style floods, and nothing else on the TV other than the never-ceasing freak show that is Big Brother.

Fortunately it is now August, the sun is back (for a few weeks anyhow), and best of all the new football season kicks off this weekend. Never one to miss a bandwagon Shiny is celebrating 2007-2008 with the launch of no fewer than five new football blogs. Actually we do have a little form in this area. Our World cup blog Who ate all the Bratwurst was a huge hit last summer and its bastard premiership offspring, Who ate all the Pies has gone from zero readers to over 300,000 in less than a year.

So we are now expanding our Pies range by adding blogs for the big four football teams, Arsenal (arsenalpies. tv) Manchester United (manunitedpies.tv), Chelsea (chelseapies.tv), Liverpool (liverpoolpies.tv) oh and come other north London chancers  too (spurspies.tv). All the blogs stick to our winning Pies template of incisive opinion, quirky stories, the best of YouTube and, err, WAG profiles. They will also be updated between 10-5 timers per day, so each time you check back there will be some news snippet, mini rant or video to check out.

They are also the first blogs to feature our brand new Shiny template which, as I hope you’ll discover, makes it much easier to find your way round our sites. There are going to be a few additions to the design over the coming month including a video player and some interesting community elements. But that’s for later. For now rejoice in the fact that from here on in Saturday afternoon trips to Ikea are totally off limits. Football is back and if you are a fan of the big four (cough), big five, then it is time to chomp on our new pies.

Ashley

Shiny welcomes Gary Cutlack of UK Resistance fame

Shiny has a shopping list of talented bloggers that one day we hope will join our team. So I am massively pleased to say that  we have managed to tempt one of our top targets, Gary Cutlack of UK Resistance and Idiot Toys, to come on board. I could witter on about how he is a hugely funny writer and new media genius, but instead I'll let him do the talking. Over to you Gary.

Ashley

Hello new friends and existing internet enemies! I'm Gary. Shiny Media's just hired me to work on its games and gadgets blogs. This is pretty much my dream job, as even if I was unemployed I'd be sitting in front of a PC writing games and gadgets blogs all day for free. So lucky old me.

I used to work at Future Publishing on its games magazines. Before that I worked at Computec on its games magazines. And before that I worked at Emap on its games magazines. I've been around a bit. It's time for a change, frankly, and working on the web is much, much more exciting than the slow-moving, continental drift world of magazines.

Shiny Media's kicking arse in the blog world right now, and the opportunity to reach Shiny's millions of readers with my poorly-thought-out, one-sided opinions and sweeping generalisations is too good an opportunity to miss. The two existing sites I write - Idiot Toys and UK Resistance - have joined the Shiny network too, so I'll be able to blog HARDER, LONGER and about MORE STUFF than ever before.

I've already posted a few rambling messages over on Tech Digest and look forward to keeping you full of news, gossip and the occasional outright lie when nothing interesting happens, over the coming months. I look forward to being brutally slagged off by each and every one of you in various comments sections across the Shiny portfolio.

Gary Cutlack

Brands and Blogs - Shiny Media leads the debate

Here at Shiny towers we obviously believe passionately in new media. We also think - in fact know - that our readers are jolly influential people: well educated, rounded individuals who like to spend money, engage in debate and tinker with new media themselves (blogs, social networks yada yada yada). Funny then that big ad spends still seem disproportianately focused on TV and Radio when all the cool kids (and adults) are turning off their TVs and doing something more interesting instead. Yes things are changing slowly, but being impatient folk we're hoping to move things along a bit.

Which is why we've got together with our new ad agency Unanimis to hold a conference on July 6th, 11.30am at London's fantastic Centre Point. Called Brands and Blogs: Talking With The New Influentials it's an opportunity for the great and the good to talk about all the creative and commercial opportunities which new media brings.

Speakers include:
Steve Wing, Head of Research and Development, The Guardian
Helen Nowicka, Managing Director, Shiny Red
Richard Rocca, Senior Director, Glam.com
Jeremy Wright, CEO, B5 Media
Ashley Norris, Chief Executive, Shiny Media

This free event will be chaired by new media guru Mike Butcher. 

