Meetup (website)
| Meetup | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Web address | meetup.com |
| Commercial? | Yes |
Type of site | Social networking |
| Available in | English, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Portuguese |
| Owner | Meetup Inc. |
| Launched | June 12, 2002[1] |
Alexa rank |
 467 (August 2012)[2] |
Meetup 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 postal code or their city and the topic they want to meet about, and the website helps them arrange a place and time to meet. Topic listings are also available for users who only enter a location. Meetup receives revenue by charging fees to administrators of groups, currently at $9.99 to $14.99 per month depending on the payment plan.
Meetup, Inc. is based in New York City.
History
Following the September 11 attacks, the site's co-founder Scott Heiferman publicly stated that the manner in which people in New York City came together in the aftermath of that traumatic event inspired him to use the Internet to make it easier for people to connect with strangers in their community.[3]
Meetup was originally created by Scott Heiferman as a political organizing tool for the Howard Dean campaign[4] for group meetings, or meetups, at coffee shops around NYC and the nation. Following a slow but steady growth and the need to expand once the Dean campaign halted, Meetup expanded to include other political organizing activities and eventually into more general interest categories.
As of April 2013, the company claimed to have 13.4 million members in 196 countries and 125,247 groups,[5] although these figures may include inactive members and groups.
On February 27 and March 1, 2014, Meetup's website was forced offline by a denial-of-service attack.[6] [7]
See also
Other meeting exchange networks
References
External links
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