Meetup Blowin It?

Update III: I removed the image below. It looks like I need permission to thumbnail it too. Or whether I do or not, I am removing it anyway. Follow the link if you really want to see it.

Update II: I updated the spelling of update and unhotlinked the photo. Yes, I know hotlinking isn't acceptable. Thanks for the reminder.

Update: I added a question mark to the title of this post in order to properly convey my thoughts. Plus, Andrew Teman has a good take on this. He points out that the Seattle blogger whiners want to build their own meetup to facilitate their gatherings.  Andrew can vouch that I've worked 80 hours/week in the last 3 years on building tools for event planners. Good luck building something as robust as meetup with volunteers.

I actually don't think this is called for:

  [image removed by request]

Meetup provides a nice service. They deserve to make their payroll.  But, it is probably ill advised to confront it in this way. Atleast they didn't try to delete the post and actually said "sorry".

(Via Jackie Huba)

Comments

[TDavid]

Hey, take that image down, you did not receive legal permission to use that image. You can make a thumbnail of it and host it on your own site. Google proved that one out in court but you cannot steal the image from our website and put it on yours.

Being the copyright owner, I will notify Typepad if that isn't removed IMMEDIATELY.

[Sooz]

Add deep linking to the blogger etiquette list of stuff not to do. :)

[dw]

Something's been lost in the translation that I need to explain: We weren't outright abandoning Meetup and writing our own software. That was ONE option of THREE. If you go take a look at the pics and the other posts, that's pretty clear.

One of the options was to stay with Meetup, but we were trying to figure out the best way to handle the costs. Keep in mind that it was originally going to $19/month on 1.1.2006. Yes, it's a pittance when spread across all the groups, but to go from a no-pay to a pay model is a paradigm shift, and it raises all the cost-benefit questions about Meetup vs. another service vs. DIY.

See, that's why the belly-aching comment was out-of-bounds. Imagine if your business phone company announced a $10 surcharge, and you openly considered whether to move your business to another service or install a DIY VoIP setup. You decide to, for the moment, stay with the original company. You post about this on your business blog. The phone company's VP of communications picks up on it, and publicly calls your decision making process "belly achin'." Doesn't make you want to stay with the company, does it?

TDavid is taking it on himself to get the DIY model going. We'll see how it works. I doubt there will really be any major cost savings, but considering just how many techies there are in the group, I can say that the hours will be spread around pretty well. It's the long-term maintenance and upkeep I'm more worried about -- who's going to do it, and how much will it cost?

[peter caputa]

Thanks for the clarification. And that is a great analogy that puts it into good perspective.

And I am glad you are looking at the cost/benefit of rolling your own. There are time and maintenance issues that should factor into that, unless someone just wants to roll their own, for the fun of it.

Like I mentioned, if you guys want to give using WhizSpark a whirl, I'd waive our fees if you provide good feedback. I am happy to let bloggers use it, if they can't pay, if they are willing to provide feedback... As bloggers always have a lot to say and say it well.