Meetup insults their early customer champions…
This is hilarious. The VP of Communications at Meetup.com, which recently decided to start charging for their service insulted a group of early users on their web site - calling them “Belly Achin bloggers in Seattle.” You can follow the saga here (via church of the customer).
On a separate yet related point, perhaps Meetup.com should have evaluated some alternative pricing schemes. Based on their user base and the most common uses of their service there are so many alternative revenue models out there that I am surprised that they went with the straight monthly fee.
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April 27th, 2005 at 5:32 pm
The whole Meetup situation has been unfortunate for both the company and their users. Had Meetup let users know there would eventually be a fee, there would probably be less complaining. Those few organizers who expected there would be a fee have been charging for their Meetups for several months, so they will probably continue using Meetup. It’s the users that were surprised who are complaining the loudest.
LinkedIn is an example of how to start charging for a free site — charge for a new premium service.
April 27th, 2005 at 8:24 pm
I totally agree - LinkedIn is clearly a best practice in transitioning from a free model to a revenue model. And I know first hand what options they were evaluating depending on potential usage models.