Friday 17th April marks an important milestone for LDN Life, it will be the 2nd ever UK Blog Awards and also the 2nd time LDN Life has been a Finalist on Food & Drinks Company Shortlist. We fall under this category because we have a number of Bloggers who write for us from time to time, rather than being a company per se. Last year we exceeded our own expectations and got High Commended (cough Joint 2nd) alongside the wonderful Yorkshire Pudd. This year we should be going hoping to win it, but we are not that bold and far too modest to even imagine such an accolade, though we wouldn’t turn it down.
This year the UK Blog Awards take place in London again and the theme is Alice in Wonderland, which we took as fancy dress, but thankfully a fellow Tuesday night #BlogHour tweeter put us right and we will not be turning up looking like the Mad hatter and The Queen of Hearts. If it is as good as last year, then it will be a great evening 🙂
Win or lose, we’d like to thank everyone who voted for us, to get us to this stage, the rest is in the hands of the Judges which this year is Square Meal.
So here’s a look at the competition and what Adam (Editor) and some of our Bloggers thought. This year the competition tough, as there are some very good entries, even without Yorkshire Pudd (miss you guys) Of course no Blog is perfect especially not LDN Life, so the views below are just opinions of our bloggers and do not represent an assumption that LDN Life is the best one, even if we think it is. P.S. Adam did ask them to exclude LDN Life because they’d obviously choose us
Food and Drink Company Shortlist
This was Martin’s favourite, he’s a bit of a Festival nut, so it doesn’t surprise me. “It looks the most professional and pleasing to the eye.”
Also Mylen’s Favouite “Great concept- it’s different to a lot of the other nominees and probably the website I’m most likely to use over and over again. Actually I have used it!”
2) Relish
Adam “I likes the look and the content which works well for what they are saying, but why the blog posts open in a new window and I can’t seem to see blogs before 18th February 2015. Very close to being great.”
Adam “The design and layout is Pretty basic, but that’s not a bad thing. There are some gems on here like becoming an urban gardener that I’ve bookmarked.”
Mylen “They are all great but probably least likely to follow Pretty Organic. I haven’t joined the organic movement so this isn’t really a topic I follow- that’s not to say the blog isn’t good.”
Adam “I really liked the pictures of the food, yes it’s #Foodporn and it’s what really shines about this blog and makes you want to eat everything. I pretty much had to close it because I nearly licked the screen, I’ll go back and read the words when I’ve calmed down”
5) MenuSpring
Adam “It seems to have changed its name since they were shortlisted or has it? A bit confused, anyway this is a search engine for restaurants and the blog is about restaurants. One to watch perhaps.”
Justine’s favourite “eetap/MenuSpring. Nice pictures, great little snippets to encourage you to click. Well written.”
Adam “Lovely design, great content and pictures, I can see this being a great blog for Chefs and home wannabe Chefs alike. I can’t decide on a winning blog but if I had to choose (Aside from LDN Life of course) I’d probably choose this one” I’ve alsobBookmarked Hot Smoking: Getting Started With American BBQ just in case I ever own a garden.
Laura “This looks like an awesome website for recipe inspiration. I like the layout and the sub categories make it really easy to find relevant content. Also, the images are strong too.”
Adam’s least favourite “This would have easily been a contender for my favourite but they didn’t Blog for 4 months, which is unforgivable. Thankfully they started blogging again at the end of March, so if they keep it up I might just might forgive them”
Laura’s favourite “I quite like Lime and Tonic too – it’s a slightly more interesting Groupon”
Martin’s least favourite, “looking at the front page I have no idea what it is about.”
This was also Gabby’s least favourite “It instantly gives me a vibe of being old fashioned, you have seconds to grab someone’s attention, this didn’t – so the UI is not my cup of tea.”
Justine wasn’t a fan either “Content seemed a little irrelevant and wasn’t appealing to use the blog.”
Adam “I can understand why the others didn’t like the Blog, but it’s not really aimed at them or me, I’ve always wanted a B&B by the seaside when I’m much older, maybe then I’ll get it”
Adam “When I saw the name I expected a drunken blog by Jeremy Clarkson and his band of merry men being well….. fed up and drunk. But no, it seems really quite happy and a generally good blog, just let down by a lack of drunkeness and my over active imagination”
Laura’s least favourite “I’m not sure the content matches the name! The most recent topics are avocados, birthday cakes, photography, charity and then some restaurant reviews (including Disney land?!) where’s the drunkeness??”
10) LDN Life
Gabby didn’t listen to the ‘Don’t choose LDN Life’ bit, oh well we don’t mind really “Of course fav would be LDN Life for the obvious, but also the layout is the best by far.“
It looks like Food Festival Finder and Bureau Of Taste are currently tied in our Bloggers opinion. So it will be interesting to see who wins and whether they were right(ish)
Good luck to all the Finalists at the UK Blog Awards, May the best Blogs win!
Follow us and UK Blog Awards to find out who wins. Oh and don’t forget there’s a lot more categories, including the individual Food and Drink Shortlist