Interesting to read an article in a national newspaper about gadgets for girls that doesn’t actually mention Shiny Shiny. Rebecca Armstrong, who is one of the Indie's games journos, wrote a piece in today's paper highlighting the growing trend of girls getting into gadgets, yet managed not to plug Shiny or  the hundred or so other gadget girl sites.

Instead, in what is a major coup for the PR who sold the story, she takes figures from Stuff Magazine which says its female readership has quadrupled in the last year. Stuff is a really interesting mag at the moment as, unlike a lot of tech titles, it has bucked the downward trend and is putting on readers. It now has nearly 100,000 a month. Its publisher Haymarket has assembled a really good team and the quality of the editorial of the magazine reflects this.

Nevertheless even if we assume that 10-15,000 of Stuff’s readers are women that’s actually minuscule compared to 300,000 unique readers (of which around 80% are female) who visit Shiny Shiny on a monthly basis.

Shiny Shiny is that rare thing, a British commercial blogging success story. It was the first women's gadgets blog, is the most widely read and influential and has spawned many imitators. How many other British blogs have broken new ground and attracted a worldwide audience? Can’t think of many…

Ashley