It’s been a while since the last blog, but being a small start up means I am pulled in every which way which is fun but tiring. So one minute I am spec’ing out new changes to the site (we have lots of new features being developed at the moment - so hold tight), then I am out and about meeting record labels, film companies and book publishers spreadng the Poll The People gospel. Then a spot of accounts work, business plans as we are getting new investment on board so we can really start ramping things up. On top of that a little time with my 2 kids so they remember who I am and very rarely a social life. I love it though and wouldn’t change anything, apart from maybe having more time with the family, but hopefully that will come in time.

Anyway….the main development which I have been excited about telling you as we’ve been working on it for a while is that we have created our first viral video. You can check it out here - CELEBRITY DOGS

We wanted to get the message of the site across, but have fun at the same time so we decided to dress up Dogs as celebrities ( the Dogs loved it BTW) and Adam Buxton (Adam & Joe) did a fantastic voice over which brings it all together perfectly. The production was by a very talented young director called Henry Scholfield@ Partizan who pulled in loads of favours to get it done on our tight budget. Hats off to my old mate Big Dave Graham for introducing Henry too.

Please watch it and then help spread the word. We already have over 8,000 plays on You Tube and MySpace.com have put it on their home page which is really cool. I do really mull over every decision we make when promoting the site…we need to get the message right and we also have to be very careful with budgets, but I’m really glad we took a gamble on this and hopefully you’ll all like it and it will pay off !

I am going to be a bit cheeky now and let a cat out of the bag for those who read this blog…but I can’t wait any longer. We will be running the GREATEST MOTOWN SONGS poll very shortly. The poll is running to start the celebrations of the 50th Anniversary of the legendary Motown label. This is really exciting news, not just because we are working with arguably the greatest Record Label of all time, but most importantly our poll will decide the tracklisting of the Motown 50 compilation album !! How cool is that…you, our users will be able to decide the tracklisting of THE seminal Motown album. This validates everything we do and proves that your opinion WILL be heard. So get your Top 5 Motown Songs list together and we’ll let you know when we can launch.

I’ve already got my list sorted :

1. Stevie Wonder - Superstition

2. Reach Out I’ll Be There - The Four Tops

3. Papa Was A Rolling Stone - The Temptations

4. What’s Goin’ On - Marvin Gaye

5. I Want You Back - Jackson 5

I think that’s it for now…we are also working on launching the GREATEST FOTBALLERS OF ALL TIME poll I am just tracking down a reliable source of player data to base the poll on. If you can help with this please let me know !

Also, please let me know your feedback on the blog and the site in general..it’s important to me to know that we are taking things in the right direction.

At long last our Blog is live and I can start having an open dialogue about Poll The People, what it’s all about and what our plans are for the future…and no doubt the occasional rant or story…let’s see how it goes. This will work best if you, our users, share your opinions and thoughts as well as I want to know what you think ?

So down to business…is MIKA really the greatest album of all time ? Well with over 4,000 user’s votes in the Album Poll so far from over 80 countries…he is….so far. I’ve always said that I wouldn’t consider our polls to be “authoritative” until we were up to around the 20,000 votes mark so we’ve got a fair way to go yet. It’s a good time to clarify the goal of the site though as I often have heated debates with friends and colleagues who question the results. This site isn’t designed to create polls which critics agree with or to try and be too cool. We are not the official sales charts, Mercury Prize, or Brits, or Grammys or Booker Prize or Oscars or bloody Eurovision where a small group of individuals decide who wins what based on their opinions with often confusing criteria or some decisions which seem more related to politics than entertainment !

One of the reasons we created the site was to embrace the “widsom of crowds” (good book BTW and well worth a read) which basically states that the larger the group of people who contribute to a poll the more accurate the result. Everyone’s opinion is valid…it’s taken me almost 14 years of working in the Music Indsutry to learn that and not to judge people on their taste in music especially. If it moves YOU, makes you laugh or cry or has soundtracked an important event in your life, brings back happy (or sad) memories then who are the critics to tell you it’s not a great album, film, book etc.

One of the other key reasons is that as media gets more regimented and people’s time gets more precious, trying to find new and interesting music, films and books can be a painful process. The one thing that I trust more and more is the personal recommendation of friends and peers who have similar taste to me. So the “Lists Like Mine” feature was created so that you can be connected to people who match some or all of your Top 5 entries very easily and within a few clicks you can find something new, read user reviews and if you are interested click through to purchase from Amazon or even download tracks from iTunes. Very soon we will be introducing a neat little widget that will enable you to listen to clips of up to 60 secs of each track on all the albums in our poll…very excited about that.

Some people have commented that sites like Amazon already do this, but I think it can be done better…they will tell you that people who have purchased xxxx also purchased XXXX, but this is fundamentally flawed. There is no guarantee that they liked the first item they purchased or the other “similar” item ! Whereas someone who has created a list of their Top 5 Albums, has not only purchased them, but is passionate about their choices so their recommendation is personal and guaranteed. Also if you read a review and want to know more before buying, why not send that person a private message and ask them to tell you more about it….trust me they will be very happy to hear from you.

Top 5 Things coming soon..

1) A very exciting new music poll where your votes will decide the tracklisting of a landmark new album !
2) Album widgets - so you can hear clips of all album tracks
3) Personalised newsletters - telling you which new users have signed up recently with matches to your Top 5s to help you meet interesting new people and discover new music, films and books.
4) In addition to your Top 5s, you will be able to let people know the latest album you are listening to on repeat, film you’ve just seen that you can’t stop talking about or book you can’t put down !
5) If you love football….watch this space !

Cheers,
Glenn