The Official Meetup HQ Blog

Introducing Group Member Profile "Latest Activity" Feeds!

by Mark

Hello everyone,

In an effort to better show what members have been up to in their Meetup Groups, we created a Latest Activity feed for the Group Member Profile page.

The Latest Activity feed will help potential members get more information about who is in a Meetup Group and what the group is about, making them more likely to join!




The Latest Activity feed on a Group Member Profile page only shows public information about the member who's profile you are looking at related to a specific group. A member's Latest Activity feed includes:

• When the member joins the Meetup Group
• Greetings (posted and received)
• Starting or replying to a Message board thread
• Photo uploads, comments and tags
• Comments about Meetup events

The Latest Activity feed is not showing any RSVP information.

If you don't want your Latest Activity to be public, you can go to your Group Member Profile and click "Hide latest activity." Hiding your Latest Activity on your Group Member Profile means only you will be able to view it. Hiding/showing latest activity is on a group by group basis.

We've also made it easier to post greetings to members from their group profiles by putting a "Post a greeting" box above the Latest Activity feed.

Leave us your feedback here

Thanks,

Mark at Meetup

Mark is a Product Manager at Meetup.

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New Feature: enhancements to member profile photos section!

by Mark

Having a profile photo for your Meetup Groups helps members put a name to a face. Knowing what someone looks like makes it easier to meet them face to face at your group's Meetups.

With that in mind, we made some cool enhancements to the "Photos" tab of your Meetup Group member profiles!

1. Adding Meetup Group profile photos
We've made it easier to upload photos to your Meetup Group profiles. Click "Add profile photo" to upload a new photo to all of your Meetup Group profiles. You also have the option to make the new photo your main profile photo.

2. Changing your Meetup Group profile main photo
Meetup Support often gets asked, "How do I change my main photo for my Meetup Group profile?" Unfortunately, the answer was never a short one... but now we've made it as easy as one click!

Go to your member profile for any of your Meetup Groups. Go to the "Photos" tab. Underneath any of your photos, click "Make main profile photo." That's it! Your Meetup Group profile has a new main photo.

These enhancements were also made to your sitewide profile.





Thanks! If you've got feedback, let us know here.

Mark is a Product Manager at Meetup.

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New Feature: Introducing new Member Profiles!

by Mark

One of our higher trafficked pages on Meetup is the Member Profile page. Before joining a Meetup Group, most potential members look at the Group's description, then the description of the next Meetup, but quickly move on to browsing profiles of members of the Group.

They're looking to see if Group members "match" them in skill, experience, passion, or interests. The beginning hiker wants to know if that Hiking Meetup Group is good for newbie hikers, and the best way to find that out is to see who else is in the Group.

We gave the Group Member Profile pages a major face-lift to make it easier for potential members to see the current members in a Meetup Group and what they have been up to, so that they are more likely to join.




The changes we made were:

First and foremost, we pulled out stats and activity for Meetup Group members on their profiles and made them easy to find. Potential members can discover other sections of a Meetup Group, see how active members are and get a better sense of what the Meetup is about.

Secondly, we made it much easier to see the answers to Profile Questions. Usually, these questions are perfect for helping potential members learn about the member of a Meetup Group.

Finally, we cleaned up navigation and browsability.

Enjoy!  

Mark is a Product Manager at Meetup.

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New Feature: Profile Questions Improvements

by Mark

Check it out: a couple of new features launched recently to make life a little easier for Meetup Organizers.

The biggest one?

Better Profile Questions

Browsing member profiles is a great way for Organizers and their members to get to know each other before getting together, face to face at a group's next Meetup. They also help people thinking about joining a Meetup Group get an idea of what the members are like and what the group is about.

Before, it could be time consuming for Organizers to ask new members to fill out their profiles once they've already joined, and painstaking for Organizers to re-order profile questions once they've been created.

Not any more.

Organizers can now click on "Group Settings" --> "Your Members":
1. make having an introduction, a photo and/or answers to profile questions required for members to join the Meetup Group.
2. re-arrange profile questions by dragging and dropping them in the order they choose

We also:
-moved "How can new members join?" from the "Privacy" section to the "Your members" section
-cleaned up design and styling of several of the "Group Settings" sections

Have any comments or feedback? Let us know!

Mark is a Product Manager at Meetup.

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Who's behind Meetup.com? Episode#3: Mark Hanna

by Davide

What do you do at your desk and how long have you been doing it?
I've been working at Meetup for almost two years now.  I was hired as the Email Marketing Manager but now I'm a product manager.  It is my job to plan and help launch new features and products for the site.

