Yes, I could agree I'm probably missing the point on the MeetUp aspect as I never been accused of being social! However, I do have full appreciation of the amount of effort, work, and code that goes into what I'm suggesting. Grossly simplified...absolutly!

On Nov 22, 2015 2:11 AM, "Alan Vezina" <alan@jydo.com> wrote:
You are woefully underestimating the amount of work it would take to create a site like meetup. You are also missing the point: Meetup recommends people who are part of related, but different meetups to join our meetup. This drives a good deal of people who weren't looking for our meetup to find it, show up, and be contributing members. There is a HUGE amount of value in the large user base that Meetup.com has.

On Sat, Nov 21, 2015 at 11:21 PM, RottinRob . <rottinrob@gmail.com> wrote:

Please correct me if I'm wrong,  as Python is NOT my expertise, but is it not possible to throw up a virtual enironment, add some frills (dev tools, added bonus tools/software dependant on personal interest), base Django Server, and other support technologies. Mix in command interface via some console term or possibly GUI to some extent.
Mind you, I'm aware that takes work and man hours...but it could be Python Based and Python Technology Driven, and can grow and be molded to need, desire, and growth of language.
Should be fairly cheap in resources to implement, or at least reasonable.

On Nov 22, 2015 1:04 AM, "Alan Vezina" <alan@jydo.com> wrote:
The problem is people are finding our meetup and other Python meetups because they're being recommended them by meetup.com. For example, a large set of people who find our meetup are recommended our meetup because they're part of the Seattle JS meetup. I also noticed a change in new members when we briefly stopped using meetup for registrations:
  • August 2014 to March 2015 we used Meetup.com, consistently got emails saying 10-15 new members joined
  • Stopped using meetup for April to November, consistently received emails saying 2-5 new members joined
  • Went back to using Meetup in November, I am now consistently getting emails saying 10-15 new members joined
Not using meetup, even though it has worse tools for managing events really makes an impact on new members. Having a Python hosted meetup page will cater to only people who really care about Python. The nice thing about meetup is it recommends our meetup to people who maybe wouldn't otherwise be looking for it, and that has brought us many great members.

On Sat, Nov 21, 2015 at 10:13 PM, RottinRob . <rottinrob@gmail.com> wrote:

Just a thought but what about a. Django based alternative that would leverage the power of Python from the core. There should be well enough creativity, talent, and knowledge collectively to really make something truly incredible for Python specifically!

On Nov 21, 2015 4:52 PM, "Don Sheu" <don@sheu.com> wrote:
Would be great to have a tool that incorporated the much better utilities and mobile apps of Eventbrite with the discovery and social graph effectiveness of Meetup. 

Revenue could be derived from offering a voluntary contribution campaign drive like NPR and the like. 

That'd be a great startup to feature at PyCon Startup Row in May when we convene in Portland. 
ᐧ

On Sat, Nov 21, 2015 at 11:20 AM, Douglas Napoleone <doug.napoleone@gmail.com> wrote:
On the 'kids these days' part, my Son's after school robotics program (he is 11) uses snapchat (set up by the kids) for social communication, Slack for team communication/collaboration, Facebook for communicating with parents, and ole meetup.com for managing the team meetups, regional events, and competitions. The regionals are managed via robotevents.com (not under club control.)

There has been repeated discussion on getting rid of at least one of these, and meetup.com in particular as that one has real cost behind it, has overlap with robotevents.com, and is the biggest pain to administrate. Even for a semi-private group, this proved to be difficult. Two years ago they removed the group, and signup dropped to almost nothing (12 new signups on avg per year down to 3 for that year). For a middle school club. Google is plugged into meetup.com much better than it is for facebook, and not at all for slack, and the school websites are garbage. Most parents and kids were finding out about the program through google, which was finding out about it from meetup.com.

I have signed on to help out with some of the tech stuff to automate things. Going to 5 different interfaces (slack, school website, facebook, meetup.com, mailchimp) just to update a schedule is madness.

I really wish there was better competition int his market.

    -Doug



On Thu, Nov 19, 2015 at 8:33 AM, M.-A. Lemburg <mal@python.org> wrote:
Thank you for all your feedback. I've collected the results so far
below:

 * Meetup has great discovery story, it brings in more people
   to the meetings and supports growth better than other
   services - this is perceived as the main benefit of
   meetup over other services.

   Some groups only use meetup for announcements and other
   services for the organization itself.

   While Meetup does have a big following in at least US,
   UK, Canada, Belgium, it's not that popular in other countries.
   Examples: Czech Republic, Germany (though it's getting
   stronger). This is probably also a reason why Meetup
   is cheaper in those countries than others (e.g. in Germany
   the unlimited plan costs USD 4.99 per month).

   Meetup is not willing to give us special rates or
   simplified setups (other than their standard setups).
   Even though there are plenty Python groups, the total
   number is not large enough to get them interested.

   We could save some money by using "master" accounts,
   since each Meetup account can host up to three meetings.

 * Eventbrite is good for RSVPs and check-ins, it also looks
   more professional than Meetup, but doesn't have such a good
   discovery story as Meetup.

   Since Eventbrite is very much a Python company, we might
   be able to talk them into a special deal.

 * Other services mentioned/found:

   * https://ti.to/ (free for free events, used by PyCon UK)
   * https://nvite.com/ (free for free events)
   * use Google rich snippets (structured meta data) to
     have Google find events
   * use the Python events calendar together with the map
     mashup: https://wiki.python.org/moin/PythonEventsCalendar
     + http://lmorillas.github.io/python_events/

I also found an interesting thread on a Meetup forum:

http://www.discussmeetup.com/forum/general-questions-how-tos-tips-tricks/i-want-to-close-my-group-what-are-good-free-alternative-platforms-to-meetup/

and especially liked this story from the thread:

"""
I walk into the family room, and my teenager is on the lap top.   I see the gmail chat window with
30 ‘friends’ at the left hand margin.  I ask “Have you ever been invited to a Google+ event?” “No”
“Have you ever been invited to a Facebook event?” “Yes, once the principal gave out our wardrobe
instructions for our homecoming game.”  “Do you use Facebook much?”  “Hardly, ugly site, isn’t that
for old people?” I prefer SnapChat and Instagram”  “Argggggg.  Just pics!”   “Have you ever heard of
Meetup” “Not really Dad, is that the stuff you do on Tuesday nights?”
"""
(taken from
http://www.discussmeetup.com/forum/general-questions-how-tos-tips-tricks/i-want-to-close-my-group-what-are-good-free-alternative-platforms-to-meetup/msg4171/?PHPSESSID=8a885701384e741ec4dc394e49e3bae7#msg4171)

Given such experience, it may well be that we "older" people
only perceive Meetup as being the holy grail when it comes
to organizing user group events, while the younger folks
don't even get to see these events, unless they are also available
on FB, G+, Instagram, etc. Perhaps something to consider.

I guess in the short term, we're better off encouraging sharing
Meetup accounts to lower costs and continue to look for
alternatives.

For a meeting I'm running with Charlie Clark in Düsseldorf
(Python Meeting Düsseldorf), we've so far tried to stay away
from Meetup and invested a lot of time into all the other
channels you have to serve. For us, the marketing aspect
would be the only reason to try it, since the organization
is working just fine using plain old email.

--
Marc-Andre Lemburg
Director
Python Software Foundation
http://www.python.org/psf/
http://www.malemburg.com/
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--
Don Sheu
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RSVP for my Python user group, meeting 12/9 at Redfin


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