NCTimes covers Meetups
Did you know that Meetup.com has redesigned? Well, they have, and perhaps this North County Times article indicates they’re doing some PR these days:
Members of the two groups found each other through their politics, but with almost 5,000 topics, meetups are just as likely to be about a favorite TV show, music, books, pets or hobbies.
In North County, 5,600 people are meetup members, according to the Web site MeetUp.com. The first Wednesday of the month lists meetups for those interested in pet adoption, canasta, Democracy for America, author Ken Wilber, attention deficit disorder and Rush Limbaugh. Other North County meetup topics include Buddhism, yarn-swap, Motley Fool, Investors Business Daily and Bookcrossing.
There are no meetups for kinky, hateful or racist subjects, as all topics must be approved by the site. But there are meetups for pug owners, witches, pagans, knitters, moms, new singles, atheists, web designers, and fans of Michael Moore, Sean Hannity, rockabilly, Howard Stern, “Mystery Science Theater 3000,” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, naturists, meditation and almost any other topic ima
There’s still of course the issue of a blog meetup that I’ve been to once. But lately it seems there has not been enough interest. Maybe we just need to have a party!
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MAS said on Monday, September 13, 2004, 8:38
The problem with MeetUp is the venue voting is rigged. I learned this later from a Wesley
Clark Meetup organizer. No matter how the group voted, Meetup selected the venue based
upon it’s relationships. I can’t get into the exact specifics, but someone on the inside
informed me that Meetup sends the group to the venue that bids the highest, NOT where
the members vote to go.
I went to about 6-7 of the SD Blogger meetups and can confirm that we were often dumped
at locations that nobody voted for. One was a Starbucks that closed 30 minutes after
we arrived. Another was a closed office loft in South Gaslamp. The Gaslamp meeting really
pissed us off cause you have a bunch of strangers trying to meet, locked outside a closed
building on a dark street in the rain.
I’m all for meeting my fellow SD Bloggers, but I will NEVER use Meetup to faciliate
that meeting.
MAS said on Monday, September 13, 2004, 8:43
Back before I learned about the rigged voting, I wrote this 1/11/2003 account.
Joe Crawford said on Monday, September 13, 2004, 9:18
I’m a big believer in “never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence or stupidity” — and my experience with the Web Design Meetups in San Diego at various coffeehouses (Claire de Lune, The Living Room, The Other Side) is that the venues have *no* idea that people are coming, at least not for our meeting.
The bigger problem when it comes to location is that you have to be a paid subscriber to suggest a meetup “site.” Also, the selection of locations to vote on (I have suggested several venues in the last few years) just seems to be random. I suspect there’s some broken GIS “which is closest to the popular zip codes for this area” type code that just messes it all up.
I myself is not averse to using Meetup for a blogger meetup. Like I said, I’ve had good experiences with the webdesign ones and meetup.
oso said on Monday, September 13, 2004, 9:59
I know I’ll be looking out for other SD Bloggers at Joelle’s Rock the Walk benefit concert at the Casbah on Friday, the 24th. Hope to see some of you there.
Beckie said on Monday, September 13, 2004, 13:53
I vote party! Or maybe a messageboard to facilitate party planning activities and
vote on frosty beverages named after famous persona.
route66 said on Monday, September 13, 2004, 14:59
Beckie, if a location and date are selected, Evite works well. A sports bar on Monday night would have plenty of frosty beverages.