I said recently that 2007 was the year of Social Networks and 2008 would be the year of Social Ad Networks - Everyone wants to start their own Social Ad Networks along with GeoDemographic Targeting too!
Well, Meetup.com (I go to several NYC Meetups, including the Tech Meetup quoted here) - according to the Silicon Alley Insider MeetUp Nabs Google Vet Dominic Preuss:
"...
Anyone who attends the monthly NY Tech Meetup has seen the fliers: They explain why working at Meetup is a better than working at Google (better options, better social life, better bathrooms). And they've apparently convinced at least one new hire: Dominic Preuss, a 3.5-year Google vet who has been running the company's local ad business out of its Chelsea's office, is now VP of "marketplace" at Meetup.
In English, that means Dominic is going to try to create a new revenue stream for Meetup by matching sponsors with Meetups, and taking a small cut for itself. Smart idea: Right now Meetup sponsorships (Wilson Sonsoni and DFJ Gotham sponsor NY Tech, for example) are done ad hoc, and Meetup doesn't see a penny of this revenue".
For well over a year I've talked about "datamining Meetup groups" for persona development, demographic studies and all kinds of other things - here 's a few of those posts: Searching Meetup Groups for Audience Composition and User Demographics
"...For example, if I was a Museum and I wanted to know what the characteristics of my audience I might do a lot worse than just looking at the local meetup that occasionally meets at my museum.
With that in mind, I have developed a grid that analyses a small meetup...one I have not actually attended yet, the Alternative Health Meetup, which I'm technically a member of. I'll pick the Art Meetup and look at only the top 20 Active Members; I can also look at the other Meetups each person is part of and figure out where this member might be in their life (age, single, married, etc). Here's the overall Audience Characteristics I came up with
Female = 70%, Male = 30%, Divorced = 30%+, Dining out = 50%+
I worked with the first name of the latest 20 active members to prove a point. A lot of people don't put their occupation or interests but much of that can be derived from the other groups they belong to, their friends and testimonials and their photos, when posted.
It's possible then, to build a Persona, or set of Personas out of the audience composition of a Meetup Group, without violating any one's privacy. The Personas can then be applied to the site in question to see how well it a site is satisfying it's audiences."
I also did a post on Monitoring Social Media Traffic on a site and gave away a secret, more or less:
".... I data mined Meetup Groups (just a little - don't have the time to join all of those that linked to my client just to see who is a member and what they're saying) - I see huge potential in exploring Meetup groups for all kinds of insights - and just to monitor the conversation - if nothing else."
What's really interesting about Meetups is you can get a pretty good idea of who is attending each meetup, age, sex, marital status, interests, where they are in life (depending on the meetup and context of the information), etc.
In theory, there's room to match up meetup groups with advertisers - both online and at the actual meetups (yes, have the advertisers attend the meetups).
I've often wished someone would write a really good "crawler" for meetup groups and social networks (even though, I suppose, there might be privacy issues with crawling social network ... in fact, I'm sure there are) - still, there are many social networks, like Meetup.com, where crawling it for metadata might pick up a lot of really good information.
And the other side of it - if marketing is about getting a message to your target audiences and you identify a bunch of your target audience is at a meetup in lower Manhattan - wouldn't it make sense to "be there"?
I'll want to follow this story more closely - hope to hear more about it, and see what Meetup.com comes out with in about 6 months; should be very interesting.
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