Shiny launches four new blogs

Some psychologist recently worked out that the most miserable day of the year is sometime towards the end of January. He is of course very wrong. For myself and probably quite a chunk of the UK population I imagine that last Thursday May 24th will go down as the bleakest 24 hours of the year.

For on that day the Champions League final, the last big game of the season, was history and a long football-free summer stretched out ahead. What made it even worse was the knowledge that the new Big Brother series was just six days away.

Of course it is very fashionable to slag Big Brother off at the beginning and then to catch the odd episode in week three before becoming completely addicted by week five. Trust me though, I will be anywhere but in front of a TV set between 9-10 each evening for the next 13 weeks. For those who don’t quite share my jaundiced views Shiny has launched availableforpanto.com, our take on reality television which will feature Joseph, Grease, X-Factor, Love Island (if we have to) and more. For the moment though the blog is very focused on the TV freak show that is Big Brother. It is also the first Shiny blog to be sponsored from launch, with the investment coming from Virgin Games.

For those like me who want to escape the TV freakshows, there’s Shiny new travel blog - lostweekend.tv. ‘Trip Advisor meets mid 90s Loaded’ is how we are billing it, and yes it is more about short footy trips, stag weekends and European music festivals than romantic breaks. Lost Weekend is currently running a competition with the first prize being an all expenses paid trip to see David Beckham’s debut for the LA Galaxy.

We have two other new launches. Kerching.tv is Shiny’s first foray into the world of personal finance. Edited by Paul Sorene of anorak.co.uk fame, the blog will offer an authoritative but slightly quirky take on mortgages, shopping and investing. Finally Shiny has unveiled mychemicaltoilet.com, which rounds up all the latest news on the ever-growing number of European music festivals.

Shiny away day to Victoria Baths, Manchester

Occasionally, just occasionally, when we're not heads down in our laptops blogging we like to get out and have fun. Yesterday was one of those days. OK it was only Manchester and there was a legtimate-ish excuse for our trip (to get loads of pictures shot for press use). But still...

Scene of the Shiny shoot was Victoria Baths in Manchester - recently featured on cult TV hit Life on Mars and the winner of BBC's first Restoration series in 2003. It was an amazing place, full of charm and character. But what is amazing is how quickly something can go to rack and ruin if left unloved for a few years. It will take ages to restore to its former glory.

In the meantime, it provided a stunning backdrop for our photo shoot. Check out  just some of the pics on the turn.

Two new ladyblogs from Shiny Media: Dollymix and Crafty Crafty

We've been so busy making lots of shiny new blogs recently that we haven't stopped to update devotees of the official Shiny Media blog (of which I'm sure there are many). Those of you who already read and enjoy the more female focused sites in the Shiny stable should love these latest launches.

 

Dollymix is the combined ladythoughts of our enormous female blogging team, with all the many and varied opinions they have to offer. If you like women's magazines but can't stand that all-knowing editorial voice, or if you like a spot of feisty feminism but don't want to leave your sense of humour in the coat check, Dollymix is ready to welcome you into the fold.

Crafty Crafty. Crochet, knitting, sewing, clever things to do with paper and all manner of other hobbies are explored in this lovingly crafted site. Making things is very popular right now and if you fancy taking some scissors to an old t-shirt, re-covering your sofa, or making yourself a nice hat, this is the blog for you. 

Shiny has three of the ten most popular US fashion blogs

Which isn't bad for a bunch of Limeys running a company with a suspiciously large quota of Antipodeans. You can read the post - from fashion blog FashionIQ - here. Seriously though, we didn't set out to target US readers. Catwalk Queen, Shoewawa and The Bag Lady are aimed mainly at Brits and it will always be that way. So it is a real compliment that we are so well regarded on the other side of the pond. Any takers for Shiny Fashion USA? Now that would be a challenge.

