The Official Meetup HQ Blog

New Feature: New Meetup Help & Resources!

by Jesse

Have a question about Meetup? Now you can find the help you need much more easily with new ways to search our Help section.

We've got a search box that offers suggestions as you type. And our questions are tagged with keywords now so you can search by those, too.

You'll notice that the questions are in a new Q&A format, and you can see who answered each question. For now, those people are all Meetup HQ'ers.

But our next step is to open up this resource to the entire Meetup community to add questions and answers as well. This way, you guys can ask and answer much more specific questions, with more detailed, on-the-ground info than we ever could.

This is the first step in an overhaul to make getting help easier for everyone.

To see it, just click "help" on the top of any page.

The next time you have a question, try it out!

If you've got feedback about it, let us know here!

Thanks,
Jesse, Nora, Rick & Wayne!

New Feature: Set a date when RSVPs open!

by Jesse

You've always been able to set up a time when your Meetup closes to new RSVPs. Now, you can also set a time when members can start RSVPing. You can say, "automatically open RSVPs 10 days before the Meetup and close them an hour before the Meetup."

What's the benefit of doing this? Let's say you plan a Meetup and want members to know, but don't want to track RSVPs yet. Or, you have an event with limited seating: you can announce "tickets go on sale next Monday!"



You can also no longer RSVP "no" to closed Meetups. We had gotten requests for this, and it simplifies things, since groups can use Waiting Lists as well as event comments. So now, Meetups are either open to all RSVPs or closed to all RSVPs.

You can find this feature on the page where you schedule your Meetups. Try it out!

Enjoy! If you've got any feedback, let us know. 

PS> This feature was also needed because we're working on overhauling how you automatically repeat Meetups. You'll be able to schedule a series of Meetups into the future, with "RSVPs open 30 days before each Meetup." (Wait till you see our new automatic scheduling, it's really cool.)

Jesse is a Product Manager at Meetup.

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New Feature: Post to Facebook when you join a Meetup Group!

by Jesse

We've had thousands of Meetuppers use our two current Facebook Connect features. They're a great way to get the word out about Meetup and get more members joining your groups.

Remember, you can post to your Facebook Wall and your friends' news feeds when you:

• RSVP for a Meetup
  
• Schedule a Meetup
  
• and now, when you join a Meetup Group!
  

After you join a group, you're taken to your profile question page, where you can check off, "Tell your Facebook friends that you've joined this Meetup Group." Then you're prompted to log in to Facebook. It's pretty much the same as our other Facebook implementations.

One exception is approval-only groups ... you can't post to Facebook if you're not approved yet! Instead, new members get the choice to post when they visit the site after being approved. Also, for private groups, only the name of the group is displayed on Facebook, no other information.

After you do this once, the checkbox will automatically be checked for you next time. (You can always uncheck it.)



There are an estimated 200 bazillion people on Facebook - some of them are waiting to hear about your Meetup Groups! (And, it's nice letting your friends know what you're up to.) It looks like this:



Some other quick Facebook updates, too:

• We fixed a bug so Organizers in custom domain groups can now post to Facebook from an event draft.
• And if you didn't know, this launched a little while ago: Members in private groups can also post to Facebook when they RSVP for a Meetup. Again, only the name of the group appears; no private information is displayed on Facebook.

Enjoy! If you've got any feedback, let us know.

Jesse is a Product Manager at Meetup.

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Check out Erica's Corner on MeetupTV on Thursday August 6th!

by Erica

Are you interested in learning some tips for using Meetup? Then you're invited to join me for a live broadcast of Erica's Corner on MeetupTV!

This Thursday at 2pm EST, I'll be discussing how to use the new 'Schedule a Meetup' page, and we'll discuss some ideas for planning a Can't Miss Meetup.  

We'll be joined by Jesse, who is both a Product Manager here at HQ and the Organizer of a pretty great Meetup Group himself.

Interested? You can tune in here:

http://www.livestream.com/meetuptv

You'll be able to ask your own questions and share ideas with other Organizers and members in the live chat!  

If you aren't able to join us live, you can still check out all of the action afterwards.

To view old episodes of Erica's Corner, go to http://www.livestream.com/meetuptv and click on 'Menu.'

Then choose ' Browse On Demand Library' to see older episodes.

We'll be doing this periodically, so if you'd like the keep tabs on what we're planning and when, join the Erica's Corner Meetup Group to view the calendar of upcoming episodes.

I look forward to having all of you join me!

Erica is on Meetup's Community Support team.

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New Release - Promote your Meetup on Facebook!

by Jesse

We've had a lot of success with members of Meetup Groups alerting their Facebook friends and family when they RSVP for a Meetup. (Did you know you can do this? Check the Facebook box the next time you RSVP!) Now, Organizers can easily promote their Meetups on Facebook, too.

