Good old Media Guardian…

A site for TV execs and tea ladies
James Morrison

Is that Groucho Club invitation still eluding you? Well, despair not: help is at hand, in the form of a new online private members’ club aimed at “smart, well-informed Londoners” from all walks of life. Fridaycities - billed as an “adult MySpace” - is being officially launched this month to coincide with the fifth birthday of its parent service, satirical email comment sheet the Friday Thing.

Though membership is invitation-only, the site’s founders are aiming to attract everyone from TV executives to tea ladies - their rather grand mission statement being to “do the impossible” by making London “the most friendly city on Earth”. Moreover, this being an online venture, there won’t be an oyster or champagne flute in sight (at least not initially).

“Our exclusivity is more down-to-earth than the Groucho’s,” explains Graham Pond, editor of the Friday Thing and one-third of the triumvirate responsible for Fridaycities. “It’s more of a party than a club. If you have a party and you invite people you like and say they can bring along people they like too, you trust their judgment - and assume their mates aren’t going to just drink all your booze.”

The starting-point for the site, Pond says, was the realisation that on every journey Londoners take there must be numerous people with whom we would get on if we met socially - though we would not dream of introducing ourselves to them in a packed carriage. With this in mind, he hopes Fridaycities will be seen as a “tool” for bringing people together in person, rather than a “destination” in itself. “There are positive signs,” he says. “One member has arranged a pub crawl based on the layout of a Monopoly board, and we’re planning a monthly event for all members once we’re up and running properly.”

Buoyed by the cult status of the Friday Thing and its sister site, London by London, Fridaycities is already attracting plenty of applicants - 5,000 people have signed up since it first appeared in “test mode” back in December. But all this is just the start of its plan for world domination. By the end of the year, it aims to have recruited a million Londoners, and opened an offshoot site for New York - with a further 10 cities, including Edinburgh and Paris, gaining their own within 18 months.

Inevitably, prospective celebrity members are also being courted. Pond and co-founders Paul Carr and Savannah Christensen, editor of the alternative London paper the Penny, have invited 150 luminaries to join - ranging from Ken Livingstone through Kevin Spacey to Vanessa Feltz. So far, the site’s star power is muted, though: its sole endorser being Rhodri Marsden, keyboardist with 80s band Scritti Politti.

· Fridaycities can be found at http://london.fridaycities.com

Related Reading

Carr sends out press release in the third person
"So, I just sent out the big launch announcement. They say every time someone writes their own press release, a PR person dies.So, that's something.FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE14th December 2006Carr announces launch of new digital publishing house specialising in bringing together...\\

Doing things, bye half!
"Yippee-ki-ay. I've just sprinted past the halfway point - 10,000 words - spurred on by vegetables and lots and lots of caffeine. I feel newly new.Which is exactly the appropriate time - 2:07am - to break some pretty big news....\\

Tis the night before Christmas
"Well, I made it home and managed to finish my Christmas shopping at exactly 3:55pm. Early this year. I've bought books for almost everyone. A gift you can open again and again, said the sign in the shop. They are...\\