Meetup
Meetup.com is an online social networking portal that facilitates offline group meetings in various localities around the world. Meetup allows members to find and join groups unified by a common interest, such as such as politics, books, games, movies, health, pets, careers or hobbies. It operates as a free service; users enter their zip code and the topic they want to meet about, and the website helps them arrange a place and time to meet. Its primary revenue comes from restaurants, coffee shops and other venues that pay $29 a month to be listed on the site as possible meeting venues. Participants vote where to hold a meeting, and venues pay a finder's fee if their establishment is chosen. In addition, Meetup members can choose to pay $29/year to sign up for "Meetup Plus" that gives subscribers more options for planning and meetings.
From 2002 to 2004, Meetup.com was one of the fastest-growing online social networks in the world. It took center stage in the American political consciousness in 2003, when it attracted the attention, first of Dean campaign staff, then of pundits in New York City and Washington, DC, and was soon being used by a number of candidates for the Democratic nomination, to build and energize their grassroots support. By January, 2004, 30% of the site's members were signed up for the three most popular topics: Dean in 2004, Clark in 2004, and Kerry in 2004. Following Dean's departure from the race, the "Dean meetup days" became the model for similarly-organized "National Democratic Party Meetup Days." Meetup.com has also been used by conservative Internet organizers, including the Heritage Foundation's Townhall.com and the re-election campaign of George W. Bush.
As of March, 2004, more than one million members were using Meetup to arrange regular gatherings of more than a thousand groups.
History
Meetup.com was founded in 2000 by Scott Heiferman, Matt Meeker and Slashdot community. They ran their software on similar platforms, and had a large, successful "International Slashdot Meetup Day" in early July 2002. As a result, Meetup got frequent publicity boosts from Slashdot before and after that event, and were soon a byword in geek circles.
Interest from hobbyists and fans of all stripes grew steadily. Their next surge in popularity and exposure came early in 2003, when politicians campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination collectively started to use Meetup to coordinate their grassroots movement. "In MeetUp.com's original concept, the sessions are leaderless, just folks with similar interest," Knight Ridder reported in February 2004. "But it didn't take long for savvy political campaigns to have a staffer or volunteer show up to collect names and addresses and hand out material for the candidate."
Howard Dean's presidential campaign took Meetup very seriously, and by February 14, already had 1200 supporters signed up ; a month later, there were over 5,000. "We fell into this by accident," Dean said later. "I wish I could tell you we were smart enough to figure this out. But the community taught us. They seized the initiative through Meetup. They built our organization for us before we had an organization." His first personal realization of Meetup's potential occurred when he attended a New York City meetup on March 5, 2003 where he found hundreds of enthusiastic supporters waiting to greet him. "I've never seen anything like that, with no advance people, totally self-organized by a bunch of citizens," said Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi. "It was a really great moment."
"Meetup quickly became the engine of Dean's Internet campaign," reported Wired magazine's Gary Wolf. "Back then, the leading group on the site was a club for witches. John Edwards emerged as the first- and second-place contenders in the January Ohio primary, the number of Meetups for Kerry and Edwards supporters spiked up dramatically. "Registrations for Edwards rose 44 percent to 3,949 people, up from 2,751. Kerry's registrations rose 22 percent to 22,076, up from 18,140," reported the National Journal.
See also
Contact information
Meetup.com
133 West 25th Street #6W
New York, NY 10001
Fax: 212-255-7310
http://www.meetup.com
