Reviews of Black Country Websites - www.yampy.co.uk

This is what Martin has to say about his site:

The basic idea behind www.yampy.co.uk is to encourage local people to live, work, and shop in their own community. I was an IT Manager for many years, nearly always working at places that involved a fifty mile or more round trip per day. One morning as I was driving from Dudley to Telford it occurred to me that there was almost bound to be an IT Manager driving from Telford to Dudley, and I began to think that there must be a better way of organising things so that local solutions are found for local needs.

There were almost 1500 visitors to the site in its first month on line, mainly Gornal folk of course but a fair sprinkling of 'ex-pats' from such places as the USA, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Brazil, Venezuala, Spain, and Portugal. Local tradition and history is proving very popular; what started out as a 'Gornal News' is turning more into a 'Gornal Bugle'.

It is important that the site changes at least daily, time constraints mean that I have to concentrate on content over form.

Regards, Martin

My thoughts on the site:

This is a relatively new site devoted to all things Gornal. The site is very colourful and is in the early stages of development, although a lot of work has gone into the content so far. There are sections on pubs, clubs, dining and takeaways, arts and entertainment, and health and sport. Watch out for the guard dog on the home page, especially late at night!

Also included is a "where's the" section (lists services such as cashpoints and telephone boxes), a useful list of contacts (such as emergency services, drugs, health and housing), some web links to Black Country sites, public transport (including links to the companies providing services), local education services, clubs and societies (including web links where they exist), places of worship in the area are also catered for.

Local services included on the site allow people to sell and advertise goods, local issues such as the decision to demolish the "Pig on the Wall" pub. Charities are also represented with a list of four relevant ones to the area.

There is also a page about a local directory with small charges for the design of web sites and promoting of links to local business sites. It remains to be seen how much this area develops over the coming months. The idea is good, local advertising aimed at a small area, the cost is relatively low, as with any commercial side to a site updates and accuracy of information are the key to a successful site.

What makes this site different from the rest is it's local feel. What Martin the site administrator will have to do is to keep the content relevant and up to date, and add to the site with interesting features and articles. There is a wealth of history in Gornal, some of this can be found by searching the web, what would be nice is to be able to access lots of information from within one site. Lets hope this is the site.

Mick Pearson

I wish this site well for the future, looking around there is a lot of potential for adding content and it is surprising how much can be written about a relatively small area such as Gornal. I will certainly be re-visiting the site regularly to see how things develop.

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