
What Meetups Tell Us About America - baazaar
http://priceonomics.com/what-meetups-tell-us-about-america/
======
colmvp
As a on-again/off-again user of Meetup, I've always been interested in a
couple things.

One, what % of meetups survive the first year?

Second, what % of users rarely go to the same meetup group more than once or
twice but remain subscribed?

I've seen Meetups with hundreds of members shut down because of a lack of
participation within the group. And I've seen some really cool Meetups just
sadly fail to gain momentum after getting the first batch of participants. I
wonder what the science is behind creating a successful, sustainable meetup.

I'm also subscribed to Meetup groups which I haven't attended for a long time
and I'm just too lazy to unsubscribe to them. Or maybe I'm wistfully hoping
that they'll interest me again. Surely I'm not the only one?

On a side note, one of the rarest pairings in America are Asian Men with Black
Women. As an Asian man, it sort of touches my heart that Chicago specifically
has a Meetup group that encourages Black women and Asian men to meetup with
one another (Asian Men and Black Women Persuasion).

~~~
probably_wrong
> Second, what % of users rarely go to the same meetup group more than once or
> twice but remain subscribed?

My group has over 500 subscribers, and yet I've never had more than 10 showing
up in the almost two years I've been part of it.

I blame it on my poor leadership, of course, but I wish there were tools to
check whether this is to be expected or not. My theory is that it is, but it's
not good for Meetup to let you know that.

~~~
karmacondon
This is expected. As the parent comment said, it's common for people to be
"too lazy" to unsubscribe from meetup groups. It cost nothing to be a member
(though I understand that group owners are charged a fee based on the number
of members), and I don't think that most people like clicking "unsubscribe"
from anything. It's some kind of Thinking Fast and Slow mind trick involving
familiarity and the fear of missing out, or something.

For a lot of people, meetup group emails are like a newsletter or an rss feed.
They might skim it occasionally, but rarely go through the trouble of actually
showing up. So, it's not you, it's them. It's probably best to see it as "I
have a meetup group with 10 people in it", which is an accomplishment on its
own.

------
ChrisNorstrom
For those of you curious why some Meetups fail: They tend to be boring and not
well organized around a purpose or objective. Putting a bunch of people in a
room together without a purpose is like gathering an army of soldiers in a
gymnasium without a war or even a training exercise.

There's nothing to do. That's why some meetups fail. Whereas video game /
exercise / yoga based meetups, from what I've heard, are much more successful
and long lasting. People need something to do together. Not just sitting
around talking to people without a purpose. That works temporarily but after 2
successive meetups without a purpose it's boring.

~~~
kodis
Yes, but it doesn't have to be a single purpose beyond perhaps having fun in a
group.

One of the more popular groups in the Baltimore / Washington / Annapolis is
the Second Half Fun Rally group -- a group for people in the second half of
their lives who just want to have fun. The activities can be anything from an
easy hike to a get together for a concert, happy hour, museum visit, community
festival, or most anything else that nearly anyone can take part in and enjoy.
Beyond the range of activities, the organizer is able to arrange and attend
several meetups each month which seems to help in a "maintain the momentum"
sort of way.

------
nwatson
Use "incognito" mode in your browser when you run across a meetup group you're
not seriously interested in actually going to. If you're curious about "what
kind of people join this kind of group? what do they talk about?" and click to
view a representative group meetup while logged in, you'll forever be getting
suggestions to join that group and similar groups.

------
jonesb6
I first joined meetup when I dropped out of school and the biggest challenge I
ran into was the accessibility of events. Even in the Bay Area where public
transportation is decent, and the frequency of tech meetups high, I found
myself slugging for an hour and a half each way to get to an event.

Ultimately the value proposition diminished to zero, even though I attended a
few awesome events run by hard working companies and individuals.

Meetup is one of those ideas that sounds great on paper, everyone says they'll
commit to it, but in reality it falls very short.

And wasn't meetup a shining star in the startup scene a few years ago?

~~~
maxsilver
> where public transportation is decent,

> I found myself slugging for an hour and a half each way to get to an event

You must have a vastly different definition of "decent public transportation"
than I do.

I don't attend a ton of meetups, but of the ones I do attend, easily 90%+ of
attendees spent 30 minutes or less (each way) to get there.

~~~
jonesb6
Redwood City to San Francisco via Cal Train. Usually couldn't catch an express
train in the hours/days meetups were typically held, plus walking a few
blocks.

And yea, outside of the Bay Area / My college town I don't have a good grasp
on what other public transit systems are like.

------
Buetol
That's interresting but it's a bit sad they don't release the data...

For people who want to explore the data directly, I published my own scraping
(less complete than than theirs):
[https://medium.com/@dam_io/16d3670fd75b](https://medium.com/@dam_io/16d3670fd75b)

------
Dowwie
We need more meetup research from academia. Sociologists should be all over
this!

