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WeWork is going to acquire Meetup

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Re: WeWork is going to acquire Meetup

#81

Post by MrBuddyCasino »

hammerbrostime wrote: post #75
MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, we run a lot of tech related meetups, and finding a space is rarely an issue because its an important promotion tool for tech hiring. Whats difficult is finding speakers.

Finding "a" space, e.g. for one or two events, is relatively easy. Finding a consistently scheduled space (e.g. "the second Wednesday of each month") at cheap/free is a whole other thing. Once you have a consistently scheduled space, getting speakers is rather easy, because you can schedule way out into the future. For example, a popular speaker may not be available in the next three months, but I could easily get th…

Maybe its different in your location then, in Munich its the other way around. Where are you located?

Re: WeWork is going to acquire Meetup

#82

Post by chipfunk »

avenoir wrote: post #19

As a frequent user of meetup.com, I feel like it succeeded at making people one-time acquaintances and failed miserably at making lasting connections. I'm a member of several groups and most of these groups do not see any single individual more than once. I won't even mention terrible attendance for just about any groups I've ever been a part of. I think there could've been a lot of improvements made here but meetup…

I'm also a frequent user of meetup.com. I've found that the likelihood of forming lasting connections varies wildly based on how the events are run and on what types of people are targeted. I've made quite a few of my closest friends through the site, and I've noticed that the more successful groups from a friendship perspective tend to be the ones that recur frequently (weekly) or the ones where there is some kind of strong and relatively rare commonality between the participants outside of career, age group, relationship status, etc.

Either way, meetup.com is just a platform for hosting and discovering these events. There's not much that makes meetup groups inherently different from other types of clubs/organizations. It's up to the organizers and the attendees to actually make the events worthwhile.

Re: WeWork is going to acquire Meetup

#83

Post by hammerbrostime »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #81
hammerbrostime wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Finding "a" space, e.g. for one or two events, is relatively easy. Finding a consistently scheduled space (e.g. "the second Wednesday of each month") at cheap/free is a whole other thing. Once you have a consistently scheduled space, getting speakers is rather easy, because you can schedule way out into the future. For example, a popular speaker may not be available in the next three months, but I could easily get th…

Maybe its different in your location then, in Munich its the other way around. Where are you located?

NYC

Re: WeWork is going to acquire Meetup

#84

Post by Larrikin »

oblio wrote: post #65
mfrommil wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely agree. Tried using meetup several times, but the experience as a free user is too limited... Can't view all event details, can't create a group, etc.

You can definitely see all event details as a free members... You can't create a group, though.

It depends on the group. Tech events tend to be undercover head hunting events so they are usually sponsored so they waive the fee.

The smaller groups have to pay a fee too which gets put on the members. Usually it's very small and I'm happy to pay two dollars a year to goto a language exchange if it helps keep the group alive.

Re: WeWork is going to acquire Meetup

#85

Post by CPLX »

solatic wrote: post #70
badestrand wrote: post #8

I don't really understand the WeWork valuation of $20 billion. I guess they buy all their properties so they greatly profit from the rising property prizes in capitals around their world. I work a lot in coworking spaces and they usually don't seem like a cash cow for the owners. Now WeWork seems to target the B2B and luxury segment of coworking with prices 1,5x-3x of the competitors'. Interesting strategy. So is the…

Recall how McDonald's is more of a real estate company than a restaurant company. Owning the land which is then leased out to franchisees isolates failure with the franchise's owner while funneling franchise fees into buying more real estate, which creates a positive spiral whereby the value of McDonald's is always growing because the it keeps adding more and more lands as assets. If WeWork buys real estate to operat…

This comes up every time WeWork is mentioned, but their model is literally the opposite. They take leases on commercial space long term and then arbitrage short term. Meaning they lose out on massive gains but are totally exposed to a downturn in demand for the kind of space they provide.

