Two thousand eight was an exciting year for Meetup. The 1,000,000th Meetup took place, Meetup Groups increased their membership by 4 million, and your Meetups received almost 20,000,000 RSVPs, nearly doubling the number from the year before. Congratulations!
Meetup.com is THE best way to organize local community groups, and the people at Meetup HQ work hard to keep improving it for Organizers and members everywhere. This year we reached out and listened to Organizers and members more than ever to better understand how to improve Meetup, and to make sure the improvements we make are useful and make sense. To paraphrase Scott from an earlier post, we work better when we work with you.
So here is a sampling of what we did:
Usability testing
We started inviting people into Meetup HQ to watch them use existing and new features so we could figure out what was broken or what didn't work so well, and fix it.
Since July we have conducted 94 usability tests and we have no plans to slow down in 2009.
Launch Preview Group
We started the Launch Preview Group (open to any member of Meetup, just email the organizer to ask for the invitation code) to research people's needs, and to get feedback from people on new and existing features.
Since its inception we have asked for feedback on 14 separate features and conducted 2 previews, where members of the group got to try out new features before they're introduced to everyone. We are endlessly thankful for the awesome feedback from the people (our partners) who participate in this group.
Meetup Support
...fielded about 3,300 feature-related emails and phone calls, many of which influenced the improvements we made to Meetup and the new features we built.
Meetup Tour
Over the summer Meetup Staff traveled around the US and met face-to-face with about 300 organizers, talking with them about what we could do to improve and grow the Meetup experience.
These meetings were in addition to the dozens and dozens of Organizers we meet with regularly in the NYC area.
Listening to members and organizers proved to be the right move- what we learned from the efforts above informed and continue to inform the new features and products we build.
In no particular order, here is a brief review of what we built in 2008 – we think it was our best year yet:
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- Meetup API
- Sponsorship payments to organizers & internal campaign management tools
- Meetup Alliance feed enhancements
- Meetup.com site redesign
Meetup.com in Italian
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Meetup Places – find a place to hold your Meetup
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Charge members to attend your Meetups & keep track of all the payments for your Meetups
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Promote Your Meetup on Facebook
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More guidance setting up new groups
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Customize the appearance of your group
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Enhancements to collecting dues from members
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Member search
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“Sponsor our Meetup Group” – connecting organizers and sponsors
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Upgrades to message boards
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Waiting lists
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Customize your Meetup Group's web address
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Ability to track No Shows
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Blocking and banning members
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Meetup Alliance gadgets
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Improvements to searching, browsing and joining
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Top navigation streamline
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Home page redesign
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We are committed to continue working with Organizers and members in 2009 to make it easier and easier for people to organize great local groups in their communities.
Thanks to you for making 2008 such a great year for Meetups everywhere. Speaking on behalf of everyone at Meetup HQ, we can't wait for 2009 to be even better!
Have a Happy New Year!
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