Hi my name is Mark Bridgeman and I am the lead web developer behind Llanellitown.com I thought that after all of this hard work putting this site together (and it has been a mammoth team effort) I might add that I would take a little bit of time to talk about the aims, goals and origins of this web site and the technologies we use to bring you Llanelli's fastest growing online newspaper and magazine as well as giving you a sneak preview of things to come.  You can meet the team here.

Firstly and most importantly it should be noted that Llanelli town is a completely private organisation, it's not supported by grants, hand outs or local authority donations. 

I know some people have the idea that we're all growing fat on slush funds and kickbacks or Welsh Assembley Money but we're not.  Llanellitown originally started as a local site for local people a few years back and consisted of a guide to shopping in the town, a blog and a gallery section of the site (which proved to be really popular). 

The old site was badly in need of a redesign and a technology overhaul.  It was created in visual basic (a superb programming language that needs a microsoft development environment in which to function).  I for one have virtually no skill in Visual Basic being a traditional PHP/MYSQL and Linux Man.  I would probably burst into flames if I touched a Visual Basic Manual, hence the decision to re-engineer the site with an eye on increased functionality.

Secondly it should be noted that we're all volunteers, yes as hard to belive as it might seem none of us are getting paid.  We've got mammoth costs (though modest compared to other companies) and a limited income so for the time being Salaries are a fevered dream.

Thirdly Llanellitown.com is all about Llanelli.  It's been set up and developed to spread a bit of good news around the place.  Traditional media is so full of misery and woe that it's bad for the nation's mental health.  That's why I don't listen to the news on the radio that often and I avoid it on the TV. 

I take the view that  what I really need to know will make it's way to me in time.  That's why you wont see any bad news stories on Llanellitown.com.  Our team take the same view that what we don't need to do is to add to other people's miseries and throw more bad news at them.  Does this mean we don't report the news, not necessarily. 

For example if we investigate a house fire, the focus on the article is more likely to be about the brave firemen and rescuers doing a truly heroic job than the actual body count.  Yes it's a tragedy but it would have been a hell of a lot worse without those brave people to help.  That's our mind set at Llanellitown.com 

We also believe that the memory of the deceased (if any) is better served by this approach and is treated is more respectfully than 'Oh my God, Nine Died' and 'Woe is Me'.  You can bet that elements of the traditional media won't like this approach as their trade is plying misery to the world.  Well for us it's about accentuating the positive and leaving you with a little bit of feel good factor. For example whilst the rest of the world is busy focusing on the hardships and misery experienced by that brave group of Chilean miners that have recently been rescued, some have uncovered the fact that a few have both wives and girlfriends waiting for them on the surface, which further adds to their misery. 

We see the positive such as how lucky is that man to have two women waiting for him...

We might even get criticised for this, but that's a small price to pay for showing off the great things that actually do go on in and around Llanelli.  It's all about balance.  As you can see from the last paragraph, we're not above a little bit of humour and the occasional bit of bad taste (if it's funny and harms no one), so that's us at Llanellitown.com

Since re-engineering the site and adding fresh content we've seen our hits go up, from three and a half thousand a day to nearly seven at present we're hitting over two hundred thousand hits a month and still growing.  We intend to keep on pushing this as we think the people of Llanelli need a positive voice to counteract the negativity that's been put out over the years.  We also understand that not everyone can be happy, if you want to bitch and moan and get things of your chest there's a place for that too, The Forums...

In the next blog I'll walk through the technologies used to make the site and why it's important to support open source technologies.

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