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 politics, books, games, movies, health, pets, careers or hobbies. Users enter their ZIP code (or their city outside the United States) and the topic they want to meet about, and the website helps them arrange a place and time to meet. A social network is a map of the relationships between individuals, indicating the ways in which they are connected through various social familiarities ranging from casual acquaintance to close familial bonds. ... Mr. ...

Revenue has come from a variety of sources, including fees paid by meeting locations (such as restaurants and bars); advertising on the site; and, formerly, a "Meetup Plus" option which members could choose to pay for. On April 12, 2005, Meetup announced that it would begin to charge each group a monthly fee to be paid by the group organizer, though each organizer will be encouraged to ask their members to chip in to cover the costs. These fees were implemented starting in the month of May 2005 and initially resulted in considerable criticism [1] [2] [3]. April 12 is the 102nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (103rd in leap years). ... 2005 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar and is the current year. ... 2005 : January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December- → Deaths in May May 26: Eddie Albert May 25: Ismail Merchant May 25: Sunil Dutt May 25: Graham Kennedy May 22: Thurl Ravenscroft May 21: Howard Morris May 21: Subodh Mukherjee May 21: Stephen Elliott May 20...

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 campaign staff for Presidential candidate Howard Dean, 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." [4] 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. 2002 is a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 2004 is a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... A social network is a map of the relationships between individuals, indicating the ways in which they are connected through various social familiarities ranging from casual acquaintance to close familial bonds. ... 2003 is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The President of the United States is the head of state of the United States. ... Howard Brush Dean III, M.D. (born November 17, 1948) is a prominent American Democratic politician, currently serving as chairman of the Democratic National Committee. ... Midtown Manhattan, looking north from the Empire State Building, 2005 New York City (officially named the City of New York) is the most populous city in the United States, and is at the center of international finance, politics, entertainment, and culture. ... Aerial photo (looking NW) of the Washington Monument and the White House in Washington, DC. Washington, D.C., officially the District of Columbia (also known as D.C.; Washington; the Nations Capital; the District; and, historically, the Federal City) is the capital city and administrative district of the United... 2004 : January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December- → January 31, 2004 The United States defence budget is set to exceed US$400 billion next year—an almost 7% increase—according to budget proposals inadvertently posted on the Pentagons website. ... Wesley Clark Wesley Kanne Clark KBE (born December 23, 1944) is a retired four-star general in the U.S. Army. ... John Forbes Kerry (born December 11, 1943) is the junior United States Senator from Massachusetts. ... This article currently excludes conservatism in the United States and Canada, where the term can be taken to mean something different. ... The Heritage Foundation, a think tank located in Washington, D.C., is an influential public policy research institute. ... Townhall. ... George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is the current President of the United States and former Governor of the State of Texas. ...

As of May 1, 2005, Meetup reported having 1,595,165 members worldwide, with 194,472 local groups covering 5,454 different topics. The most popular topic of all, with 143,403 members, was "Democracy for America" [5], which directly replaced the Howard Dean Meetup topic upon the termination of Dean's Presidential campaign. May 1 is the 121st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (122nd in leap years). ... 2005 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar and is the current year. ... Democracy for America (DFA) is a political action committee dedicated to supporting fiscally responsible, socially progressive candidates at all levels of government—from school board to the presidency. ...

In July 2005, Meetup began to remove from its site the listings for local groups without paying organizers, starting with the organizer-less groups with 5 or fewer members. Thus, as of July 21, 2005, Meetup reported having 1,642,652 members worldwide and 5,484 different topics, but the number of local groups listed had dropped to 99,731. [6] On July 22, 2005, Meetup reported 1,643,497 members, 5,486 topics, and 58,878 local groups. [7] Democracy for America remained the most popular topic. Ongoing events • 2005 Atlantic and Pacific hurricanes • 2005 Maharashtra floods • 2005 Gujarat Flood • Expo 2005 in Aichi, Japan • Fuel prices • Gomery Comm. ... July 21 is the 202nd day (203rd in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 163 days remaining. ... 2005 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar and is the current year. ... July 22 is the 203rd day (204th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 162 days remaining. ... 2005 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar and is the current year. ...

History

Meetup.com was founded in 2000 by Scott Heiferman, Matt Meeker and Peter Kamali. This article is about the year 2000. ...