Re: WeWork is going to acquire Meetup

#86

Post by acomjean »

jasonbarone wrote: post #32

Would love to hear from others who run groups/events on Meetup and/or Eventbrite. I used to love Meetup, but the interest has been dwindling and the pricing for Meetup is very odd. You can't run a multi-city Meetup from a single account, which makes it very difficult to expand your Meetup without greatly increasing your costs. Meetup then came out with https://www.meetup.com/pro in order to help you wrangle your clus…

Meetup for me is 2 things. Professional development (programming groups) and social events (for me board gaming, science talks, and history walks). Its a way of learning things and meeting people you might not normally.

I think interest has been declining a bit, more "flakes" (sign up don't show) . The photo meets-ups I used to go to have shuttered, some of the programming ones are meeting more infrequently. The Social and board game meets-ups seem to be going ok. My partner is an organizer of a social group just pays the yearly fee to keep the group free.

Though in the past 10 years honestly participation ebs and flows. One organizer of "nerd fun boston" ran an event a couple events a week for a couple of years. He got a good group of regulars going to science lectures and history talks/walks around boston (he met his wife though the group). That group still hangs out occasionally, though more "virtually" through a Facebook group now, meet up doesn't do the social network as well I guess...

The site update recently looks nice, but seems not to have made it more functional.

I encourage people to go to meets-ups. Its nice to meet new people and get out of your social bubble. We meet mostly really nice people people going to these events.

Re: WeWork is going to acquire Meetup

#87

Post by timthelion »

hammerbrostime wrote: post #23

Having run Meetups for the last ~4 years or so, with my current one being a nice size (~100/month attend), I can tell you the absolute biggest challenge for myself and for others is getting a good affordable/free space to run the events. As WeWork has so much prime real estate, I can easily see the Meetups being a natural feeder to get more people exposed to their spaces, and also to create community events for those…

This is a strange phenomena. In Prague some meetups have had trouble finding places to host, while others have had multiple firms competing to provide free space and food.

Re: WeWork is going to acquire Meetup

#88

Post by ch4s3 »

heartbreak wrote: post #78
Jd wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For 100+ person events? What coffee shops have 100+ person spaces? I have the same problem described and space is always an issue. I live in Silicon Valley and i can't think of a single bar that has a space of that size or that would let you use it or that noise pollution wouldn't be an issue.

Outside of Silicon Valley (midsize city) we’re lucky if 5 people show up to the Ruby meetup.

The one in Baltimore is routinely 30 people.

Re: WeWork is going to acquire Meetup

#89

Post by lostcolony »

hellofunk wrote: post #36
puranjay wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I gave up on coworking early this month. I've been using a coworking space for nearly 2 years, tested out various spaces and realized that they're just bad for productivity. Far too many people at coworking spaces seem to be there for networking, or are simply not serious enough about work. I moved to a 'business center' (like Regus) which has a much quieter and more professional environment. Couldn't be happier.

I have found that a really good library is typically a much better work environment than these coworking spaces, and at 100% less the cost. I tried Regus for a couple days, but it felt no different to me than a coworking space. Maybe it was that particular Regus location.

Yes! Whenever my wife and I have spent large amount of time at her mother's (where there's effectively no internet due to being so far out in the boonies), I'd drive the 10 minutes to a nearby library in town that actually had a decent connection, and would work from there.

Only issue was the dearth of areas to take calls, but even that was only mildly inconvenient, since I'm usually on mute, and could duck outside for those.

Re: WeWork is going to acquire Meetup

#90

Post by lostcolony »

akvadrako wrote: post #59
m52go wrote: post #4

I haven't followed Meetup in much detail, but it seems like they lost their way. "Meetup" has become a common noun in many circles tech-related and beyond...i.e., most people know about meetup.com and what it does. But despite this ubiquity, what happened? I stopped going to meetups a while ago because most just didn't seem worthwhile. A lot of people I know did the same. If this trend persisted across the service, d…

Like anything, 90% of them are crap. What's important is to truly interested in a shared activity. In my experience sports, board games and language exchanges work well.

Yeah, many local game stores operate a meetup as a way to allow gaming groups to form (it's great for D&D), or as a way to advertise, schedule, and organize events, both one offs and routine.
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