So while I continue to take a break from blogging here, I’ve started a new project: ‘Manchester Wire is a website that hopes to keep you informed about the best things Manchester and the surrounding area has to offer.’ It’s edited by Ruth Allan and myself, with writing by us and a crack team of contributors, and we’re aiming to build it up in to a practical and pretty comprehensive resource for events and developments in the city.

Since soft-launching last Friday, we’ve featured gig and club previews, theatre reviews, art festivals, exhibition and venue openings – plus some of the more underground happenings in Manchesters, such as a Subbuteo club and a zine library.

Take a look at manchesterwire.co.uk – we’re keen to hear what you think, and about what you think we should be covering. We’re also on Twitter (@mcrwire) and Facebook.

Between my nine Twitter accounts (don’t ask – I rarely even visit the site) I’m made aware of some ingenious uses of the platform – none more so than @tweetamanchestercab, which started following @rainycitystories yesterday:

We are a collective group of cab companies operating in Manchester United Kingdom. Follower our group and next time you need a cab tweet us

What a great little idea. If I didn’t live on Europe’s busiest bus route I’d be tempted to try it out.

Has anyone else spotted any fun or innovative Twittering in Manchester?

Nope, this isn’t a national version of Risk. Cube gallery and the Redeye photography network (plus Marketing Manchester and DLA Piper) want you to capture the city in the photographic sense.

The incentive is one of 10 awards of £500 (one of which will be decided by the People), plus the chance to have your images displayed in Cube on Portland Street from 28 March until 9 April. In fact, every submitted image – ‘so long as it’s legal and decent’ (in terms of quality or nakedness, I wonder) – will be exhibited, which is a great extra incentive to enter. You’ve only got one entry though so don’t waste it.

The 10 winners will also have their photographs reproduced and distributed throughout the city as postcards, and they’ll receive limited edition prints in a commemorative book.

The competition’s open to both professionals and non-professionals, and the deadline’s fast approaching: Friday 20 February. See the Capture Manchester website for full details.

[Hat-tip to How-Do]

A couple of months ago Visit Manchester, the city’s official tourism website, launched HearManchester.com, a 10-part audio guide to the Rochdale Canal and Petersfield.

Presented by John Robb, the downloadable and streamable guides are entitled inspired, green, en-route, underground, unsung (which I found most interesting), radical, poetic, human, proud and industrial. Each part includes interviews with local experts – ‘ranging from city councillors to body-poppers, psychogeographers to popstars’ – and has a PDF transcript and an associated map, highlighting some of the main points of interest.

The individual guides have a physical trailmarker (such as the one pictured and this one) to encourage people to website, and the project is being promoted as part of next week’s Manchester Science Festival. The guide, produced by Northern Quarter digital agency StarDotStar, has also been shortlisted for a BIMA Award.