Thanks to the Evening Standard for naming Shiny Media's founders - Chris Price, Katie Lee and Ashley Norris - among London's most influential people. OK I'm not entirely sure what exactly that means (oh to be able to influence world events right now)  but I do know that it was a brilliant star studded event last night with everyone from Gok Wan to Boris Johnson showing up at the Wallace Collection. If you want to see the full list of London's Most Influential People featured in 'little black book'  then you can buy a copy of the Evening Standard today. You can also read the kind words that the Evening Standard wrote about Shiny after the jump.

Great piece in Guardian.co.uk in which our very own Gemma talks about how how attitudes are changing towards bloggers especially those covering big fashion events such as New York Fashion Week.

She says: "I've seen a lot of changes in the last few years. When I first started out, nobody knew what a blog was and I was barely given the time of day. Now I'm very lucky that I get a lot of the same opportunities as mainstream press."

"You only have to look at the number of newspapers and magazines that now have fashion blogs to see how everyone is realising the potential of something so urgent and fast," she adds.

A couple of years back the British blogosphere basically revolved around a couple of technology journalists ranting about source codes and operating systems. Glad to say that it is now a much more diverse place. For evidence check out the finalists of the Best of British Blog awards being run by Ask.co.uk (cheers for the ads guys) in collaboration with Metro (it is a regional newspaper, apparently). Shiny has done reasonably well scoring three nominations for surprise, surprise, our three biggest blogs; TechDigest, Shiny Shiny and Catwalk Queen. There are a few of our mates in there too, notably Shiny affiliated site Hecklerspray, the wonderful footy site Arseblog, ace cricket blog Corridor and top fashionista StyleBubble.

Muchos gracias to The Daily Telegraph for including Shoewawa in its round-up of the web's best fashion blogs last weekend (19th August). The site was described as 'slick and professional, a cross between a teen magazine and Imelda Marcos's to-do list'. Praise indeed, I think. Editor Gemma and all round Shiny staff supremo ('one of the few people who actually make a living from blogging') was so chuffed this morning she could hardly get her head through the door, especially as the article said she was 22 (she celebrated her 23rd birthday a couple of weeks back). Not sure how many Telegraph readers are blog readers, but thanks all the same. Much appreciated.

...one of ours. Yep, James Murdoch, CEO of Sky, son of Rupert and the man many media watchers see as heir apparent of the News International empire recently told the FT that his fave online read is www.hdtvuk.tv

Clearly a man with taste

The article is here - but you'll need a subscription to view it.

Do you read blogs? Which are your personal favourites?

Patrick Phillips, New York

JM: Yes. Like nearly everyone else I use the internet for a lot of things. I love the immediacy and speed - but I also see so much untapped potential for building communities and increasing interaction with great entertainment, both user- generated and more "traditional" content. In terms of blogs, HDTVUK.tv's fast updates and threads are creating a real buzz about high definition TV.

Thanks to the FT for quoting Shiny Media in a piece about 'brands entering the blogosphere'. As you know it's something we've had experience of thanks to support from the likes of Dyson, Sony and Telewest who have all been so kind to give us sponsorship over the last year or so (big Christmas cards with kisses are in the post to you guys). In the feature Shiny Media is referred to as a network 'responsible for 15 blogs on subjects as diverse as celebrity shoes and Coronation Street, the television soap opera.' (Just in case FT readers don't know what Coronation Street is - I mean it's only been going since 1960). It then goes on to quote Chris Price, Shiny's Commercial Director, who says that potential advertisers are drawn to the 'blogs network which attracts more than 1.5 million page impressions a month' because they want to be perceived as 'hipper and more forward-thinking.' Click on the scan above for the full story.

A big thankyou to the ladies and gents of Vogue who have named Hippyshopper as number 92 in the 2005 Vogue List. That's, ahem, above Jamie Oliver, who comes in at 100. In the magazine's own words, the List is the 'definitive top 100: the trends, the people, the places' and Hippy 'caters to the needs of those of us wannabe hippies who can't quite sever our consumerist ties.' It's in the December issue of the mag; you can see the page by clicking on the pic on the right.

Couple of nice little plugs for Shoewawa. Our shoe-tastic blog was listed in the UK mag In Style as one of the top five blogs on the web, while it was named the New York Times as one of the two most influential fashion blogs in the world.

Blah, Blah, blah, yawn yawn yawn. Katie has once again been mouthing off about girls and gadgets this time to The Observer which is using the women and technology story as lead feature for its just launched bandwagon jumping cutting-edge Technology Magazine.

There's a picture of her looking suitably glam surrounded by her favourite electronic goodies. And she got to meet the wonderfully talented and incredibly skinny Polly Vernon.

When Dixons broke the news that women are spending more money every year on technology than they do on makeup our own Katie was on hand to offer her expert views. These are, of course, based on supposition, guesswork and anecdotal evidence from her female friends and acquaintances. Still, if they keep asking her, she'll keep telling them what she thinks. There's nothing quite so intoxicating on being asked to provide opinions on behalf of your entire gender.

She also supplied them with a rundown of her current favourite female-friendly gadgets. You can read the article with those insightful quotes here: Sun Online