This seems like yet another example of how tech’s ridiculous focus on ambition and growth are going to kill something that’s just fine the way it is. I’m a fan of Meetup.com, and it sounds like they are/were self-sufficient, but suddenly the cofounder and CEO thinks they need to grow to a “billion members”. Sad.
I've used Meetup a ton, as an organizer and as a user, so I'm a little nostalgic about the good old days - but they've been over for some time.<p>I think EventBrite really put a dagger into Meetup five years ago or so, and proved that what customers actually want is not another social network but just a best-of-breed ticketing/booking/rsvp tool. I think Meetup tried for a while to pretend this was not the case, despite the evidence of groups fleeing their platform.<p>Interestingly, it's not just b/c organizers want to get paid. In my experience the only way to get people to reliably show up for an event is to get them to pay (even a nominal amount) and payments were just a bolted-on afterthought for Meetup.<p>I have some doubts that Facebook will come to dominate this niche, particularly when it comes to professional meetups/groups as many people keep their FB network and their professional network quite separate.
Coincidentally, Meetup's HQ is a very swanky bit of Manhattan real estate they've been sitting on forever, right between Broadway and Lafayette in NoHo, and would make for a nice WeWork space.<p>WeWork is 100% about real estate and that's all there is to it.
Typically any website that gets bought immediately enters its tailspin, but Meetup's rebranding (that gutted functionality) started that well in advance.
We (<a href="http://toughbyte.com" rel="nofollow">http://toughbyte.com</a>) organize a number of technical meetups ourselves and have found Meetup.com lacking. To scratch our own itch, we built Meetabit (<a href="https://meetabit.com/" rel="nofollow">https://meetabit.com/</a>) which includes some additional features such as the ability to accept talk proposals and sponsorship offers, have speaker profiles, archive of talks and related materials, export data etc.<p>It does what we need and we haven't been actively developing or promoting it recently. Nevertheless, it has grown organically to 4K+ users. Now that Meetup has been acquired, I think there may be an opportunity to develop it further and actually start monetizing.<p>Is there anyone here that would be interested in helping out with that? Which direction should we take it in? Ideas and feedback, especially from fellow meetup organizers or sponsors, would be greatly appreciated!
Meetup has done a fine job. It has done a lot for the NYC metro area. It's created a way to connect like-minded people. No one needs to "bowl alone" any more.<p>I hope this acquisition respects the company's mission and helps to amplify it. That would be nice.
I've had negative experiences with Meetup.com. I've attended multiple meetups around a technical subject with the hope of meeting peers who self-educate and work on side projects. Instead, I have been subjected to sales pitches for SaaS. I get it. Hosting a meetup is work, especially for introverted technical types. People only do work when they expect an ROI.<p>Maybe it's better in Silicon Valley.
Really liked the way that Meetup was venturing into branded meetups and pages. So if I wanted to hunt down a specific community, I could do that fairly easily.