I thought this particular website Meetup.com was interesting because this website is using the Internet as a tool to get people involved to “meetup” in person. This website literally has hundreds of different topics of what you would like to meet up with other people in person. It could be about knitting, fashion, sports, travel, languages etc. you can see all the different topics at the Topics Menu

I found out about this website while doing research for my writing project. I was trying to find about people involved in the fashion industry in the Washington, DC area and interviewed a fashion designer/merchandiser. It was so easy to reach her through this website, you just have to create a log in and password and then you are connected and can network with others in your area.

The site was founded by Scott Heiferman, who recently appeared on Good Morning America as an Internet feature story Clearly, it is growing and can be a good way to bring people together in a community. This was initially started post September 11 as a way to bring people together in the community. “People are using the Internet as this tool to give them what they need,” said Heiferman.

These “meetups” are helping them to find connections in many ways. I thought this was interesting as well, based on the class discussion we had a few weeks ago talking about how in some ways the Internet is potentially isolating people because of the way they are being “social” in such an anti-social environment.

However, I think that this site is different in the way that it is simply using the Internet as a tool to create initial contact between people in a community and essentially linking them online in an effort to get them to meet up off-line.