When you schedule a Meetup, there's a new section on the page called "Promote this Meetup." Open it, check the Facebook box, and then when you schedule your Meetup (not when you save a draft), your friends on Facebook will see this in their feed and on your Wall:

The process is the same as posting to Facebook when you RSVP: you'll be asked to login to Facebook (Meetup never sees your password), and then a popup will show you what's about to post. Click "Publish" to confirm. You can add a comment, too.

After you do this once, the checkbox will automatically be checked for you next time. (You can always uncheck it.)

This is available to Private Meetup Groups, too. In their post, no details show up - only the name of the group.

There are an estimated 200 bazillion people on Facebook - some of them are waiting to hear about your Meetup! (And, it's nice just letting your friends know what you do with your time.) We know a lot of Meetup Groups already manually promote themselves on Facebook ... now it's even easier!

Thanks,
Jesse

Jesse is a Product Manager at Meetup.

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New Feature: Schedule Meetups more easily

by Jesse

Hey everyone!

The page where Organizers schedule their Meetups is an essential page on the site, on which you choose from dozens of Meetup's event-related features. But it's also perhaps our most complicated page (and slowest to load), and can be overwhelming to new Organizers. So we've streamlined the whole page. We've found through feedback and testing that it's now generally clearer and easier to use. We also optimized our code to make the page load faster.

The features on the page are now grouped into clear sections, each of which you can collapse or expand. With the sections collapsed, it's easier to scan the page and see the different parts quickly. If you prefer all the sections expanded, click on "Expand all" - and you can even save your preference for the page to always be expanded.

We fixed up a few other related things as well, based on your requests:

• Easy button to add photos into the event description.
• Higher character limits for the description and "How will members find you there?"
• Formatting in your description (colors, etc) now carries over when you click through to email your Meetup Group.
• Fixed some missing data issues when you go back and edit a Meetup.

Let us know your feedback, and look for more features relating to scheduling Meetups coming soon!

Thanks,
Jesse

Jesse is a Product Manager at Meetup.

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Weekly Release for Wednesday, May 27th, 2009

by Jesse

Hey everyone,

Our release was delayed a day due to our Memorial Day holiday in America. (Hope everyone enjoyed their barbecues!) It'll be launching tomorrow, Wednesday. Got two cool features for you today, and some other tweaks and fixes, as usual.

Import your contacts to tell your friends about Meetup
It's now easier to invite people to the Meetup Groups you organize, to tell your friends about Meetup groups they'd like, and to let people know about Meetup in general. We already have a form on the site that you can use to send people an email invitation to Meetup. Now, we've taken that and made it much easier - you can import your contacts directly from your email service.

To start, we've implemented this with Gmail, but stay tuned for Yahoo and other services soon. For security (we never store your password), we guide you off Meetup briefly so you can log into your email service, and then bring you back Meetup so you can see a list of your contacts. Then you can check off whoever you'd like to invite. And of course we never use those email addresses for anything except to send that initial email.

You can find this page to invite friends on every page in the footer, in the Promote section of a Meetup Group, and after you RSVP for a Meetup.

Try it out - invite your friends to Meetup!

Easily add topics to your interests
Whether you're already a member of a Meetup Group, searching for a Group, or checking out Groups near you, you may stumble upon a topic that you like and want to add it to your list of interests.

To make this process a little easier and more spontaneous, there's now a Meetup icon next to topics in various places on the site. Click on it to see how many Meetup Groups worldwide are in that topic, whether one is near you or to immediately add the topic to your alert list to be notified about.

So now when you're browsing the site and a topic strikes your fancy, just add it to your lists of interests and continue on with what you were doing!


 

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Other changes this week:

• Fixed some layout weirdness in the numbered lists in our Help section in some browsers.
• Fixed some translations on our home page.
• Fixed issues with the photo section in Internet Explorer 8, especially Photo Reordering.
• Fixed the positioning of all “dialogue boxes” (popups within a page that prompt you to do something) throughout the site.
• Fixed layout problems with our signup forms in Safari.
• In your list of drafts, you can click “read more” to expand the whole draft’s description now.
• Fixed some issues if two people try to create a group with the same name at the same time.
• Clarified language in the emails you get if your credit card expires.
• Fixed invitation emails sometimes not sending for groups with custom domain names.
• Optimized some new Google code on our site to help people find us.
• Fixed the next page not loading after an Amazon Payments temporary decline.
• Fixed some issues with our Newest/Largest lists.
• Fixed not being able to upload images to a custom theme when you first start a Meetup Group.

Have comments? Let us know here.

Thanks,
Jesse

Jesse is a Product Manager at Meetup.

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Weekly Release for Tuesday, April 28th - Draft Meetup events!

by Jesse

Hi there everyone,

We’ve got an exciting new product launching tomorrow, Tuesday April 28th, as well as our usual list of small improvements. Enjoy!

