The Internot

By LEONORA LaPETER
© St. Petersburg Times
published October 28, 2002

A new Web site, www.Meetup.com, is moving people with similar interests out of chat rooms and into meeting rooms. It believes in making personal connections beyond your computer.

CLEARWATER -- Robert L. Webb II walked into the Krispy Kreme on Gulf-to-Bay Boulevard, a black briefcase hanging from his shoulder, a silver pentacle earring dangling from his left earlobe.

He headed to a group of 18 people eating glazed doughnuts around a clump of tables pulled together. In the center of one table: an 8-inch straw witch on a broom. Norma Supel, a computer store administrator wearing a pair of dangly beaded witches from her ears, was passing around a recipe for Kitty Litter Cake (served in a litter box with a new pooper scooper and melted Tootsie rolls on top).

"Is this where all the witches are?" Webb, a 41-year-old witch, asked, grinning as he put down his briefcase and took a seat near the head of the table.

This was the fourth and largest meeting of the witches, who gathered last week because of a Web site that is trying to get people with common interests out of chat rooms and into coffee shops for face-to-face meetings. Many of these Pagans had met before, online or at rituals and drum circles around the Tampa Bay area, but www.Meetup.com is bringing them together like never before.

It is also gathering Boxer dog lovers and Oprah Winfrey watchers. Atheists. Ex-Jehovah's Witnesses. People with a cleft lip or palate. Vampires. Japanese pop fans. Young people who keep online journals. People who want to talk about the Republican Party or abolishing the death penalty.

"Why Meetup?" the site's creators ask on their home page.

"Because you spend too much time in front of a screen," is one of the replies.

Tonight, the site will bring together people who want to talk about the prospect of war in Iraq. Those in favor of protecting freedom. Those opposed to a war. Those who aren't sure. All at separate venues.

They'll meet in some 500 cities across the globe at the same time. The site's creators initiated the Iraq discussion about three weeks ago. Meetings were scheduled in Tampa and St. Petersburg or Clearwater, but they were canceled because not enough people signed up. But there's always next month. The groups meet once a month, so those interested in the "Protect Freedom" group or the "No War with Iraq" group may meet the fourth Monday of every month (see www.Meetup.com to find out when the next meeting is).

Computer geeks and Chaplin fans

Last Tuesday night, witches in cities around the globe gathered at 7 p.m. at coffee shops, restaurants or doughnut shops for International Witches Meetup Day. Tori Amos fans also gathered that night, as did people who keep online journals, many of them young girls, though there were not enough people in the Tampa Bay area for those meetings. The site automatically cancels a "meetup" if fewer than four people sign up to come.

Since it was started in June, Meetup has attracted some 64,500 people from 532 cities around the world, including 10,000 who have gotten together. In the Tampa Bay area, some 500 people are members and about 200 have attended 53 meetups.

It is most popular in New York, London, Toronto, Chicago and Washington D.C. Smaller communities, such as the Tampa Bay area, must contend with many canceled meetups.

Slashdot, a group of computer programmers and engineers, has drawn the most members in Tampa, 59. The witches group is most popular in the St. Petersburg/Clearwater area, with 32 members. LiveJournal, people who post a diarylike journal online, is also quite popular, with 28 members in St. Petersburg/Clearwater and 53 in Tampa.

Some folks haven't found anybody to meet with. Kim Andrews, 29, of Brandon, is the creator and only Tampa member of the Charlie Chaplin and cleft palate groups. The Chaplin group has drawn just one other person, from Stockholm, Sweden. The cleft lip group has attracted 86 people worldwide.

"I am a mexican bi lat cleft lip," wrote Guadaflais of Mexico City, Mexico (full e-mail addresses are never posted on the site). "I am 27 years old female. I am a CPA and MBA and I like reading. I am married and I would like to tell people with cleft boys 'dont worry' everything is possible if you believe in your son."

Andrews, a stay-at-home mom who has had numerous surgeries for a cleft lip and palate, said she found a reference to the Meetup site while surfing the Web site of Doctor Who, a British science-fiction show. She runs a message board for classic comedians and wanted to start a support group for people with a cleft lip and palate.

Andrews said she became a classic comedian fan as a teenager when she was dealing with the teasing that came with having a cleft lip and palate.

At the first meeting of the cleft lip group, she was the only one who signed up in Tampa, so it was canceled. But a woman with a cleft lip and palate signed up in St. Petersburg, so they got together on their own one day.

"I know the Meetup site is very new and they only began promoting the cleft meetup a month ago," Andrews said. "It is discouraging, but I know it's going to take some time for it to be built up."

A modest start

Scott Heiferman, a 30-year-old self-proclaimed "longtime geek," created the Meetup site with $250,000 from investors and half a dozen people who shut themselves in a New York office for four months this year.

