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Me and my blog

Everyone seems to be blogging these days. But why? Student Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore writes here about why she blogs about her little corner of London for all to see

About Blogs

The word "blog" is a contraction of the term weblog
It is a type of website usually maintained by an individual with regular entries
Many blogs are commentaries or news on particular events
Some bloggers use them as public diaries
Blogs can contain text, photos, and video but most importantly link to other sites/blogs
Visitors to blogs are encouraged to leave messages

by Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore

My first attempt at creating my own blog was a disaster. In January this year I set up “Religion Matters”, a review of religion in the news.

It was too broad and too ambitious. The site is now in its cyber-grave and I have turned instead to blogging about what I know best.

Marylebone Blog [http://maryleboneblog.wordpress.com/] is a mix of reviews, photos and musings about Marylebone Village, where I have lived since I was 18.

Aimed specifically at residents or visitors to the area, it is both a personal scrapbook and, I hope, a source of trusted information from a local.

I picked Marylebone because recording the everyday and the extraordinary that goes on in this tiny pocket of London is a constant joy. I am the third generation of my family to have lived here.

Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore

My grandfather had a doctor’s practice near Harley Street, famous for its medical surgeries, while my uncle, who is a writer, worked in the same flat I live in now.

My blog is simply a 21st century version of the journals and scrapbooks they kept before me. Marylebone Blog is more than a public diary, though.

It focuses on giving out useful information about local restaurants, shops, cafes, markets and news. As such it always includes telephone numbers and addresses for venues reviewed.

Inspiration came from social media expert Robin Hamman who runs the local site St Alban’s Blog [http://www.stalbansblog.co.uk/].

His blog features everything from train times to recommendations of good local builders. “It seemed like a good way for me to reward businesses providing good products or services,” says Hamman.

Reviews, he adds, help the small, local businesses who “need support”, which is particularly crucial in the current economic climate.

Clarissa's blog is often inspired by food

Hyper-local bloggers – who blog about one street, borough or town – have served to replace aspects of the dying local paper, nourishing community life and reporting on anything from council meetings to new restaurant openings.

Examples such as Preston Blog [http://prestonblog.wordpress.com/], Camden Kiwi [http://www.camdenkiwi.org/] and Street Hawker [http://streethawker.wordpress.com/] show, when done well, how effective they can be.

Street Hawker, with its witty, lyrical postings on Hackney from the “wide-eyes” of a new resident, has had 978,505 hits to date. While newspapers have to bear in mind a wide audience, blogs can cater to a very specific community.

Although varying in tone and content, each of these local blogs have one thing in common. Authors blog about something that, as a local, they are an expert on.

Graham Holliday, who set up the cult Vietnamese street-food blog Noodlepie [http://www.noodlepie.com/], says this is key.

Holliday originally felt obliged to first attempt a news blog: "I read it back and thought who is going to read this?” he admits. “I realised that I had to firstly blog about something I was really interested in. I only wrote about what I knew, and then other people would add to it along the way.”

A shop in Marylebone

As for Marylebone Blog, it appeals to someone who might find themselves ambling down the Marylebone High Street and wants to learn more, or who goes there every day but needs a new angle.

Has it achieved what it set out to? It is in its early stages, but I like to compare it to a life-support machine.

Two months ago its heartbeat was flat, with little or no visitors. But as it continues to take shape and grow, so do the number of hits. Slowly the heartbeat is getting stronger.