As usual (yawn, I know) I'm so busy with lots of things I've not had chance to catch up with things yet...

The blogs are doing really well, over 40 of them and over 2,000 photos in a little over a week which has surprised me. Thanks to everyone that has had a go - more improvements are on the way.

Another milestone has been reached. Over 4,000 old photos have been uploaded to the album. Thank you for your help. The album is one of my favourite parts of the site as we all get to see old photos that would not normally be available.

Will try to catch up with the blogs soon - I notice Dougie is helping to spread the word about the site (thanks Dougie) and that Dave (Oy) has uploaded some pics for photo-a-day. I've had lots of photos and other stuff sent by email too so thanks again to everyone that is helping out, its appreciated. I couldn't begin to name everyone, it would take forever. You know who you are, keep an eye on the photo-a-day sections as well as the blogs etc...

The next update will be over 100 photos of schools bowling in and around the Ashton area. Tony Haslam has kindly sent these in to me and I feel a little guilty for leaving it so long... They'll be on soon.

Finally, one ad space is still available on the home page. If it hasn't been snapped up in the next few days, someone can have it for a month at no cost just to try it out.

More updates very soon.

Want some cheap advertising in a prime spot?

40p per day on wiganworld's home page.

Strictly first come first served. Only 2 slots available!

Learn more.

36 blogs and almost 1,000 photos in 1 week!

I will improve the site more soon allowing you to browse all blogs and all albums / photos easily. Some people have questioned why wiganworld have started to include blogs. Think about it as your own space on the site, where you can post your own stuff and photos.

It's also an excellent resource for any local sports clubs, charities etc that can't afford to host a site. Create a site on wiganworld and get instant publicity.

Space has been reserved in your control panel (on right) to display comments left by visitors of your blog - more on this soon...

Other news...

The wiganworld album is a smidgen off the 4,000 mark, which is great news. Please upload your pics, lets aim for 5,000.

Staff required! Will soon be asking for volunteers to help with general maintenance. It's very simple - just requires a visit to ww every now and again.

 

I've made some improvements to the wiganworld blogs homepage.

At a glance you can see the most recently updated blogs. These are blogs with blog entries - in other words these are blogs with content.

You can also see the newly created blogs too.

That's not all though.

To the right hand side of the screen you can quickly browse the most recently uploaded photos - 180 of them - so you need never miss another thing!

I will be improving the blogs and browsing over the coming weeks, if there are any features you would like to see, please leave a comment.

Jump straight the the wiganworld blogs homepage.

What an amazing response to the wiganworld blogs - 25 new blogs in just 6 days with very little publicity.

The next step is to write the blog.wiganworld.co.uk home page.

If anyone has any ideas for the home page, please leave a comment. The way I see it working is to have a few ways to browse. For example, list the most recently updated blogs, the most recently uploaded photos, popular blogs/photos, browse all etc etc... Have I missed anything?

Click "Blog" at the top left to see the bloggers. This is the page that will be changed.

Been walking again down the Leeds & Liverpool Canal.

We have now covered from Nelson to Burscough - just over half of the whole stretch.

It breaks my heart to see important old buildings left to rot.

And believe me, there are lots of old derelict buildings along the way. Such a shame.

More here: www.leedsliverpoolcanal.co.uk/

You can now create your very own blog. Login to the wiganworld website, click onto your page (under logo) then click create blog.

It's really easy. Upload photos, create pages and write blog entries for others to view and leave comments.

Visitors to wiganworld is on the up, again. I've just checked the stats for the last 30 days and here are the figures for anyone who may be interested.

86,196 unique visitors

937,956 page views

55% are loyal visitors

38% came from search engines

7% came from links

Amazing, record breaking stuff for wiganworld. Almost a million page views in 1 month!

The wiganworld blogs will be going live very soon - even if you don't fancy your own blog there will be plenty of others who will and you'll enjoy looking at their photos and reading their stories.

Each blog will be customisable too. Choose from a template:

More templates will be added all the time, along with user-definable colours and pics.

I'm really posting this entry as a 'test' - sorry to harp on.

Welcome to the new wiganworld blogs!

It's more than a blog. You can create web pages and photo albums too. It's like having your own website with your own web address.

Oh, and don't forget to check out the handsome devil to the top left of your screen.