Mike Slocombe has been described as an 'online anarchist' and 'one of the most influential people in the UK web industry'. His award-winning ezine Urban75 was born in 1994 as Football Fans against the Criminal Justice Bill, which was a major focus for protest at the time. Since then the subject matter has expanded to include environmental action, rave culture, civil rights, rants, information on drugs, cartoons and photography. Urban75 gets upwards of 1 million page impressions each month.

So how did it begin?
I started writing an anti-racism football fanzine in 1992, selling it around the Cardiff City ground, using humour to take the piss out of football thugs and bigots. Two years later I replaced the 'written' page for 'web' page. I learnt that the Internet provides a much more efficient way of reaching a far wider readership.

How did you learn to write web pages?
I was at a party in Bath in 1994 and awoke the following morning finding two pages from an HTML instruction manual stuck to my face. Within an hour I'd written my first web page. The advantage of the web is its immediacy: you can put your point across quickly. The mistake that a lot of sites make is using too much Flash animation. Flash is OK for a laugh, but it can get in the way of the message.

It's a big site isn't it?
Yeah, there's 30,000 bulletin board pages, 2,000 other pages, and 1,000 photos. The bulletin boards alone get around 10,000 postings a week. Our visibility index is higher than The Simpsons and five times higher than the Ministry of Sound. If you'd done a search for William Hague during the election, we came second after the Conservative Party home site – which must have been a bit confusing for foreign journalists.

Who updates it?
Me! And a few mates.

Do you make money from it?
No, there's no advertising, no sponsorship, no tasteless flashing banners, it doesn't sell anything. I do not want urban75 to be used as marketing tool for someone else's products.

Any tips for the beginner?
Yeah, buy my book! MAX HITS Building and Promoting Successful Websites

Anything else?
Don't get straight into Dreamweaver. With HTML you're always in control, keep it simple and plan for expansion. If you're going to use Flash, use it sparingly and only where appropriate – I liken the web audience to a five year old child, impatient and hyperactive! They want the message and they're off.

What about web comedy?
It's a hard medium for laughs which is why most comedy sites don't work well. There's loads of humour in the bulletin boards and I like What should I put on the fence? Most flash cartoons are shit. I mean if you wouldn't watch it on TV then why bother downloading?'