Hi International

The Global Clubhouse
A new Web site lets people in more than 50 countries actually make friends in person.

By Angie Latif
May 2005

After a long day working at the United Nations in New York, Michael Riegelman dashes out the door to meet a group of total strangers, as he often does each evening. "I am going tonight to shoot pool with five people I don't even know," he says. Riegelman also enjoys playing board games, throwing Frisbees and teaching Arabic, also with groups of people he has never met.

Nearly his whole social life, in fact, revolves around a trendy Web site called Meetup.com, which brings people of similar interests together in one online forum. It's taken the connectivity of the Internet one step further, setting up face-to-face meetings among groups in cities spanning across 50 countries. "It's really a great way to meet people," Riegelman says.

Riegelman is a typical Meetup.com user in that he has specific interests his usual circle of friends doesn't share. In Riegelman's case, his private passion is Arab culture, something stoked by a stint as a Peace Corps worker in Morocco. "I found the people [there] to be very friendly and welcoming," he says.

When he returned to New York, he sought out other Arabic speakers so he could continue studying the language. This is when he discovered Meetup.com, where he joined several groups and even leads one: the New York City Arabic Language and Culture group. This group, like others, links people with similar interests, allowing them to organize regularly scheduled in-person events.

Local Community
There is a palpable irony in having a Web site whose goal is to get people away from their computers and out into the world. Meetup.com was created by another New Yorker, Scott Heiferman, who felt that the Internet did a great job of connecting people online but did not encourage them to leave their homes to meet other people in person.

This became particularly troubling to him after 9/11, when he saw people in New York who wanted to share in a community but often didn't even know their neighbors' names. "Around 9/11, you got this instant sense of local community," Heiferman says. "It didn't last very long, but you thought about the people around you as more neighbors than strangers."

Working out of a tiny downtown Manhattan apartment, Heiferman, alongside friends and future co-founders Matt Meeker and Peter Kamali (and, later, several others) slowly made their idea a reality. They finally launched in June 2002. "Our goal is to help people form real world, in-person meetings in local cafes and other venues," says Allyson Leonard, the site's public relations manager. "There isn't really any other company that does the same thing we do. Meetup's greatest benefit is community - it allows people to learn something, do something, share something or change something."

Wherever Your Interests Lie
Today, roughly two million people have signed up for one or more Meetup Groups, and there are over 185,000 groups across the globe. Groups' interests run the spectrum from politics and culture to languages and sports. The members range in age, location, marital status and gender; they are dog enthusiasts, belly dancers, vegans, stay-at-home moms and Elvis fanatics. No matter how obscure a topic, if someone has an interest in it, Meetup.com offers a group for it.

Farid Ali is a member of several Meetup.com groups. The Palestinian-Colombian resides in New York and has an interest in learning Arabic. So he joined Riegelman's Meetup.com New York City Arabic Language and Culture group. "I've been invited to restaurants I've never eaten at, to try cuisines I've never had in neighborhoods I've never been to and met people I might not meet otherwise," he says. "I am also a budding businessman and use these Meetup groups to network. I never know who I might meet who could help me in my business or who could become a customer of mine in the future."

Despite its benefits of professional networking through online-based resources, the most appealing aspect of Meetup.com is the chance to find and physically meet individuals with shared interests. Most online groups routinely "chat" online but never have face-to-face encounters.

One common issue with some groups that bring like-minded individuals together is the lack of diversity among members. Generally, politically, religiously and culturally inspired groups bring together individuals who share similar beliefs and thoughts. In contrast, groups that focus on music, films and food are likely to bring together people of differing backgrounds and character. This membership alone would offer broader perspectives and enrich personal growth.

"I think there could be a tendency to have too much 'like thinking' in some groups," says D. Kent Pingel, an expert in online communities whose blog has a devoted following. "I have seen 'I love President Bush' groups and 'I hate Bush' groups, for example. To me, that would be too much homogenous perspective - a place to go and preach to the choir, depending on which flavor you choose. On the contrary, a more broad, common interest, like travel, will bring together many viewpoints, temperaments and interests."

Whether members prefer to expand their horizons within diverse groups or foster relationships with similar individuals, Meetup.com has already accomplished its mission. "We've harnessed the power of the Internet to bring people together live to form communities," says Leonard, "rather than replacing communities with the Internet."

Scott Heiferman agrees: "We're using the Internet to get people off the Internet."

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