You are the man behind Meetup's internationalization. How did the project enrich or change your weltanschauung?
My weltanschauung? That sounds dirty.  First off, making Meetup international was definitely not the work of one man.  You, Rich, Malcolm and now Shavanna and Camila all helped in making that happen :) It's really exciting to see new Meetup Groups start outside of the US and in other languages.  I've been to Meetups in Italy, Spain and Amsterdam and it was so cool to see something that I've worked on be used all over the world.
 
Right, Meetup sent us to Italy last November. What's your favorite memory from the trip?
What happens in Italy STAYS IN ITALY!!  Hehe just kidding. Italy was such an amazing place, I wish I had had more time to see the entire country.  Rome was pretty amazing.  I really enjoyed all of the ancient sites like the Coliseum.  My biggest regret while taking the Coliseum tour was not yelling out "ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED!?!?!" like Russell Crowe in "Gladiator".  I doubt I'll ever have the chance to do that again.  I blew it.  I had fun with Rich and Malcolm in Florence too when we went to a bar that had an open mic night and I sang "Welcome to the Jungle".  I rocked it pretty hard.

You are a big sport fan. A rarity here at Meetup. In Italy it's very common to spend Monday morning discussing soccer results. Do you miss having something equivalent here in the office? Is this the reason behind your Penguins Meetup Group? Tell us about it!
It is a little sad. Most people at Meetup HQ didn't even know who was in the Superbowl (Go Steelers!).  But there are plenty of other things to talk about with people at Meetup; we are a pretty diverse group. As for my Penguins Meetup Group, I started that because I would watch the hockey games by myself at home and yell at the TV when we were playing bad.  My girlfriend didn't like this and my dog would get scared.  So I needed to find others who liked the Penguins as much as I do that also yelled at the TV and wouldn't get mad or scared when I did it.  It's grown a lot over the past year and we've done a lot of cool things like go to games, take road trips and raise money for charity.

Last question... Can you tell me about your dog? Sadly, I never got to meet him.

My dog, Winston, is the best.  He is not a big hockey fan but I still love him.  He's a really good boy, very well behaved.  I want to bring him to the office but apparently a few people here are scared of dogs or something. Maybe one day I'll just bring him in as a "surprise".

Davide is on Meetup's Community Support team.

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Weekly Release for February 10, 2009

by Mark

Hey everyone,

Here is what we've got for our latest release, going out on February 10, 2009....

Sponsor badge
Meetup Groups that have sponsors get all sorts of benefits, from discounts and free stuff for members, to venues to hold their Meetups, to guest speakers, and in some cases - even money.

Over the last few months, Meetup HQ has launched new features for Organizers to connect with Sponsors - the "Sponsor Our Meetup Group" button, where Organizers can let sponsors know they'd like their group to be sponsored and customize what they want from them, as well as giving Organizers the ability to display their Sponsors prominently on all group pages. While thousands of groups are using these new features, Meetup HQ wants to help all organizers know about and benefit from Sponsors.

So, for those of you who aren't aware of these features yet, you'll now see a module in the top right corner of your group's home page that explains the ins and outs of the Sponsors features. These features are entirely optional and you can choose to not use them. And if you don't see this module but want to use the Sponsor features, you can - just go into Group Settings > Sponsors.

(What's a Sponsor? Sponsors are businesses, brands, or other organizations that want to support local Meetup Groups.)

We've also got some small fixes:

• changed copy on "Learn More" pop up under Why Sponsor a Meetup
• replaced Sponsor Our Meetup Group with new button design
• fixed attendance history to show the list of events in order of the date they occurred.
• fixed bug where adding a group photo gave an error that the group's URL was already taken
• fixed broken link for "add dues" on member profile for groups with a custom domain
• fixed error for a new user trying to send a one to one email in a group with a custom domain
• when manually adding a payment for an event that has a fee, the fee amount will now be pre-filled in the box with the correct currency
• fixed bug where we weren't showing the 1st of the month for non-English language users on the calendar
• print summary fixed so that we are correctly showing members that have been marked as Paid
• fixed typo on "Get me sponsors" page
• fixed internet explorer issue with white corners showing on dark themes
  
  -Mark

Mark is a Product Manager at Meetup.

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Weekly Release: January 13, 2009

by Mark

Some cool stuff this week (going live on Tuesday) ... check it out riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigggghhhhtttt...........NOW!

Got a Sponsor? Show 'em off!
If you have Sponsors for your Meetup Group, you can now promote them on ALL of your group's page. Promote your Sponsor's name, logo and URL, and let everyone know why you love your Sponsor or what they're offering your group. You can display an unlimited number of Sponsors and can even save some in your settings without displaying them in your group. Get started by going to Group Settings > Your Sponsors.

