Meetup, a long time go-to place to create local online groups, has undergone a major re-launch in the past day. However, it may have missed a trick: not consulting the meetup organizers who pay through the nose for the service. There now appears to be something of a revolt going on amongst some organisers, who are vociferously protesting about the changes.
The reaction of annoyed organisers and members has turned into two, count-em, Twitter hashtags: #newmeetup and #meetuporganizersunite.
Alternatives to Meetup like BigTent are being touted, as is GroupSpaces – a startup which last year raised $1.3 million from the likes of Index Ventures and Angels like Dave McClure and Chris Sacca. It is is already gunning for “FormerMeetupOrganizers” with its own group and a blog post on the subject. → Read More
Everybody, it seems, is getting in on the local offers game. Now, so is Meetup, one of the most local sites out there, with Meetup Perks. Meetup Perks just launched today, with the aim to make it easier for local businesses to find groups to sponsor by offering discounts and other deals.
There are about 80,000 groups on Meetup, including everything from tech meetups and car enthusiasts to hiking and cooking groups. About 30,000 businesses already offer some of these groups deals, discounts, and other perks from local businesses. But up until now these sponsorships have all been informal and done directly between the groups and local merchants. With Meetup Perks, Meetup is creating a self-serve platform that makes it easier for merchants to find groups to sponsor and for group organizers to opt into receiving deal offers. → Read More
On June 11, it will be exactly five years since Michael Arrington hit the ‘Publish’ button and introduced the Interwebz to the very first TechCrunch post (which was a brief profile of blog search engine Technorati, which Mike apparently labeled a real-time search engine at the time – what’s old is new again, right?).
We want to celebrate our fifth anniversary with as many people as we can, across the globe. So we are using the new Meetup Everywhere platform that Scott Heiferman announced on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt last week to organize TechCrunch Meetups on June 11 all around the world. → Read More
In two weeks on June 11, TechCrunch will celebrate its fifth birthday. We want to celebrate it with as many people as we can all around the world. So we are using the new Meetup Everywhere platform that Scott Heiferman announced on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt on Wednesday to organize TechCrunch Meetups on June 11 all around the world. Already there are almost 150 meetups planned in places including New York City, San Francisco, London, Hyderabad, Seoul, Tel Aviv, Jakarta, and Sophia.
We will be throwing our own party in the Bay Area (more details on that coming soon), but for those who can’t fly to California, these meetups are a great way to gather with other people who obsess about technology and startups near where you live. We really think of this as a celebration of the last five years of technology and all that has happened on the Web since then. So join one of the 150 meetups already organized or start your own. To get some regional rivalries going, we will offer 50 free tickets to the next TechCrunch Disrupt (airfare and hotel not included) to each of the 50 largest meetups so that one person from each meetup will win a ticket. We will be in touch with the organizers of each of the 50 largest meetups with more details. → Read More
As digital tools create communities, how will they meet society and the larger world? That’s the question that an interesting trio tried to answer at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference.
This is what Scott Heiferman (CEO of Meetup), Chris Hughes (co-founder of Facebook and now Executive Director at Jumo) and Reshma Saujani, Congressional Candidate for the 14th district in New York, had to say on the topic. → Read More
Today at TechCrunch Disrupt in New York, Scott Heiferman, the CEO of Meetup showed off his newest product with potentially big real world ramifications: Meetup Everywhere.
Meetup, an online way to establish real world meetups, has seen success with its core product. There are now some 50,000 meetups a week going on almost everywhere in the world thanks to the service, Heiferman says. But Meetup Everywhere is a brand new platform — it creates an easy way for an organization, company, or movement to spark a meetup simultaneously anywhere, not just in one location. → Read More
So a funny thing happened to me the other day. I ran a little contest to give away the Time is Money calculator and clock. A guy named Tim won the TIM clock, which was pretty funny. I asked Tim for his mailing address, and he lives in lovely Lexington, KY. Funnily enough, I’m heading there this weekend to visit a friend! So I offered to personally deliver the TIM clock to Tim. And then I thought, hey, let’s make it a meetup! → Read More
If you weren’t at the Surly Girl Saloon last night for the Columbus CrunchGear meetup, then you were somewhere else! You missed John sporting a new pair of Onion Goggles. You missed a nerd-a-thon comparing the Droid, HD2, iPhone, Dream, and whatever other handhelds folks could dig out of their pockets. And you missed an opportunity to put your grubby paws on not only the TwitterPeek but also the Nokia Booklet! → Read More
Remember, remember, the 9th of November! Gadgets, technology, and beer. I see no reason why gadgets and tech should ever bring little cheer. Last year’s Columbus meetup was a huge success, and folks have been asking me when we’ll do it again. Well mark your calendars for Monday, November 9, and join us for a friendly evening of networking and libations at the Surly Girl Saloon, my favorite cowgirl/pirate themed bar! We’ll be in the party room in the back around 6:30 PM. The Surly Girl has a terrific menu, and a great selection of beers, so tastes of all types can be satisfied. John Biggs will be there, so you can ask him in person all those burning questions you have about Japanese sex jars! John will also have the Motorola Droid, the Twitter Peek, and a few other goodies to show off. Feel free to drop by if you’re on the web services side of things as well. → Read More
There are hundreds of companies small businesses can turn to for tools that facilitate their e-mail marketing campaigns, some of which operate solely on the Web.
