The Gazette (Cedar Rapids, IA)

CONNECTING
Meetup.com helps people bond over shared interests

By Nicole Riehl - The Gazette
January 26, 2005

Liz Condo/The Gazette Rixa Freeze of Iowa City (left),
a midwife s apprentice, helps Meggan Fisher of Iowa City
adjust a baby carrier at the Iowa City Homebirth Meetup
Group meeting Saturday. The people in the group met
thanks to Meetup.com. Iowa City ranks second in the state
in Meetup membership.

Julie Elliot is new to Iowa City, and she’s looking for friends who share her hobby: belly dancing. Finding friends with such a unique interest could be tough, especially if she waited to run into fellow belly dancers at bus stops or coffeehouses.

She found a way to hasten the search: Meetup.com, a Web site that helps people with common interests set up face-toface meetings. The 2004 election put the Web site on the map by fueling more than
25,000 political Meetups. Eastern Iowans continue to use the site, but not just for activism. They’re meeting up to discuss almost anything: Dumpster diving, bulldogs, Insane Clown Posse music, ‘‘Sex and the City’’ and Honda motorcycles.

Iowa City ranks second in the state in Meetup membership, with 1,314 of Iowa’s 8,981 members. Cedar Rapids ranks fourth with 954 members. Meetup has 1.4 million members worldwide. ‘‘It’s a nice opportunity to be able to meet some other people that are outside my immediate circles of friends,’’ said Jennifer Bass, 29, who belongs to the Homebirth Meetup Group in Iowa City.

Bass, a graduate student in public health at the University of Iowa, joined Meetup.com last summer to share her positive experience giving birth to a daughter at home. ‘‘Women always like to tell their birth stories, so it’s a nice ice breaker,’’ she said.

Meetup.com was founded two years ago to promote community involvement. ‘‘Forty years ago, 40 percent of Americans were involved with some sort of outof-home community activity. Today, it’s more like only 4 percent,’’ said Meetup spokesman Myles Weissleder. Meetup.com is free, but it offers premium paid services, such as an e-mail address exchange. The site also profits when venues pay to be suggested as Meetup locations.

The site requires each group to have an organizer and encourages members to rate their experiences. Elliot’s group, with five members, is just getting started, but she hopes it will grow enough to play host to performances and seminars. She’s already reunited with a classmate from a 1981 belly-dancing class and held a party at her home, where the group watched videos of talented belly dancers and of bellydancing bloopers. ‘‘A hobby can be fun, but it’s more fun when you share it,’’ Elliot said.

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