Here's where they'll show up on your group's homepage:

Here's where it will show up on all other pages:

Some bug fixes to Themes:

-fixed the colors in "meetup standard theme" so that they match the real thing   
-fixed "Nighttime Blur" theme so you are able to edit attendance for past Meetups easier
-fixed hard to read poll text for groups with dark themes   
-fixed, Themes are now showing on file upload success page   

Other bug fixes:
-fixed Saturday on the Calendar being cutoff           
-fixed shared venues showing up as Private Home or Office on the edit venue page           
-made it easier for organizers to remove the organizer checklist                   
-fixed message boards not showing pagination at bottom of the page at message board "home page"                                       
-fixed attendance on venue page not matching attendance on event page           
fixed feeds of your Meetup Groups on homepage in Italian       
-fixed Edit Attendance feature to work properly, was an issue with editing the number of guests           
-fixed long header images from being cut off on fixed width pages like the calendar           
-fixed attendance from the post-event survey so that if left blank it won't get set to "0"   

Visit our message boards to see for questions/comments about the the new release.

Mark is a Product Manager at Meetup.

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The future of politics?

by Mark

Our friends at Casaleggio created this video called "Gaia - The future of politics." This is my favorite part:

Before the net communication, knowledge and organization belong to the power. With the net they belong to all the people.

They give some great examples of how the power of self organized groups (including some Meetup groups!) using the net and technology were able to affect the real world, offline.

Whether you agree or disagree with their prediction of the future, it's extremely thought provoking.

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Weekly Release: November 4th, 2008

by Mark

What a week this is... America will be electing a new president and Meetup members will be getting NEW FEATURES!!! Can you handle the awesomeness!?!?

Some exciting new features to talk about for this week's release:

Member Search

You can now search for members of your group by name or custom title! This feature is available to organizers and their group members.

Type in as much of the person's name or title as you remember and we'll show you matching results.  Click on the result to see the member's profile.  It's that simple.

Connecting with Sponsors

Organizers now can specify how you want to hear from potential new sponsors! If you want to hear from local sponsors, you can say what you are looking for (a meeting place, discounts for members, money, etc ) and write a custom message and they will be presented with the info before they contact you.  This will also turn on a "Sponsor Our Meetup Group" prompt on the left side of your group pages so sponsors can contact you.

You can also say whether or not you want to receive invitations from Meetup HQ regarding sponsorship offers. You can find both of these settings in "Group Settings" > "Your Sponsors".

Group Message Boards

We've made some quick changes to help you organize and manage your discussions better.

You now have the ability to turn on forums. Forums will allow you to group related discussions into one place. Just click the "Change to Forum View" link to check it out.  You can always go back to the Discussion View if you don't like forums.  In Forum View, you can create up to 20 different forums, move discussions from one forum to another, edit/delete forums and order them anyway you want. Only Organizers can change to Forum View and back to Discussion View. Assistant Organizers can do everything else.

Organizers/Assistant Organizers can also select different privacy levels for each forum. Everyone can see (even non-group members), only group members, or just the group organizer and any assistants.

You can also multi select discussions - select all discussions on one page, or pick and choose specific discussions and delete, pin, mark as read all at once.

And, as always, lots of bug fixes. See them all and discuss the new release.

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New Release: September 23, 2008

by Mark

Here's what's in the release for Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008.

Enhancements

• Meetup Places - Now you can search for venues by keyword - information that's been entered in the category and tag fields plus the "additional information" attributes (wi-fi, kid friendly, etc.) are now available to search by.
• Meetup Places - To make the process of adding, editing and searching for a place easier, we combined the category, additional information and tag fields all into one call "keywords." Anything you type in here will be searchable.
• Meetup Places - Now you can add a venue outside of scheduling an event! Go to Group Settings, Your Places to manage your places.
• In addition to the drop down menu in the upper right hand corner of virtually every page, members can change their language setting on the "Personal Info" section of their account page.
• Added more detailed information to "Payments Received" - you can now view payments received for Sponsorships and have the ability to filter payments received for Sponsorships and Meetup event payments by date
• Added "Province" and additional cities for Italy

Bug fixes

• fixed the way apostrophes were showing up in the "What's new" section for Meetup Groups
• fixed not being able to click on past Meetup photos in IE7
• removed "None, it's free!" from Meetup Print Summary
• deleted Meetup Places no longer showing up in Auto scheduled Meetups
• changed "Find a Meetup" to "Find a Meetup Group" and "Start a Meetup" to "Start a Meetup Group"
• fixed error when searching message boards with quotes
• improved error and logging for photo upload error messages and error message when Meetup is closed and no more RSVPs are allowed
• fixed link on Sponsorships info page

Do you have any questions or comments on this release? Talk about it on the message boards!

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