Other sites showcased were… www.didigetthingsdone.com - a site about productivity. One tip mentioned was to set up Google Alerts to monitor if people are ripping off your site’s content.

www.3dogsbark.com - Andy Mitchell’s personal rant site!

www.openxtra.co.uk/blog - a site for IT enthusiasts, written by Jack Hughes

www.gadgetvenue.com - a tech gadget review site.

www.zath.co.uk - a site about games and films. Another blogger that has a growing audience and is wanting to cut down on the day job to concentrate more on this site.

www.northhub.co.uk - a portal for northern bloggers. It grows purely through opt-ins. Run by Dominic Hodge.

supercardrives.com - a hobby site reviewing super cars.

www.simonwheatley.co.uk - Simon’s a web developer I met for the first time at Wordcamp UK 2008.

www.photocamp.org.uk - a site run by Jon Eland - quick plug, the next photocamp is at Old Broadcasting House on 6th September

www.gaj-it.com - a gadget site, believe it or not.

www.chrisg.com - the site of pro blogger, Chris Garrett. He’s provided loads of great advice at the meeting.

If this first meeting is anything to go by its got a great future.

Actually made it to the first ever WordPress UK North meeting barely a month after the first WordCamp UK unconference.

In fact, I’m in the meeting now. Jamie Harrop has kicked things off with his first ever talk - about woopra, a funked up Google Analytics on steriods. One feature that particularly caught my attention was being able to talk to visitors in real time. Their are many issues to be ironed out as it’s in beta. But it’s an app to watch.

We’re now going around the table finding out what we’re all up to. Darren Cronian showed off his www.travel-rants.com A site at the forefront of consumer travel complaiints. He started as a part time interest, but has groan out of all proportion.

Next Tim Nash talked about a number of issues relating to stumbleupon. One of the issues was stumbleupons review links and just takes visitors away from your site - take the link out.Another snippet - Tim comes from an academic background and has useful contacts at the BBC and gets to know stuff.

Didn’t catch his name but the guy runs www.rubyinside.com He’s been selling advertising, because he established himself in a new area. And he’s seen as the expert.

I’m going to pay more attention now so I’ll do another blog later…

…and then cry when I realised how true it is… I’m a web designer