How Meetup Changed The Way We Meet People
I’m an American that has called Paris her home for over 5 years now. I remember when I first arrived, I was really excited to be here, but I couldn’t help feeling like I was missing…. Oh, right. That something was friends, and after about 2 weeks I was starting to feel really lonely. I’m an introvert, but even so, I need at least a little bit of social interaction every once and a while.
If this story was set somewhere in the 1960s, I would have gone to a bar and waited until I spotted a group that I thought I could make friends with. But, luckily (especially for my introverted soul), this is the 21st century, and I could just go online to meet some friends.
Except, I didn’t want to meet any more online friends! I wanted (and needed), living breathing humans that I could have some face-to-face interactions with. Enter: Meetup.com.
How it all started
The concept of Meetup began in 2002 with Scott Heiferman and 5 other co-founders. The team was originally inspired by the sense of community that was emerging in New York City after September 11th. They wanted to create a platform that would make it easier to meet like minded people.
The original idea was to bring people together who shared interests and hobbies. The company generated revenue by charging the venues in which the Meetup events would be hosted in. Since the Meetups would bring the venues paying customers, it was a pretty nice deal. Just a few months later, Meetup boasted over 55,000 users.
Meetup really took off during the 2004 presidential election in the United States. Hopeful candidate Howard Dean is arguably one of the first politicians to use the internet to his advantage to try to win over voters. Meetup helped him reach out to users and spread the word about his campaign. We all know how the 2004 election turned out, and although Dean was never nominated, he set the tone as far as campaigning via the internet would develop.
Over 140,000 new users signed up for Meetup to support Dean in 2004. Today, Meetup is a standard part of internet campaigning for politicians in the United States.
How Meetup changed how we meet people
I digress! Before Meetup, if you moved to a new city, it was really difficult to meet new people that you actually had things in common with. Today, log onto Meetup, and find 35 million other users looking for the same thing as you: a cool activity where you can meet awesome people, and potentially make new friends.
Meetup isn’t like Facebook or Instagram. There are no followers, there are no likes. There are just other users looking to share hobbies and interests with similar folks! When you sign up for Meetup, you have the option of attending different events, (“Meet Ups”), or you can host the events yourself. You can browse between over 30 different categories of things to do. Remember when I mentioned that I tried out a Meetup when I first moved to Paris? It was a free walking tour to see street art, to give you an idea of the unique activities you’ll find on the site.
The most popular activities are adventure and outdoor activities, parents and family, and career and business. There are also book clubs, film clubs, cooking classes, language exchanges and more.
If you want to become an organizer, you are required to pay a fee to Meetup. The organizers will usually ask for a financial contribution from the group members in order to help split the cost.
Where Meetup stands today
In 2017, Meetup was acquired by WeWork, a corporation that runs coworking spaces across the world. There have been some mixed reactions to the acquisition, with some saying that WeWork and Meetup’s company cultures just don’t mix.
Meetup was created to bring people together, and has remained user-focused throughout the years. WeWork, has been described as being on the same “unicorn” level as Airbnb or Uber; a company that seemingly came out of nowhere and is now valued at billions of dollars as they try to take the company public.
I still use Meetup, and another member of our team runs his own Meetup groups. We still like it, and we haven’t really seen a major change on our end after the acquisition.
Meetup has helped to improve the lives of thousands, if not millions of people. It’s an opportunity to come together with others who share your interests, and who also want to meet people.
We may not have 35 million users, but here at Expeeriences, we’re working towards bring people together in real life, too. Click here to discover our latest expeeriences.
Originally published at https://www.expeeriences.com on July 31, 2019.