Meetup hopes to make a profit by charging the coffee houses, doughnut shops and restaurants where the groups meet. It has started charging six venues in New York $20 a month and plans to also charge for every person who goes to the meetup. Right now, members of each group select the meeting place by voting on one of three locations several days before the meetup.

"The story is that now half of America is online and people can connect with someone in China who has the same particular interest or passion or health condition, so why doesn't the Internet let people connect locally?" said Heiferman, who created an online advertising agency before he created Meetup.

"There are people in St. Petersburg who do antique dish trading on eBay, and there's no way to sort of say, 'Let's go out for coffee.' There should be this eBay-like efficient way for people to connect, so we built something that's never been done before."

[Times photo: Brian Tietz] Lynn Goss, left, of Riverview and Robert L. Webb II of Largo discuss pagan books during a meeting in Clearwater of area participants in Meetup.com’s witches topic group.

Anyone can create a topic to discuss, and though the site's creators set up the first 100 groups, users have expanded the offerings to some 600 subjects. There are fan clubs, car clubs, activist groups, book clubs and support groups.

Ex-Jehovah's Witnesses is another popular group. There are 15 members in Tampa and five in St. Petersburg/Clearwater.

"A lot of people, once they leave the Watchtower Society, they are shunned. They are considered dead. A lot of guys lost their families once they left the congregation," said Theresa Weisberg of Holiday, a member of the group. "That's why Meetup is important, because it provides association with other ex-Jehovah's Witnesses."

Anything goes on Meetup, though the site screens all topics and has rejected many.

For example, the site rejected gay collectors of antique cars because the group didn't have broad enough appeal, and French Bulldogs because there was an English Bulldog group and the site didn't want to split hairs. And it is steering clear of some topics, such as abortion, the Ku Klux Klan and Bondage and Discipline/Sadism and Masochism.

"We don't want to create a means where harm can be done," said Myles Weissleder, a spokesman for Meetup. "We're working under the premise that there is a lot of good in the world, but we're cognizant that Meetup can be used as a tool for bad."

The site has also raised concerns among law enforcement officers who think it might be used by child predators. Anyone over 14 years old can use the site.

"I feel like if someone wants to do something bad to kids, they're going to find a way to do it," Heiferman said. "If the kids get hurt at a mall, should they not build malls? We're just a tool, but we care a lot. We pay a lot of attention to make sure that meetups never happen anywhere but a public place."

Heiferman hopes the site can tap the political landscape. The Iraq discussions are a step in that direction.

"I think ultimately the biggest thing this will be used for is politics and activism," Heiferman said. "With Meetup, on the one hand it's being used to organize knitters and dog meetups. But imagine if a national political candidate could organize supporters in 500 cities."

Heiferman said he's talking to someone interested in using the site for a national political race. He declined to go into detail. But someone has created meetups for Bush2004, Gore2004 and Perot2004. For the record, the George Bush group has 10 people, and Al Gore's group has attracted 13. Nobody has signed up for Perot.

"WOW!!!! 8 Gore Supporters Worldwide!," wrote kn5000 from the Vero Beach/Stuart area when the Gore group had eight supporters. "That's more than double what I thought he had. How many kids does he have, anyway?"

The witches say they will continue to use the Meetup site. On Tuesday they talked about sponsoring a Pagan Pet Parade at Philippe Park in Safety Harbor to benefit the black kitten that got stuck in asphalt at a paving company in Tarpon Springs this month. They're going to hold a Halloween Party at Supel's house, complete with a haunted house, a ritual in Supel's back yard and a visit to the graveyard on her street to pay respects to their ancestors. Finally, they can wear in the front yard, without drawing attention, the flowing black robes they use in their rituals in Supel's back yard.

"This is totally new for us," said Supel, high priestess of a Clearwater coven and the host of the most recent witches meeting. "We're using it by getting all the leaders in our locality together to coordinate our calendars. We always used to meet at our homes, and there were kids and dogs running around. This is more like a Pagan parent night out. We can talk, and we don't have to watch what we say."

What's clicking:

Meetup.com's top 10 topics in the Tampa Bay area:

1. Witches

2. LiveJournal

3. Fark (weird news)

4. Ultima (online role-playing game)

5. Slashdot (techies)

6. Xena

7. Weblogger

8. Tori Amos

9. BookCrossing (a book-tracking site)

10. Ex-Jehovah's Witness

By way of comparison, here are the top 10 topics in New York:

1. Weblogger

2. Slashdot

3. LiveJournal

4. Webgrrls (women and technology)

5. Fark

6. Xanga (Web publishing)

7. Witches

8. PHP (code developers)

9. Tori Amos

10. Ex-Jehovah's Witness

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