Joost invites for OpenCoffee members

Joost invites have been in limited supply in the blogosphere but the nice folks at Joost have kindly added OpenCoffee Club to the illustrious ranks of Techcrunch and opened a front door for OCC members to try out the service. Check it out here.

Last week was a busy week for OCC, we had great coverage on Read/Write/Web and there are now over 45 locations around the world holding events including now in Anchorage, Alaska :)

Please send me any great OCC stories, I'd like to showcase some of them when I talk about OpenCoffee later this week at Nextweb in Amsterdam.

Moo adds Vox, Live Journal & Fotolog

Moo is on a roll, like all interesting brands online they are starting to generate spinoffs and real passion.

The major players in the blogosphere are starting to take notice about their innovative products and business model.

Now, they are adding Vox, Livejournal and Fotolog to their already impressive roster of big brand online partners like Bebo, Flickr and Habbo.

If you're not a member of one those you can always upload or design your own images.

Showcase for Early Stage European start ups

Library House, the folks who cover the UK and increasingly the European venture scene are going to be holding a one day event on 27th June in London which they bill as "a one-day showcase celebrating Europe’s web innovators".

The interesting thing about this event is that Library House is looking to showcase not just established companies like WAYN and Shozu, but also new upcoming companies which have not been funded.

I'll be on a panel and going along, as I suspect will a number of other entrepreneurs and investors. If you're an early stage European entrepreneur you should check it out - you can apply here.

OpenCoffee London closes in on Vampires

It's been great to see OpenCoffee spread to over 35 locations across the world in the last 3 months since we first started off in London.

Europe is starting to be covered and in the last week, we've seen the boundaries extend to include Tel Aviv and Slovenia coming online this week, along with our first entries in Italy and Germany.

In recent weeks we've also heard about Sydney, Cape Town and Toronto really taking off. While there are new OpenCoffee's opening almost every week in the US with new locations now in Austin, Memphis and North Virginia.

We're now up to 525 members for our London group on Meetup, which I'm happy to say puts us in the Top 20 groups for London. That is until I realized we're still 2 people behind the London Vampires group.

Come on London, let's get ahead of the Vampires (527) - next up the much tougher challneges of Biking & Adventure Hiking (620), and maybe one day Poker (937).

Maybe we'll have passed the Vampires by the time you read this :)

Learn more about AdWords

Figuring out how to best use Google AdWords is a key job for any entrepreneur, so it's great to see businesses popping up trying to make it as easy as possible.

Toby Mason, one of the co-founders of Zootrain, has been kind enough to offer folks reading this blog and members of London's now thriving OpenCoffee Club a £100 off voucher to a Zootrain seminar.

If you haven't tried AdWords and want to know how this could be a great offer. Use voucher code skpub14 to qualify and thank Toby if you go along.

First International OpenCoffee Club -- May 31 in Amsterdam

Patrick, Arjen and Boris are the inspirational guys behind TheNextWeb, which promises to be a great conference in Amsterdam. They are also the force behind Amsterdam OpenCoffee Club.

They've lined up some of the luminaries of the blogosphere to speak including Mike Arrington, Jason Calcanis and Scott Rafer. Plus some very cool new European startups who will be showcasing what they're up to. I'll also be around saying a few words about OpenCoffee and the ever improving climate for entrepreneurs in Europe.

But perhaps most fun of all, before NextWeb kicks off, they are also hosting the world's first International OpenCoffee Club which will be held on Thursday May 31 from 4-6pm in Amsterdam. I'll be there, so looking forward to meeting some of you in person as well.

New Location for London OpenCoffee

Thanks so much to Walid and the guys at TrustedPlaces, we have an excellent new venue for London OpenCoffee Club.

Starting from this Thursday, every 10-12, we'll be having London OpenCoffee at the very cool 5th View Bar at the top of Waterstone's at 203-206 Piccadily. See the Trustedplaces review here.

The view is awesome and best of all we'll be able to have FREE wifi, so please bring along your demos and if you don't feel like chatting feel free to work.

we have over 450 members to our London Meetup group and there are now around 33 locations hosting OpenCoffee Clubs around the world - so check them out at our OpenCoffee site and join in the global conversation.

Hope to see you in London very soon.

Netlog is getting bigger than Bebo

Last week, Facebox relaunched as Netlog. The company also announced that it had taken in €5m in its first investment round from Index, Atomico and TAG.

Everyone's heard of MySpace and Bebo, but Netlog's 18m members in 8 languages is really one of the great untold stories of the web right now. Not many people would have thought Netlog has more reach than Bebo, but it does....


Focussing on local markets, the talented entrepreneurs and the team behind Netlog have quietly been building a profitable business from their base in Belgium which is now Europe's biggest, most diverse social network. It's worth keeping a close eye on how they keep developing.