Shiny Media launches Graduate Fashion Week Live blog

Here at Shiny Media we are delighted to announce that in association with River Island we have launched Graduate Fashion Week Live - the official blog for this year's GFW. Graduate Fashion Week began in 1991 and is the premiere event for showcasing the very best in fashion talent that the UK has to offer. It has helped to launch the careers of such famous designers as John Galliano, Alexander McQueen and Stella McCartney. The event is being held at Battersea Park from June 3rd - June 7th and the best bit is that it's completely open to the public! That's right, anyone can attend without having to resort to the line "but don't you know who I am?"

Shiny launches Twitterati - a blog about, you guessed it Twitter

Twitter – passing fad or the future for messaging on the web and phones? Well we don’t know either. We do know though that Twitter is fantastically addictive, so we have launched Twitterati, a baby blog devoted to Twittering. Stu Dredge and his team will be keeping you up to speed with the many new and varied applications for Twitter, picking up on some of its odd uses and interviewing the people who are using the service to do creative things. Twitter users can also keep tabs on the blog via its Twitter feed – twitter.com/twitterati

Shiny Media goes gaming - new PS3 and Xbox blogs

Over the past few years we have dipped our toe in the gaming blogosphere with Games Digest and Wii Wii. Emboldened by success with those titles, especially the Wii blog, we are set to jump right in with a whole slew of games titles. We actually launched our PS3 blog pspsps.tv (geddit?) a few weeks back and it has been going really well hitting figures way beyond our expectations. It has now been joined by an Xbox blog Xboxer.tv and there will be at least three or four more Shiny games blogs before the month is out. We also have a Shiny Games YouTube channel with Shiny’s very own Mark Kermode, Simon Munk, loving or dissing the new releases.

Shiny gets noms in ask.co.uk's Best of British blog awards

A couple of years back the British blogosphere basically revolved around a couple of technology journalists ranting about source codes and operating systems. Glad to say that it is now a much more diverse place. For evidence check out the finalists of the Best of British Blog awards being run by Ask.co.uk (cheers for the ads guys) in collaboration with Metro (it is a regional newspaper, apparently). Shiny has done reasonably well scoring three nominations for surprise, surprise, our three biggest blogs; TechDigest, Shiny Shiny and Catwalk Queen. There are a few of our mates in there too, notably Shiny affiliated site Hecklerspray, the wonderful footy site Arseblog, ace cricket blog Corridor and top fashionista StyleBubble.

About Shiny Media

About Shiny Media

Shiny Media is the UK’s leading commercial blog publisher. We now have 40 blogs which between them attract around 3.5 million visitors each month (August 2007 figures).

Our key blogs are

TechDigest – 440k
ShinyShiny – 312k
Shoewawa – 230k
Catwalk Queen – 246k
The BagLady – 165k
Bridalwave – 180k
CorrieBlog – 102k

The overall number of uniques doubled between Feb and August 2007.

Brands who have recently advertised on our blogs include Marks and Spencer, LG, Nokia, Sony, Philips, Dyson, Gillette, 3 phone network, Ask.co.uk, Electronic Arts, Sky, Navman

For the latest information about Shiny Media visit www.shinymedia.com

For more information about advertising on Shiny sites email info@shinymedia.com or call + 44 207 400 6724

For any other queries about Shiny Media including possible commercial relationships or enquiries from other blogs or the press email ashley@shinymedia.com

Shiny Media launches iPhonic - a blog about some phone or other

There are some folk round here who reckon that the only gadget launch that really matters this year is, you guessed it, the Apple iPhone. So we have decided to give them their own blog. Over at iPhonic, Apple die-hard Andy Merrett will be waxing lyrical about Apple’s forthcoming phone.

He'll be

* Highlighting its killer features (and, in the interest of fair play, its odd weakness)
* Focusing on its technology
* Gauging how much impact it will have on the mobile phone world on both sides of the Atlantic
* Checking out all the rumours and gossip
* Making predictions as to where Apple will take the iPhone

iPhonic will also keeps tabs on the iPhone’s rival handsets (Nokia N95, LG Prada etc) and also the mobile services that are set to take on iTunes. All this and more on iPhonic