« Votes Bits & Bytes, Panel II: Business | Home | McCain Pumping Up For 2008? »
Votes, Bits & Bytes: Keynote
By Matt Margolis | December 12, 2004
Scott Heiferman, CEO of Meetup.com gave the Keynote address Friday afternoon at Votes, Bits & Bytes. He had a lot of energy and incorporated humor into his speech. He spoke about the genesis of Meetup, which came from reading Robert Putnam’s book Bowling Alone. He spoke about a new “poeople-powered era” and how in the past 3 months Meetup has doubled, and perhaps contrary to common belief, political Meetups are not the majority of Meetups. In fact, political Meetups only constitute 15% of all Meetups.
Robert Putnam spoke next. He started with a story about his hometown of Jaffrey, New Hampshire and how many, many years ago ones desire to listen to music was usually achieved by playing music with others and how that “model” so-to-speak has changed because of technology. Technology, he said, has gradually “allowed us … to satisfy our private desires for entertainment alone.” According to Putnam, before technology, we couldn’t really be entertained alone.
I guess that’s what makes Meetup so fascinating. Using technology to enable people, united by a common interest and geography, to congregate in person.
Topics: General |
Related Posts:
December 17th, 2004 at 5:32 pm
thanks matt, nice meeting you.