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Meetup.com alternatives

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Re: Meetup.com alternatives

#141

Post by notyourday »

donretag wrote: post #101
intrasight wrote: post #96

So many posts say "Meetup.com sucks but they have 'the community'" I don't understand this sentiment. Your town or city is the community - not some random web site. And your town, if it's like mine, has one ore more newspapers that maintain community events calendars. And Google manages events now with Google search. I google "beer event pittsburgh" and Google shows me the results. What exactly is the value-add of me…

The value add is discovery. Since many meet already be on meetup.com, they then discover another meetup which also might suit them. All these alternatives might have the functionality that meetup does, but none of them provide exposure. Everyone loves to hate on ads nowadays. They do not want to be tracked, etc, but I would love to see an ad-supported version of Meetup. It is too expensive at $15 a month for many sma…

I keep being amazed at this attitude.

"I do not want to be tracked" + "$15/mo is too expensive for many small groups".

Big Mac in Philadelphia is $3.99. 15/mo is 4 Big Macs. That's expensive for a small group in the US?!

Re: Meetup.com alternatives

#142

Post by ryanlol »

adrianmonk wrote: post #112

People skipping the RSVP and just showing up "unofficially" is already a problem with Meetup. This is going to create the exact wrong incentive for that. Next up: movie theaters that charge $2 to anyone who doesn't talk during a movie, gyms that charge $2 if you put dumbbells back on the rack instead leaving them strewn around the floor, traffic cops giving tickets for properly using your turn signal, ...

Ah, so it’s kind of like taxes which you only have to pay if you snitch on yourself?

Re: Meetup.com alternatives

#143

Post by throwaway8291 »

starpilot wrote: post #72
chrisa wrote: post #57

I co-organize a React meetup, and seeing the price change update last night made me so... upset and confused - that I decided to build an alternative. My plan is to charge organizers (like meetup does today) to cover costs - but never to charge members to attend free events. I've been looking for a solid project to spend time on, and this just became it. I put up a landing page this morning, and I've already started…

There are many other Meetup alternatives being started or in use, included some not listed in OP article. This is not good. There's too much fragmentation in this space and it'll be hard to have the self-sustaining critical mass, and cross-pollination across communities that made Meetup.com effective. I'm in tech, sports, and social Meetup groups. I don't want to join 3 new sites to replace this one.

> There's too much fragmentation in this space and it'll be hard to have the self-sustaining critical mass.

You do not need to have a single platform, though. All you would need is a single, in the best case open, index of meetup sites and descriptions. For that to work, you would need a simple protocol, e.g. myownmeetup.com/meetup.json, which the aggregators can crawl.

Re: Meetup.com alternatives

#144

Post by cawlin »

intrasight wrote: post #138
donretag wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The value add is discovery. Since many meet already be on meetup.com, they then discover another meetup which also might suit them. All these alternatives might have the functionality that meetup does, but none of them provide exposure. Everyone loves to hate on ads nowadays. They do not want to be tracked, etc, but I would love to see an ad-supported version of Meetup. It is too expensive at $15 a month for many sma…

I still don't get the "discovery" thing. I hear about events either via word of mouth or from posts on Facebook. Or if I'm looking for an event I Google. How would I "discover" events on meetup.com or another event service?

Instead of hearing about it on facebook you can hear about it on meetup.

Re: Meetup.com alternatives

#145

Post by AlexandrB »

giongto35 wrote: post #118

Every business needs money. Why we are so bitter every time a business charging for service fees? the society is so familiar with free stuff and ads.

While I sympathize with this line of thinking, it's a question of value. Meetup is already charging organizers, while providing what is a pretty bare-bones app and mass email service. It's also a change that fundamentally changes the dynamic and incentives of the communities already built up on Meetup.

It's like if your local dry cleaner changed their pricing from $5/item to $1/square foot of fabric.

Re: Meetup.com alternatives

#148

Post by willart4food »

WOW! This is interesting.

I belong to 2 large-ish meetups that in the past few months have been migrating to a Facebook page.

I have run meetups of all kinds, from tech to social; and I am now running 3 meetups and IMO this is not only a disaster for meetup.com but offers an incredible opportunity to take the cherry for:

* Facebook * EventBrite * a new startup taking over this space

Unless meetup.com rever its course, this is going to go down as the worst decision ever. I am sorry if We spend a lot of money on it, stil.... 2 wrong don't make one right.

Re: Meetup.com alternatives

#149

Post by joe_the_user »

gowld wrote: post #132
emptybits wrote: post #10

I fear this $2/attendee grab by Meetup will drive more people to Facebook for finding and planning and advertising events. Sadface. The understandable reason: Facebook is "free" and most of these better alternatives will be fragmented and mainstream unknown for a long time. Maybe one overarching event-search service could help the fragmentation problem, if it doesn't already exist.

They already walking back their massive own-goal: https://www.meetup.com/lp/paymentchanges UPDATE October 15, 2019 1:30 pm ET This payment change is currently only a limited test for a small number of groups. Organizers of these select groups have the option to opt-out of this test. We will not be making any significant payment changes in the near term. We are committed to providing advance notice before any changes…

It is nice to see that walked-back.

Meetup is a resource for me. My guess that this change would complete end every single meetup I know of except for a few tech meetups - and these probably have alternatives and so wouldn't want it either.

It seems like this also illustrates a complete misunderstanding by the meetup company of how the meetup app is used by their users/customers. Among other things, it's standard for people to find group, sign-up maybe once and then not sign-up further but continue to attend regularly - the group I run and the group I've previously run were like that. Meetup was/is about discovery. Expecting potential attendees to pay is absurd, regular attendees wouldn't feel obligated to register and so wouldn't pay. The confusion is complete.

Re: Meetup.com alternatives

#150

Post by thearn4 »

whsheet wrote: post #128

OT: Am I the only one who thinks that most meetups are crap? The idea of meeting like-minded people is tempting but the reality is always different: Crowded places, stuffy air, weak talks, lame sponsors, 1-to-n presentations, no real interaction, stale drinks out of thin plastic cups, odd devs

It's been a random mix for me. The non-tech meetups (hiking, board games, etc.) that I've attended were often better experiences on average than tech-related ones, which were often a bit too focused on business interests.
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