website is all about things you do off line. Itís, from what I can tell, perhaps the largest

global online network of meetings that people are having in person. These are actual real

humans getting together in a real actual place, which is very weird for the online world.

Iím constantly amazed that people donít know about this insanely powerful tool.

So letís have a little look about how this works. This is Meetup.com and, as you can

see, it defaults by knowing where I am and it says, ìHey, listen. What are some meetups

that are happening within 5 miles of Austin, Texas, where I happen to be located, in the

next little while. And all I have to is pop in a keyword and itíll search for different

events that are going on in an area of my choice.

But letís just configure this a little bit to be more relevant. Letís say I wasnít

in Austin, Texas. Letís say I was in New York. So I just type in ìNew York,î in this

case ìNew York, US.î There we go. And letís say Iím prepared to look within 10 miles

of New York. Terrific. And letís say Iím interested in photography. Once I punch in

photography, it starts to lay out for me all of the different photography meetings in New

York at the moment. And you can see, in this case this is one called Learn Street Photography.

Well, there are 2300 odd people already doing this and their next meetup is December 7.

This one, Drawing the Light ñ Photography and Lighting workshops, 1500 people.

Let me change the sorting from ìBest Matchî to ìMost Members.î Look at this one. I wanted

to do that. . .Just not alone!! Thatís a group, I guess. Letís have a look in the

detail here, but itís 9,000 some people and theyíre meeting up, some of them, tomorrow.

So letís look at the detail. Iím gonna right click, open that page in a new tab and just

go to that tab. Well, here is the page for that group. Here you are, the mission of the

group, exactly what the name implies, good company, positive atmosphere, you experience

things that you would like to do more and in a group. And you can see there are 9,700

people in this thing and itís been reviewed 244 times. This is one of the most substantial

groups I think Iíve ever seen and theyíve got 9 events upcoming already booked and theyíve

done 800 before. A very substantial event. Joining it, by the way, and joining Meetup

is free. All you do is click there. It says ìJoin usî and theyíll let you into their

group and itís as easy as saying then that you want to attend a meeting. In this case

you can see theyíre about to do a fun run, about 3 people attending that. Itís not a

lot. Here is a free after-work mixer/fashion show, 43 people going along to that and so

on and so forth. And over here, on the right-hand side you can see some of the people who are

actually showing up, the people that you get to meet if you turn up there. And you can

see over here some other meetups these people are in.

So itís as simple as finding a meetup and joining the meetup and attending an event.

Why is that such a powerful thing? Well, it turns out that this is a great place to find

new people, not just for social reasons, but for business reasons too. For example, what

would happen if you wanted to learn a lot about Internet marketing in the New York area?

Letís type in SEO and see what happens. Well there you have it. There are quite a few SEO

groups in the New York area, Internet Marketers of New York, New York Internet Marketers,

Content Strategy NYC and on and on and on it goes. Letís have a little look at this

one. Iím right clicking. Iím just checking out some of these. Internet Marketers of New

York, 1700 odd people, 25 reviews, 51 past meetups, they talk about blogging and search

engine ranking and all kinds of fun stuff like that. And you can see they have no upcoming

events because itís the end of the year. But letís look at a recent meetup. Let me

right click and have a look at this event. You can see they ask for 10 bucks for beer

and wine and then they looked into all these traffic things. You can see all the feedback

from all these people who attended and this is a list of all the people who attended that

you can get in touch with. In this case, how many people showed up? Looks like 72 people

attended. So if you want to get into a room with 72 expert in Internet marketing in New

York, this is how you can do it. But what if youíre not in New York? Well, again all

you need to do is type in on that very front page where you happen to be and how far youíre

willing to travel and whether itís SEO or maybe you want to join a writing group or

talk with some authors. Here you are. The 9/12 Project, a screenwriters collective and

on and on it goes.

Letís pick somewhere that isnít New York though, somewhere thatís a smaller town.

Letís talk about, San Franciscoís still a big town, letís talk about Saratoga which

is a little town north of San Francisco. Not a huge town, even there you can see, look

at this, Silicon Valley Bloggers and Writers, 763 people. There are so many people making

use of this site to gather and share and connect in a community. It certainly doesnít have

to be something business oriented. You can see cars, paranormal activities, LGPT (I have

no idea what that stands for), fashion, technology, science fiction, dating, movies and film.

There are just so many different things in this massive online community and hereís

the kicker. If you donít find something, for example, you wanted to do milk drinking,

which I canít imagine, in this case letís say that thereís no real milk drinking group.

You can, of course, start your own. You sign up. You pay, I think, an annual fee if you

want to start a meetup, otherwise itís free. I think itís about $30, and you can run your

own meetup of your own topic bringing people to your meetups as you go. By the way, when

you do that, Meetup is kind enough to send out emails to people in the local area saying,

ìHey! A new group has started up focusing on something that youíve indicated youíre

interested in [in this case milk drinking]. Come along and see what itís like.î So Meetup.com,

a massive resource.

Letís just say one other really quick scenario. Letís say youíre travelling. I showed up

in Atlanta a couple of months ago when I was on a speaking gig. I was on a speaking tour.

I had a couple of days free, thought I might like to do something with art. So I just typed

in ìartî and you can see here Iíve got fashion, Iíve got photography, Iíve got

movies, and I just picked one, I think in this case I picked something about painting.

But here I am, Arts and Culture, joined the group and went to a meetup that very night.

So itís a terrific social network. Itís a terrific business network. Itís just a

great way to meet great people. Iíve had nothing but good results with Meetup.com.