From My Bottom Step (FMBS) began as Greg Fowler’s personal hosted blog in 2007 by incorporating articles from his previous site that dated back as far as 2001. Greg tried to present his ‘ground level’ perspective on issues of interest by using as his logo a photo of himself as a child, sitting on the bottom step of his grandparent’s front porch. The blog was described as “a community activist’s online, independent, local source of news about London, Ontario” and focused on issues like pedestrian rights, accessibility, environmental concerns, public transit, and municipal politics.

Feeling the need for some rest following a period of sharp growth during the first quarter of 2008, Greg began to solicit user submissions and brought a number of regular contributors on-board. That experiment in multi-author blogging was so successful that Greg decided to stay with it and to broaden the blog’s scope.

Following a review of London’s blogs by Leschinski Design in which FMBS was cited as having a “fairly generic” and “cluttered” look, that firm was asked to assist with taking the blog to a new level of excellence. Web space was obtained for a self-hosted blog, domain names were registered, and a user poll was conducted.