SURF LONDON: From Dot Gone to Dot Com

While the dot com bubble has burst for many online service providers, some still manage against all odds to buck the trend, ride the storm and come out stronger for it on the other side.

From dot gone to dot com

Londons fastest growing and biggest community website is re-launched this week, with a complete new look and a comprehensive range of new services and a new domain name. previously surflondon.co.uk it is now available at http://surflondon.com

While the dot com bubble has burst for many online service providers and 'dot gone' has become a metaphor for online failure with the likes of boo.com, and perhaps more spectacularly excite.com going belly up, some still manage against all odds to buck the trend, ride the storm and come out stronger for it on the other side.

SurfLondon.com is a community portal, which has been in the making for 3 years. While Martha Lane Fox was flying Concorde to New York and running boo.com into the ground with her lavish lifestyle Surf London's founders continued building their site and their userbase without flash marketing or gimmicks.

Saif Bonar, co founder and partner at Surf London said of the recent launch:

"The three years in development were a rocky road, and because we chose a live development model, sometimes our users suffered as a result of our mistakes. We are pleased that so many stayed faithful and kept on returning."

Mr Bonar went on to say "With the launch of the new site we hope that our regulars will now settle in quickly, and become more actively involved utilising the interactive elements we have added to the community.

"We are confident users will be pleased with the new content we offer already, but have so much more planned for the months ahead".

Within 48 hours of launching the new site SurfLondon.com has increased it's ranking on the alexa engine from 340,000 to an astonishing 81,323. This easily ranks Surf London as one of the Top Ten websites for the capital.

Andrew Bonar also Partner commented "I look forward to what lies ahead."

According to Alexa.com, provider of Internet traffic data SurfLondon.com is now one of the Capital's leading destination websites. View the table below for rankings in order of some of Londons leading destination websites.

Ends.

Notes for Editor:

1 - SurfLondon.com is owned by the Surf London Partnership. Partners are Andrew Bonar, and Saif Bonar. Telephone: 020 7735 3615 Address: 56 Cherrywood Gardens, Nottingham, NG7

2- Andrew Bonar (26) and Saif Bonar are brothers and form The Surf London Partnership. Andrew Bonar was coFounder of Cheapnet a low cost webhost, and eBanx an eCommerce gateway prior to the Surf London launch. Saif Bonar (22)was previously the Moscow News Bureau Manager, and is now New Media Director for Marketing Russia www.marketingrussia.ru

3 - Alexa rankings as published on www.alexa.com on 27/03/2002

thisislondon.co.uk - 6,683
londontown.com - 13,608
londonnet.co.uk - 77,726
surflondon.com - 81,323
virtual-london.co.uk - 90,083
netlondon.com- 94,832
london.gov.uk - 163,598
icsouthlondon.co.uk - 243,696
first4london.com - 291,499
explore-london.co.uk - 360,784
londinium.com - 416,574
londononline.co.uk - 457,246
Buzzlondon.com - 478,502
planet-london.com - 1,186,825
logon4london.com - 1,210,938

For media contacts call Andrew Bonar, 07976 712 803