Secret London, from Facebook Group to Startup.

Secret London is something rather interesting that’s caught my attention. From having #secretlondon as a trending topic on Twitter briefly, and deciding to check out what all the fuss was about, I’m pleasantly surprised. Secret London, as it stands, may be a bit niche – it only concerns London – but it’s something useful to Londoners, that with a proper structure could be similar to the next foursquare or something. I mean yeah, hell, it has it’s flaws – so does Facebook and Twitter, and (oh god) Google Buzz, but it’s really decent where it goes.

Either way how you see it, it’s a snap cleverer than most things you can think of. Tiffany Philippou, aged 21, was asked in a “challenge” to create a Facebook group with as many members as possible. And she did well in that aim – the group, started in January 2010, with over 190,000 members, has done a little more than just be a group – she’s turning it into a startup with high hopes, similarly named Secret London.

What’s Secret London?

Yeah, hard to spot.

Secret London is, in the simplest form, a way of uncovering hidden gems in the seemingly straightforward city. Believe me, there’s gems to be found (hell, I didn’t even know Monument existed until I was walking and just happened to look over). But in that sense, the website is far better for the site than a Facebook group – the group steadily dissolved from people wishing to share gems of information, to other people just wanting to promote their Facebook groups.

Secret London’s website offers a way to view recent tips, although it lacks proper categorization features and a little description of what the hell these locations it has are would also be useful in functionality. However, the site packs a punch of a design and relatively simple functionality, and will most likely keep evolving, hopefully.

It’s been 2 months since Tiffany decided to enroll for a summer internship at Saatchi & Saatchi, an advertising firm. She sought a job where she ‘gets to be creative’, but Secret London has changed things, perhaps permanently.

This is definitely something I will be watching, and you probably should too.