DRAFT MEETUP EVENTS

Save your progress. One of our most requested features is here! It can take awhile to get all the details right for your Meetup - the venue, uploading a photo, finding the right time, etc. Now you can save your progress as a draft and come back to it later!

Collaborate. Drafts are visible to a Meetup Group's Organizer and Assistant Organizers, but not to members. An organizer of a Meetup Group can start a draft and then have Assistant Organizers contribute - or vice versa.

Use event templates. Have a Meetup format you repeat frequently? Save a draft of the Meetup in your drafts folder and then just hit "Copy" whenever you want to schedule it. Then the original draft stays in your drafts folder.



To use drafts, hit "save as draft" when you are on the "Schedule a Meetup" page. Your drafts are then listed on the "Drafts" tab on the Calendar page (as shown above.)
 

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We've also got a list of other small fixes we made this week. Check it out and join our conversation here.

Take it easy,

Jesse

Jesse is a Product Manager at Meetup.

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Weekly Release for Tuesday, April 21st

by Jesse

Hey everyone!

We’ve got new features for Sponsors and a lot of smaller improvements this week. Take a look ...

It’s easier to sponsor Meetup Groups!

Meetup Groups with sponsors get all sorts of benefits – from getting a place to meet, discounts on services or products, even money to offset the costs of running the group. And, Meetup Groups help sponsors, too – by promoting their business to active, local members.

Meetup HQ wants to make it easier for potential sponsors and Meetup Groups to learn about sponsorship opportunities, so we built a "Sponsor Meetup Groups" section. You can access it from the bottom of all Meetup pages. If you're an organizer, you can read about ways to find a sponsor, promote a sponsor on your group's pages, and learn about the different ways to connect to sponsors. And if you're a sponsor you can learn how Meetup HQ can help you. Check it out!

Here are items we’ve fixed:

• Fixed not showing RSVP lists on groups closed to new members
• Tweaked some alignment on our home page in the Safari browser
• Fixed typo in custom domains error text
• Fixed “New page” items in the “What’s new” feed breaking if there was a question mark
• Fixed a JavaScript error when cancelling an event with an automatic waiting list
• Fixed some button styling on our payments pages.
• Fixed the Refund Policy appearing in the wrong spot on the Schedule a Meetup page
• Fixed the “No Photo” icon missing on add friend confirm
• Fixed long venue keywords breaking the layout on the Schedule a Meetup page.
• For people signing up for Meetup, we prefill your zip code if you come from a city’s page
• Fixed quotes in names breaking Meetup Group badges
• When you report inappropriate content, we now know precisely which page you reported from.
• Fixed Google map controls on Venues page periodically not showing
• Clarified some text, including the Topic page, our receipt email, and subscription renewal email
• Got rid of the flip-through navigation on the "Other groups you might like" box
• Fixed some layout issues when an organizer changes members’ RSVPs
• Fixed apostrophes in a topic name breaking our cool map timeline animation
• Fixed new Assistant Organizers sometimes getting locked out of a private Meetup Group
• Fixed an error with OAuth in the Meetup API

As well as our usual behind-the-scenes stuff, of course.

Give us feedback about the release here.

Take it easy,
- Jesse

Jesse is a Product Manager at Meetup.

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Who's behind Meetup.com? Episode #10: Jesse Richards

by Davide

What do you do at Meetup and how long has it been since you first set foot into the office?
I've been at Meetup for two years as a Product Manager. I do research on what to build on the site, brainstorm ideas, and work on the planning for a project. I help my team stay organized and work together, and I also track past projects. Most importantly, I help improve our products by staying focused on our site members and their needs. My current team is working on Draft Events and better automatic scheduling of Meetup events.

Is it true that you have a girlfriend? Aren't all computer guys supposed to be single like me?
I think our real developers would get mad that you consider me a "computer guy," even though I used to be a designer/programmer. But in any case, I don't have a girlfriend; I have a fiancee! It sounds like you're jealous.

Social networking seems to be re-shifting our attention on an immediate (virtual) surrounding, but your brain seems to be still focused on the larger picture and on how the world is doing at large. In 130 words, tell us what your thoughts are about life on planet earth in the 21st century.
I'm working on publishing my book, The Secret Peace, which posits that even in these tough times, good news outweighs the bad. It looks at the course of human history and how far we've come - in technology, democracy, health, equality, reducing poverty and war, and more. In the 21st century, life will get better - though not without setbacks - and I like to think Meetup is helping with that, by building local communities. Read more at www.secretpeace.com.

Your Central Park Sketching & Art Meetup Group is quite successful. Who do you think is your most talented member?
Impossible to choose, but check these out: Stephen, Joshua, Mia, Eunice, Hasangi, and more. Here's a sketch of mine.

What are you doing this weekend?

Planning my wedding! And planning the honeymoon - remember, you've promised to make me fluent in Italian within a month.

Davide is on Meetup's Community Support team.

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