As someone who belongs to an International Group of meetup organizers, that meets regularly, I get to learn about Meetup.com and what’s happening with our groups, before you do.
In 2008 I created San Diego Foodies on Meetup.com. And then in 2015 I took over Carlsbad Foodies. Since then, a couple of things have happened: First, we went from promoting every event going on in the city connected to food or food and drink, in addition to art, music, finance and more to just the events I create or attend. We did that because Meetup dictated that we do so. It’s sort of weird for a venue I use to list my rsvp’s to dictate my events, but I went along with it.
Then, some guy stole my domain, calling it SD Foodies on FB and Insta and all they do is talk about restaurants they have been to, where we, at San Diego Foodies actually go to restaurants and do restaurant reviews. In addition, we create events like Potlucks, we travel out of the city to great restaurants and events we research to find out about. We do Cooking Classes and other education. We even went to an Olive Oil Tasting and stayed overnight at The Inn at San Juan Capistrano.
Now, Meetup.com has been acquired by Bending Spoons, a company in Italy. From what I can see through research, what they do is acquire companies, milk them and sell them. Recently, here’s what I have personally noticed: They are asking members to pay $10 a month, to be ‘allowed’ to go on my ‘waitlist’ for events. (I am sure my members think that money goes to me or the group, but no. It goes to Meetup. They are also asking ME for money, beyond the hundreds I pay to be part of meetup.com, to promote EACH event. Are you kidding? So they’re charging me money and not promoting my events?
I have noticed that new groups with just a few members are getting great promotion over my groups with thousands, and who have been around since 2008. Since this is getting a little out of hand, I will be most probably moving the groups to Eventbrite and Facebook. Please don’t confuse SD Foodies, with the OFFICIAL real group, San Diego Foodies. If you want just opinions on Restaurants and where to go, we review on Yelp, Open Table, Google and ChefMarian.com. And you can checks out SD Foodies for even more reviews.
I really think haters wanna hate. So our reviews are positive. We tell you what to order when you go and leave the decision of whether or not to go, to you! I love our Foodies Community, and A Great San Diego Chess Meetup, where we learn and play Chess, Bridge and Backgammon once a week in Del Mar. Hope we stay connected through this blog and ChefMarianKitchenConfident on FB and Insta.
You can look forward to our Workshop this month that will walk you through a 7 step jumpstart, so you can access where you are and what you need to learn. Look for my video on YouTube that I will put up next week, and I plan to leave the link on my blog (here) as well, so you can figure out if you want to really become part of our Foodies Community and how that is going to benefit you!
Happy, healthier Eating,