"The primary inspiration was the book Bowling Alone, which is by Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam about the decline of community in America and how people don't know their neighbors anymore," Heiferman said. "The Internet does a number of wonderful things, but it treats geography as irrelevant. We still live in a world where the local level is extremely important. ... We are providing a service that revitalizes the Internet for local communities." [8]

"The founders of the company knew people were staying in front of their computers, DVD players and TVs more and more, and losing personal connections," explained Meetup vice president Myles Weissleder. "After 9/11, they started thinking they could help do something positive in the world by having people reconnect—not with people in chatrooms across the globe—but in their own communities." [9]

Some of Meetup's earliest press coups resulted from active initial support from the 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. [10] Summary of Robert D. Putnams “Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital” In his essay “Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital” (Journal of Democracy, January 1995, Volume 6, Number 1) the author Robert D. Putnam surveys the decline of “social capital” in the United States of America since... 9-11 can refer to: The September 11, 2001 attacks A collection of interviews of Noam Chomsky by a variety of European publications and individual interviewers during the month after the September 11, 2001 attacks September 11 (month-day date notation) 9 November (day-month date notation) The North American... Slashdot (frequently abbreviated as /.) is a popular technology-related website, updated many times daily with articles that are short summaries of stories on other websites with links to the stories, and provisions for readers to comment on the story. ... 2002 : January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December A timeline of events in the news for July, 2002. ...

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." Jerome Armstrong is credited with first promoting Meetup for Howard Dean's Presidential campaign through the blog MyDD, "Mr. Armstrong figured Meetup could help Mr. Dean and urged Mr. Trippi to hire the company." [11] Partial list of newspapers The following is a partial list of newspapers owned by Knight Ridder: Contra Costa Times Detroit Free Press Kansas City Star The Miami Herald Philadelphia Inquirer Saint Paul Pioneer Press San Jose Mercury News The State External link Knight Ridder corporate website Categories: Companies traded on... 2004 : January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December- → // February 29, 2004 Jean-Bertrand Aristide resigns as president of Haiti and flees the country for the Central African Republic. ... Howard Brush Dean III, M.D. (born November 17, 1948) is a prominent American Democratic politician, currently serving as chairman of the Democratic National Committee. ... MyDD is a popular political blog specializing in American Politics. ...

Howard Dean's presidential campaign took Meetup very seriously, and by February 14, already had 1200 supporters signed up [12]; 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." March 5 is the 64th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (65th in leap years). ... Joe Trippi is the worlds foremost authority on Diet Pepsi, a fact that dismays the Cocal Cola company to no end. ...

"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. Zephyr Teachout, Dean's director of Internet outreach, describes sitting across from campaign manager Joe Trippi in the early weeks and hitting Refresh again and again on her Web browser. 'I was obsessed with beating Witches,' she says. 'Witches had 15,000 members, and we had 3,000. I wanted first place.'" [13]

"His rivals grudgingly concede that Dean, 54, has clearly tapped into something," the Washington Post reported in June 2003. "He is attracting the largest crowds of the nine Democratic contenders -- which his staff attributes almost entirely to his campaign's Internet reach. His supporters arguably are the most intense for this early in the process, tens of thousands of them self-organizing in about 300 cities once a month through their online contact, a Web site called Meetup.com." [14]

By the time Dean suspended his campaign for the candidacy in February 2004, there were over 180,000 supporters signed up via Meetup worldwide. Soon after Meetup began acquiring this political sheen, media attention blossomed. Zephyr Teachout (full name: Zephyr Rain Teachout) was the Director of Internet Organizing for Howard Deans presidential campaign. ... 2004 : January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December- → // February 29, 2004 Jean-Bertrand Aristide resigns as president of Haiti and flees the country for the Central African Republic. ...

After John Kerry and 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. This article is about the American politician, former Senator, and 2004 Vice Presidential candidate. ...

See also

• Glocalization
• Internet activism
• Virtual community

Glocalization, a neologism formed from globalization and localization, first coined by the British sociologist Roland Robertson, has the following meanings: The creation of products or services intended for the global market, but customized to suit the local culture. ... Internet activism uses Internet communications technologies to enable faster communications and coordination by citizen movements. ... A virtual community is a group whose members are connected by means of information technologies, typically the Internet. ...

External links

• Meetup.com main site
• Meetup.com Wikipedia site
• Official collection of press clippings at Meetup.com
• Jim Cashel, "Interview with Scott Heiferman, MEETUP," Online Community Report, August 2002.
• Debera Carlton Harrell, "Meetup.com Links Together the Like-minded," Seattle Post-Intelligencer, March 8, 2003.
• Lisa Napoli, "Like Online Dating, With a Political Spin," New York Times, March 15, 2003.
• Gary Wolf, "How the Internet Invented Howard Dean," Wired, January 2004.
• Chris Gray, "MeetUp.com Working to Become a Force in Politics," Knight Ridder, February 8, 2004.
• Nathan Kaiser, "Interview with Scott Heiferman," nPost, April 20, 2004.
• "Howard Dean's Internet Love-In," CBS News, June 4, 2003.

Note: Portions of this article were taken from a similar article in the Disinfopedia. SourceWatchs former logo features a magnifying glass through which its previous name, somewhat distorted, can be seen. ...