‘People are busy watching “Friends” instead of hanging out with their actual friends,” gripes 30-year-old New Yorker Scott Heiferman.
So he’s done something about it.
A few months ago, Heiferman launched meetups.com. Members can join one of the 700-odd on-line groups that virtually exist there – from Australian ex-pats to lapsed Jehovah’s Witnesses to expectant mothers to Radiohead fans – or, if none appeals, start their own.
But meetups.com members aren’t meant to just socialize virtually. There are no chat rooms. You simply add your name to a group, and soon you’ll get an e-mail inviting you to the next gathering. Everyone votes on a bar or coffee shop where the group will meet.
“Just like eBay is a platform where people can find others who want to buy and sell stuff, there should be a platform where people can find others who support the same causes, love the same dog breed – whatever,” says Heiferman.
Lots of New Yorkers clearly feel the same way – 4,000 of them belong. Five to 10 “meet-ups” take place each week in the city, some of the most popular for Dachshund owners and people who are “new in town.”
Start-up meetups.com has quickly turned a profit through promoting bars and cafes as “meet-up” venues, but it’s hardly a new idea. Quentin English’s 2-year-old group, Quentin’s New York Friends, has been a haven for many European ex-pats who have relocated to New York.
“People used to forward stuff to me because they knew that I knew a lot of people,” says the 36-year-old founder, who moved here from England 10 years ago.
To make his life easier, English set up a group list on Yahoo so his extended circle could communicate with one another directly.
Since then, English’s list has grown from 20 people to 2,500 – nearly all of them New Yorkers.
There’s a catch: You can only become a “friend” if a current member recommends you. (English keeps the URL a closely guarded secret.) “This may sound corny, but everyone on the list is really nice. There’s a real feeling of community,” says English, who regularly hosts parties for his members at downtown bars.
Now, after two years of putting in around an hour and a half each day maintaining the list, English is looking for sponsors, like local gyms, who can offer special deals to his listers – and help him turn a profit.
The granddaddy of both these sites is CraigsList.org. Launched in 1995 by San Franciscan Craig Newmark, it’s now available in 20 cities (including New York) and almost anything can be found there – a job, a car, an apartment, a pet, a date.
“I grew up wearing a plastic pocket protector and thick, taped-together glasses, and I have the social skills you would expect of guys like that,” says the 50-year-old Newmark, who launched his site to connect with people in the Bay Area who shared his interest in digital media and other techie stuff.
Now others use it to hook up, too. One of the most popular features of CraigsList is the “missed connections” section, where singles who have eyeballed one another but lacked the nerve to make an approach hope for a second chance.
“You were on the 8:14 a.m. train to White Plains. I got on at 125th Street and sat facing you. I thought you were really handsome, but I didn’t get enough nerve to talk to you. Damn!” reads a typical entry.
CraigsList has grown so rapidly that Newmark quickly left his job as a software developer at Charles Schwab to work full-time on the Web site.
And despite the fact that Newmark now employs 16 people, and his New York page alone will clock some 35 million views this month, its founder still thinks of the list as a very personal thing. “In my heart, I still think of it as a little bit of a hobby,” Newmark says. “I know we’re helping out a lot of people.”
English hopes his list doesn’t lose its personal touch. Sure, it grows by 10 to 20 members every day – and each party he throws usually generates at least 50 new members – but he’s keeping an eye on quality control.
“The way to do this is to constantly remind people to only refer the right kind of people,” he says.
Meetups.com’s Heiferman agrees: “I think New Yorkers are always interested in meeting cool people,” he says, “and this saves them a step.”