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04/13/2005 Archived Entry: "April Seattle Weblog Meetup"
Next Wednesday, April 20, it's the Seattle Weblog Meetup! As per usual, start time is 7 pm, location is Ralph's Grocery, 2035 4th Ave in Seattle's Belltown (diagonally across from the Cinerama).
SPECIAL BULLETIN: Starting in May, Meetup.com will be charging a fee to the organizer (me!). We have some time to think about this since my Meetup.com+ membership will be applied to the fee until June. Also, any M+ group members who aren't organizers will get a coupon which could be applied to our group fees. More discussion here, on the meetup.com site, or at the meetup.
Replies: 8 comments
You know, we are the blog meetup group #1, and we have 300 members. That should count for something. Can't we as a bloc put some pressure on meetup.com to not penalize us for their bad business practices? (I mean, look at the disaster Fotolog -- another product by the same people -- has turned into.)
I'm trying to figure out what Meetup gives us that any other organization doesn't. Exposure, I guess. But you get a couple of us SeaBlogger webgeeks in a room together and we can turn out something identical (if not better), then use our blogs to Google-bomb it above Meetup. Hmm.
Posted by dw @ 04/13/2005 03:31 PM PST
Hamburger Lad, that's what I was thinking of doing, just make the east side meetup an official event of the seattle meetup. It's not urgent because right now all the groups I organize are included in one fee (9 bucks a month till the end of the year, 19 bucks after that). That won't continue forever because it's due to a coding mistake on meetup's part which they couldn't fix in time for this announcement.
Posted by Anita @ 04/13/2005 02:53 PM PST
I'm willing to try the tip jar to start with, but we'll talk about it all at next week's meetup. er, I mean gathering. We do have time to plan for a graceful exit from meetup.com if that's what we want.
One person posted a fun idea that was new to me, a half-and-half raffle. people contribute and get a raffle ticket. all funds over the monthly fee go to whoever's name is drawn.
Posted by Anita @ 04/13/2005 02:51 PM PST
Meetup.com does seem like a useful tool but the fee only makes sense for a larger group. I wouldn't mind kicking a buck or two to attend a Meetup, but when you have a small turnout like we've had at the Eastside meetup, the fair share becomes a little prohibitive. (Of course, if I paid $5 to attend, I might be more inclined to take the night off and really get my money's worth.)(I might even eat soemthing. ;-) ) Are groups allowed to have more than one meetup a month? If so, perhaps you could merge the Seattle and Eastside groups.
Posted by Hamburger Lad @ 04/13/2005 02:48 PM PST
Yeah this is going to be a pain for my Young Democrats meet up group. This is simply the dumbest thing that Meetup has done. This is typical dot com bull. They should at least have banner ads for the free groups and ad free pages for non paying groups. My Young Democrats meetup is probably just going to stop using Meetup tools.
How about we have a tip jar at the next meetup and everyone pitch in a buck for Anita. I am sure that we can get enough green for the monthly bill.
Posted by Jake of 8bitjoystick.com @ 04/13/2005 02:26 PM PST
Switch to Upcoming.org, which is free and has committed to staying free. It also has RSS syndication.
Posted by Jerry Kindall @ 04/13/2005 02:18 PM PST
I totally agree - I'm more than willing to give Anita a few dollars for her organizational skills (and a monthly e-mail with date and place), but I'd rather not give it to meetup.com.
Posted by dayment @ 04/13/2005 01:40 PM PST
It seems a bit silly that they are going to start charging for the meetup. If you would like we can figure out a way to use seattlethreads.com to organize future Seattle meetups of all sorts.
Posted by tyd @ 04/13/2005 01:17 PM PST