One of the largest such providers, Constant Contact, is actually much bigger than most people think.
Launched back in 1998, the company is now publicly traded on NASDAQ and boasts a market cap of nearly half a billion dollars, and the company caters to hundreds of thousands of small businesses and organizations who use its software to spam connect with their customers and members. So if such an e-mail newsletter juggernaut launches a new service that is bound to be a competitor to a host of Internet startups, we take notice. → Read More
Asus, Acer, HTC or BenQ: Taiwan is well-known as a significant player in the global electronics industry, but it’s safe to say the Taiwanese web landscape is still a black box for many of us. Taiwan ranks 10th in Asia in terms of Internet population, with around 15 million people currently online. Add to this an online ad market that grew by 14.9% to $208 million in 2009, and you have a fairly attractive Internet market overall. → Read More
Greetings, from the Land of the Rising Sun! You missed a wonderful meetup in Tokyo last night at the Ebusu Beer Station. We had about two dozen folks sharing food, drinks, and conversation. Although most were living in the Tokyo area, at least one fellow traveled several hours from Kyoto to join us! Many thank to the TechCrunch Japan crew for coordinating this, and thanks to everyone who made it out. Click on through for photos and more! → Read More
I’m in Taiwan now and as announced last week, there will be a TechCrunch/CrunchGear meetup tomorrow (Monday, October 5) in Taipei at 7.30pm (open door at 7pm). We are holding the meetup with our partner and co-organizer Chili Consulting, a Taipei-based innovation strategy firm.
Every guest should have received the invitation by now, and please remember the venue changed (the schedule remains the same though). Thank you very much for the incredible interest in the meetup, which is sponsored by Taipei- and San Jose-based hardware maker IPEVO. → Read More
Great news, everybody! I’ll be in Tokyo, Japan next week for CEATEC. Let’s have a meetup! A successful meetup requires good people, good conversation, and good beer. I think we can manage all three, don’t you? → Read More
I’ll be in Taiwan next week and am delighted to announce that TechCrunch / CrunchGear are holding a meetup with our partner and co-organizer Chili Consulting, a local innovation strategy firm. The TechCrunch / Chili Consulting Party will take place in Taipei, on October 5 (Monday) and is invitation-only.
Details after the jump. → Read More
I’ll be in Taiwan next week and am delighted to announce that TechCrunch / CrunchGear are holding a meetup with our partner and co-organizer Chili Consulting, a local innovation strategy firm. The TechCrunch / Chili Consulting Party will take place in Taipei, on October 5 (Monday) and is invitation-only.
Details after the jump. → Read More
Meetup, a web service that enables people to organize and manage real life get-togethers, has proven to be a popular tool that people are willing to pay for. TechCrunch has obtained a slide deck that the company used for an August 2009 shareholder update, revealing its current financial situation and past revenue forecasts. The document shows the New York-based company is performing well, having reported its first (mildly) profitable month last July.
Financial results actually fell short of forecasts put forward last year, when Meetup aimed for 50% growth in both meetups and revenues by this Summer. Despite the fact that growth was actually more like 35-40% over 2008 in its main metrics, Meetup (unexpectedly) hit profitability last July on net income of $30,000. → Read More
Our first TechCrunch/CrunchGear meetup in Tokyo (TechCrunch Japan is one of Japan’s main blogs) yesterday night was a blast. Peter Ha was in town and over 100 people attended the event on very short notice, including representatives from Yahoo Japan, telecommunications giants KDDI and NTT, Opera, MySpace Japan, mobile social network GREE and many more. Japan’s super blogger Danny Choo also joined, spending the whole evening in Stormtrooper gear.
There were a lot of companies with iPhone apps in the room: iPhone manga, iPhone Othello, iPhone Meow Cam, even an iPhone newspaper. Here is a selection of some of the web services and iPhone apps from smaller start-ups that were pitched to me yesterday (in no particular order). Next time we really need to schedule more than two hours for these events. → Read More
Hello my pretties! It’s the moment you’ve been waiting for: the big photo upload from the meetup on Thursday. We had a great time and I think it was a huge success. Thanks to everyone who came out, and to our sponsors of course for making it possible. Some answers to questions I know are coming: The photos themselves are of course much bigger but in the interest of getting them up sooner (my bandwidth is limited in this cafe) I downsized them to 1024-ish size. Yes, they are supposed to look like that. The blur/halo effect is a long exposure in addition to the flash. Sometimes it looks cool, sometimes not. I didn’t do it all the time. Sorry if you’re not pictured, I tried to get as many people as possible but I had to throw away a ton of shots due to the usual bad photo circumstances: focus, exposure, framing, etc. The shots are, for whatever reason, in reverse chronological order. I have no idea why. In case you were wondering why there are drunk people eating Korean food first thing. Lastly, if you really like a photo, drop me an email (devin at crunchgear dot com) and I can send you a bigger version for your personal collection. Thanks again for coming out. → Read More
