Leaving Shiny Media

Get your hankies ready because it's true: I'm no longer working for Shiny Media. I was very sorry to leave such a vibrant, fun and brilliant business (OK, I know I'm biased), but after four years it felt like the right time to move on.

I'll be announcing a couple of new ventures/projects in the coming weeks and in the meantime, you can still find me in Look magazine, and (of course) on Twitter.

Stay tuned for more news!

From the press release:

We also announce today the departure of our editorial director and co-founder Katie Lee from Shiny. Katie played a massive role in developing Shiny and in particular several of its hero blogs. She has now decided that the time is right to leave the business. She does however remain a significant shareholder in Shiny and we are very grateful for all she has done over the years.

Look Magazine - Life Consultancy

I've been writing Look Magazine's gadget column for the past year now. I'm really impressed that a women's magazine has not only included a regular, weekly gadget and tech column, but that they have allowed me to write some really quite geeky things without complaining.

Thanks Look Magazine people!

Telegraph Christmas Gadgets Feature

Once again, I was wheeled out to assist with the Telegraph's Christmas gadget extravaganza. You can view my contributions here:

Gadgets For Girls this Christmas:

Children
Young Teens
Teens & 20-somethings
Over 30s
Over 40s

They seem to have added in some typos especially for the online edition, so consider that a special extra treat.

Sorry about splitting people up into gender and age demographics. They made me do it. Just be glad that I didn't make all the gifts for over 40s geriatric aids.

Gadgets for girls and boys in the Telegraph

Here's a rather smart rendering of the Christmas gadgets piece I did for the Telegraph, with a slideshow and everything.

Read Article

Current Freelance Stuff

Since running Shiny Media now takes up most of my time, I don't do quite as much freelance writing. However, regular stuff I'm still doing includes:

Observer Woman - gadgets column
Voyager - BMI's in-flight magazine - gadgets column
Custom PC Big in Japan column

And lots of stuff for Woman & Home magazine.

I'm also working on a special new project for a big publishing house. More details to come!

Katie's Yoga Flames - For the Indy on Sunday Review

I made a video for my Independent on Sunday Review photography column. This month it was about shooting video on your digital camera and here is my attempt:

Regular Column in Observer Woman

Just a quick note to say that I'm now doing a regular gadget section in Observer Woman magazine, the latest monthly mag from the Observer.

Guardian Article

I've written another piece about moblogging, this time for the Guardian magazine.
Read

Oh, and I also did a round up of snazzy gadgets at the same time.
Read

And while I'm on the subject, here's a link to a piece about a Virtual Beauty pageant by Simon Creasey in which I proffer my opinion.
Read

Radio One - Oneclick/Future

I've done a couple of podcast type things for Radio One recently for their oneclick/future shows. You can listen to the current one here.

Blueprint Magazine - Interview with Jason Bruges

I've just done a piece for the latest Blueprint magazine (Oct issue), interviewing the lovely Jason Bruges about his interactive architecture.

"Light work: Jason Bruges is a designer who hopes to change the way we think about architecture through the use of light. Katie Lee finds out what lies behind his illuminating work"

PC Pro Reviews

When I'm not being interviewed I do actually do a bit of writing. Here's some of the stuff I've done recently for PC Pro.

Palm LifeDrive
Palm Treo 650
Orange SPV C550
Siemens SK65

Interview in the Observer

I had a fun few days last month being interviewed by Polly Vernon for the Observer and getting all dressed up for the photoshoot. You can read the article here.

Independent on Sunday Review - Blogging

I got told off the other day for not updating this site enough, so here's a link to a piece I wrote for my IOS Review column about photoblogging and moblogging. Thanks to Matt the moblogger for scanning it and sticking it up.

You can read it here

And you can see my photoblog here
And my moblog here

Guardian Stuff

I did two pieces for The Guardian Weekend recently: Classy gadgets and Colourful Gadgets. As Ashley rightly pointed out, the supplement looks even better in print as The Guardian "spent the equivalent a Premiership player’s weekly cocaine allowance on photography".

Interviews/Quotes

Writing "gadgets for girls" features has become a popular pastime for journalists recently. Which is where I come in...

Recently mouthing off in:

The Sun - on a piece about girls spending lots of money on gadgets
The Guardian
Elle US - (Although they might have just given Shiny Shiny a mention and leave out my sparkling commentary - I never saw the piece.)
New York Times
Stuff UK
Vogue UK - December 2004
The Evening Standard
BBC Online
The Observer

And on:

6Music Phil Jupitus breakfast show. Dave Green likes a lie in every now and then.
ITV News - (According to my sisters' review, I laughed at my own jokes and licked my teeth too much. On the plus side, my teeth looked white and you couldn't see my bra through my shirt.
Radio Five Live
Radio Newcastle
And an Irish Radio station I can't recall the name of - but I did manage to say "peed off" twice on air and spent most of the time dodging queries about vibrators.

Marie Claire

Here's some of the early Marie Claire pieces. I'll upload the others as well eventually.

Gadgets For Girls
Marie Claire Trends piece
Interview with Belle de Jour. She got a book deal just before the piece came out and told me I'd managed to slip under the net before her agent put a stop to interviews.
iPod mini. Just a little preview piece for the iPod mini.

All about me

So who am I anyway?

Specialities:

Blogging and social media
Product development, content creation and management
Creative commercial campaigns
Web 2.0 futurology and consultancy
Women's media
Publishing
Technology

Co-Founder Shiny Media
I co-founded Shiny Media, the UK's biggest blog publishing company in 2004 with 3.1million unique users a month (you can read the full blurb about Shiny Media over on our company blog). In 2007 we took investment from Bright Station Ventures.

Editorial Director, Shiny Media
As editorial director, I created and launched over 35 blogs for the network with titles across the Lifestyle, Fashion, Technology, Games and Sports sectors. I managed a team of 11 in-house editors and more than 50 freelance writers and editors. Some of our flagship blogs include Tech Digest, Catwalk Queen,, TV Scoop and Shoewawa.

I was also founding editor of Shiny Shiny back in 2004 (the world's first gadgets blog aimed at women), which now receives over 300,000 uniques a month.

Commercial campaigns

I worked on many commercial campaigns for blue chip advertisers, creating bespoke, web-friendly partnerships with clients such as Vodafone (Vodafone Live Guy, Vodafone Live Shopping), LG (The LG Media Talent Award, City Clickers) and Cisco (Digital Cribs). Both the LG and Cisco campaigns were extended into Europe using our relationships with European blog networks.

Journalist
I started life as a technology writer, producing a monthly column for the The Independent on Sunday Review, The Observer and Custom PC. I have also written for Woman & Home, Mobile Choice, Stuff, T3, Marie Claire, PC Pro, Blueprint, the Guardian, FHM, Dazed & Confused, and most of the daily newspapers.

I've made numerous TV and Radio appearances, including The Gadget Show (discussing gadgets for women), Something for the Weekend, Radio 5 Live, Radio One, Radio Four and 6Music.

I still accept freelance work that interests me and currently write a weekly column for Look Magazine. You can contact me on katie[at]katielee.co.uk if you'd like to offer me money for words.

You can find out more about my freelance work by clicking on this Freelance link.