Tidbits from last week's meeting, no May MeetUp

Hello SF MeetUpers!

Thanks to everyone who joined us last Wed. at our April MeetUp. Vinnie Lauria did a fantastic job of speaking about his experience with Meebo and its evolution into a new community, [url=http://www.lefora.com]Lefora[/url]. I've included some highlights from the interesting discussion that followed.

We will NOT be having a May MeetUp. Susan and I will both be attending our [url=http://tinyurl.com/5r5jv9]NetSquared conference[/url] in San Jose that day. (side note: this conference is great for anyone interested in using Web 2.0 tools for social change, so I encourage you to check it out and register!)

Hope you can join us in June when Lucia Willow, community manager for Pandora will be speaking.

If you are interested in speaking at an upcoming MeetUp, please email Megan (megan[at] techsoup [dot] org <mailto:megan%5bat%5d%20techsoup%20%5bdot%5d%20org> ) or Susan (susan [at] techsoup[dot]org <mailto:[address removed]> ). You don't have to necessarily work for a specific online community-if you're involved with some interesting projects using online community tools and you'd like to speak about them, please let us know. There's also pictures of our MeetUp on Flickr <http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/ocr135/>  and I encourage any of you that have snapped a picture or two from the MeetUp to add yours to this photo stream!

 Below are some of the highlights of last month's discussion. If you'd like to connect further, you can:

 1) Check out our TechSoup forum discussions <http://www.techsoup.org/community/>  and blog <http://blog.techsoup.org/> 

2) Join the San Francisco Online Community Report Facebook Group <http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5153873869>

3) Check out the NetSquared MeetUp group <http://netsquared.meetup.com/1/> , which is a monthly meeting of folks using Web 2.0 tools for social change. 

4) Follow TechSoup on Twitter <http://twitter.com/techsoup>

5) Join the TechSoup LinkedIn Group <http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/39037/21E22A5A21D1>


Best,

Megan



***********************Tidbits from 4/23/08 MeetUp*******************************

--Meetro started as location-aware instant messenger service, locally grown, pulled in localized info. & aggregated, not self-generated content

--challenges: downloadable client not as viral as web, hard to work w/ different wi-fi networks to narrow down where user is, trying to grow it difficult--marketing, getting people aware of brand more challenging that universal site like Facebook or MySpace, difficult to grow real-time community vs asynchronous one, hard to develop mobile in US in US (due to regulations, locked-down cells, etc.) & cost-prohibitive b/c have to develop different platform for each phone, no way of organically spreading message

--different strategies for different community platforms of highlighting what's close in terms of geographic location or what's a close relationship or behavior

--If not explosive growth in community, doing something wrong--but this isn't necessarily true w/ of all online communities

--idea to switch to Lefora, white-label, "start a forum in one minute" hosted forums platform (like Blogger only for forums)--attempting to take what already exists w/ a new twist to improve, get people to use, focus on conversations, many:many

--started by buying Google ads to get real people to create forums & got feedback from them

--email to all Meetro users to inform them, forum for former users to connect

--scaleability--uses on-command computing w/ Amazon, can separate onto dif. servers if particularly active, forum data mostly text & fairly low bandwidth

--features: RSS imports so forum looks active from Day 1 (new blog post can auto-generate new topic); working to get auto-data import for migrating forum platform, "mark as spam" filter, developing widgets specific to certain communities

--community as next wave of web, innovations in nice communities

--GUI of forums important--surprised that many wanted "traditional" vs new "2.0" look, gives both options

--Why would existing user be resistant to natural evolution: habitual, people don't like change, look and feel, aren't necessarily "friend" on forums (fans & foes feature instead--different kind of relationship), develop trust with users as introduce new technologies/features

--often social networking is secondary (etsy.com for DIY crafts an example--good GUI, online community but not a lot of online community people






***************************************************************

Megan Keane

Online Community Manager, TechSoup

435 Brannan St., Suite 100

San Francisco, CA 94107

Voice: 415-633-9474

Email: [address removed]