Make sure your value isn't zero
created on Sun, 2005-04-24 12:53
Darren kicked off a discussion on his blog about not using Meetup.com anymore. Travis wrote a long post about the values that Meetup.com does provide, and that the charge could easily be paid. I've had his post open in my browser for several days -- it's really well written, and shows how "cheap" Meetup is:
I hate to buck the trend of "I want my favorite services to be free," but given that we regularly get more than 9 people at a Meetup event anyway, why not just ask everyone to chip in $1 and stick with the working system we have? We pay $8 for beer and tax and tip, and least, so what's the big problem?
Travis Smith: Paying the Meetup Tithe
Read the comments on Darren's website to see more of the discussion.
Travis rightly identifies all the features that Meetup provides, and how little per person it would cost. But Darren (and I agree with him) values that at zero: if the features that are being provided are of no value to you, the sum of the service's value is also zero.
So, to Meetup.com I say, articulate your value. Better yet, ask your users. They liked you when you were free. Is there a particular set of features that they would be willing to continue paying for? Or, heck, change your business model: as Travis suggests, get The Whip and other venues like it to pay the fee -- maybe even to "bid" on the opportunity to host different groups, based on the past attendance.
Oh yes, and here's my rundown of how Meetup's features would be duplicated, from Travis' listing:
- a flow of new people who find the events geographically and topically: Upcoming.org, EVDB.com
- member data so you know who you're meeting, tied to attendance: Upcoming.org and/or click on the person's blog link to find out more about them
- picture galleries: Flickr
- an easy way to track many meetings you attend per month, instead of each group needing its own system: Upcoming.org, EVDB.com, and in general, RSS/iCal on my desktop
- automatic email reminders: I turn them off, I want RSS; Yahoo Groups or Google Groups if people wanted it; I also imagine that Upcoming.org and EVDB.com will have this as member options
- suggestions and voting on venues: this is the one feature I can't see being duplicated today
- an ongoing discussion board tied to the service: blogs, Yahoo Groups, Google Groups
- and, dare I hope, more cool features as the service starts earning money: sorry, future service -- I'm not going to pay for that today
And yes, all of these things are in different places....but if I use RSS to bring them all together on my desktop, then it doesn't really matter to me that the services themselves are hosted in disparate places.
It's a struggle, this whole "showing value" thing. Services that start off free need to be really careful in handling the free-to-pay transition, and Meetup is having a tough time of it.
In any case....see you at the next Vancouver Weblogger's Meetup :P
Thanks for the support...
But your reasoning is dubious. You're talking to the outlying case--the alpha geek. If we grab 100 people on the street, 99 of them aren't going to be able to use "RSS to bring [those features] all together". How tech-savvy do you suppose, say, the Regina Witches are? I'm pretty geeky myself, and I don't even want to do what you describe.
My point was that I have no use for almost all of those features. Other groups may, and good on them. To rephrase your point, Meetup has to do a better job of articulating its benefits to you, me and anybody else who thinks they can find an equally-suitable, cheaper alternative.
You can safely ignore the last bit
Darren: the last part I *was* talking from my, alpha geek point of view. Think of that as my little bonus add on guide for how to roll your own Meetup.com, should you be so inclined, out of existing services.
It may be that of the delta of functionality between Yahoo Groups and Meetup.com, lots of "regular users" may still opt for free.
I would like to add that with
I would like to add that with "suggestions and voting on venues" it's often the case that the venues are pre-selected and far less than optimal and it's a rare case that a suggested venue actually makes it into the voting list. Why? I have no idea. Not really "community" voting if you ask me.