If you’ve no idea what Google+ is then I really wouldn’t worry about it if I were you.

Incidentally, now’s probably a good time to remind you that if you want to follow the entirety of Created in Birmingham then:

• createdinbirmingham.com is still the main place to get everything
• You can Like the Facebook Page
• You can follow the Twitter account
• There’s a Delicious account where all the links for the Friday link round-ups are collected together
• There’s a Created in Birmingham Tumblr too, where I tend to quickly post or reblog flyers, posters, videos and photos – it’s a more visual thing

I thought looking after this site would be a useful experience for him, so I’m handing over the reins for a bit. Please say hello, comment on his posts and generally make him feel welcome.

If you fancy getting involved and want to suggest something to post then it’s not too late. See the details on the earlier post.

We’ll be posting flyers, videos, and general Tumblr friendly bits and pieces we come across, in handy bite size chunks.

You can find and follow us at createdinbrum.tumblr.com

Meanwhile, just to show how 2010 looked on Created in Birmingham, we published 649 blog posts and attracted 578 comments, garnering 222,264 pageviews from 81,937 unique (like snowflakes) visitors. There was also 1 shop that took £45,000, with most of that money going to the artists themselves.

Over the past 12 months we’ve also had 40 CiB supporters and a handful of advertisers – a big thank you goes out to them for helping us to keep the site going.

These were the 10 most popular posts published this year:

1. Apache Indian has his own bar
2. Recommended BCC arts cuts (possibly)
3. CiB Shop – The End Game
4. Coming (very) soon – the CiB Shop
5. CiB Shop – here’s how you can get involved
6. CiB Shop – an invitation
7. Birmingham arts and arts grant budgets for 2011/12
8. Factory Club closing down
9. The HMV Institute
10. The Radar Magazine

I’m not really one for doing ‘best of’s but (off the top of my head) it was good to see the MAC reopening, I liked the Steve McCurry retrospective at BMAG and Len Lye at Ikon (which is still on), Birmingham European Theatre Festival was fun and I enjoyed a load of things at International Dance Festival Birmingham.

Odd but great moments included ‘sleeping’ on stage during Stan’s Cafe‘s Tuning Out with Radio Z (which I’ve written about here) and, of course, That Shop.

There was plenty more besides and far too many things I wish I’d seen but didn’t. I suppose I’ll just have to try to see more next year.

Obligatory shot of celebratory macaroons:

If CiB was a child it would be able to:

• use a spoon, fork and dinner knife skilfully
• hop on one foot
• enjoy singing simple songs, rhymes and nonsense words
• understand and obey simple rules (most of the time)
• learn names, addresses and phone numbers if taught
• persistently ask ‘why?’

• Bareface Media

As well as helping to support us, those people are also taking advantage of one of the cheapest advertising deals in town. If you want to do likewise then go to this page for details.

• Edward Moss Photography

As a heads-up to our supporters, we’ll soon be adding your logos and names to a board in the Created in Birmingham shop, just by way of an added ‘thank you’.

Want in? There’s info on how to become a CiB Supporter here.

Thanks to the folks at Substrakt for doing this, especially Claire and Ryan who put in the most hours.

This is the fourth change of clothes Created in Birmingham has had. For a trip down memory lane (courtesy of the Wayback Machine), here’s a reminder for long-time readers of how the site looked back when it first started:

Hi! I’m Ian Ravenscroft and I’ve joined the CiB team to (hopefully) continue the blog’s sterling work in unearthing Birmingham’s artistic and creative gems.

I was created in Birmingham myself, I’m a former journalist, and I’m now a producer at Meshed Media working with current CiB editor Chris Unitt. I’m also a writer with comedy and animation collective Dice Productions and had a hand in founding and running Film Forum West Midlands too.

That’s me. So, if you see me out and about, do say hello. Or if you have any news, events, places or people you’d like to highlight on CiB, remember to be in touch!