Getting sucked into Twittersphere...

and predictably wondering what role my blog plays going forward... even starting to have the sense that facebook is getting less useful in comparison to twittersphere via tweetdeck

nothing new here, i guess i'm late to that particularly party (there are nearly 20m results on Google on this topic) but the tipping point that twitter has hit over the last few months following the summize acquisition means that other than the 140 character limit, there's not much keeping me off-Twitter and on blog for now

would be great to have an easy way to post from blog to twitter, rather than just via the badge - i'm sure there are good ways. if you know anyone please let me know in the comments

interesting times...

Kindo's day in the sun

Its easy to throw stones at Alexa - and we all have - but sometimes whatever the reason, its nice to have a day in the sun.

This has been a great few weeks for Kindo. Last week they announced seed funding from the technology founders of Skype, me and Robin at TAG and Stefan Glaenzer from Last.fm. Now this week Kindo has sneaked past Geni and Verwandt on Alexa.


So congratulations to Gareth, Nils, Andrew, Demian and all the rest of the really hardworking and dedicated team.

Social networks have fundamentally shifted people's online behavior. There are over a billion people online now and the web is truly global and multi-lingual - it is no longer more than 25% American or English.

When you look at the diversity of social network successes, there are global players (MySpace & Facebook) but also very significant regional (Netlog, Bebo, Hi5, Friendster, Skyrock) and local players (Nasza-klasa and vKontakte). What's amazing of course is that none of these sites really existed more than 3 years ago and now they are the commonest ways for people to spend their time online. In almost every market, networks and search rule and portals are dying or dead.

The most common and fastest-growing online behavior today is to build, understand and communicate through your networks.

We have networks for our friends - our social networks. We have networks for our colleagues (LinkedIn, Xing, Viadeo etc) - our professional networks. Increasingly we will have networks for families - not just sites about my ancestry (family past) but about my living family (family present).

Kindo has only been in the market since late October 2007 but it has made a very fast start.

Recognizing, rather than paying lip-service to the global nature of the web is a lesson we learned at Skype and have seen again at OpenAds. Kindo its already in 14 languages and not just with translations but blogs and a genuine local flavor.

Families can be way too serious and people seem to be really responding to Kindo's sense of fun and the authenticity and sense of fun of a global brand with local sensibility.


The market for family networks is very much just at the beginning, there is a very long way to go as these services reach maturity - but sometimes it nice to have a day in the sun.

OpenCoffee London keeps growing

Tomorrow will be our 20th meeting - and our Meetup group in London is now up to 713. Its fantastic to see more people joining and new faces every week.

It's also amazing to me how online groups are becoming so useful and viral - in less than a week Seedcamp's group on Facebook has close to 500 members and the global Opencoffee group on Ning is close to 1,200 people.

What a great way to keep in touch and stay connected - the web gets better every day.

Finding fellow travellers for your business

A shorter version of my post on the Seedcamp blog about finding partners...

This is some practical advice on what you can do if you have a great idea - for Seedcamp, or otherwise - and you want to go about finding a partner.

It's not easy, but in this age of networks, here are some suggestions which grease the wheels.

You can start easily online:

• Check out Seedcamp on Facebook - as it opens up, Groups and associated Events are becoming more powerful as networking tools
• Get engaged in Seedcamp Forums - contribute to and check out ours
• Use Linkedin - if you know what you're looking for it can be a powerful tool for finding the right people
  

But there's no substitute for the real world, so:

• Opencoffee Club - now in almost 60 cities around the world from Boston to Zagreb. You are likely to be close to one and if not, start one and see who turns up. You'll find you can meet in person co-founders, fellow entrepreneurs and folks to build your team
• Barcamp - a really inspiring phenomenon, a place to meet great hackers and people passionate about building products
• Meetup - pretty much in every city, you can find experts on most topics, take your pick

Good luck in finding your partners - it's worth it and your business will be better for it.