MeetUp

A startup that coordinates f2f meetings of various emergent groups. Gets revenue from the group-creators and the venues, who pay to be considered (but the members select a venue for each meeting by online voting).

http://www.meetup.com/

The home of Social Capital?

Currently (Jan'03) 142k members across 738 groups. (biggest group = witches?!)

In terms of HyperLocal support, can only find groups within 5 miles of a city, not a neighborhood. I wonder how far groups move around in their meeting place over time?

• even if I'm just interested in a non-geographic topic, I might only be willing to go to places near my home or office

• but this definitely makes it trickier to create/support neighborhood-specific groups

• wow, there's no NYC MeetUp specific to the Public School system, nor any specific schools, as far as I can tell.

• Jan'2009 update: can now search for groups within 1mi of a Zip Code. Yikes, there are 1200 groups within a mile of me!

Co-founder: Scott Heiferman, Matt Meeker and Peter Kamali