{"id":285,"date":"2008-11-12T20:14:41","date_gmt":"2008-11-12T19:14:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/t-machine.org\/?p=285"},"modified":"2008-11-14T03:24:22","modified_gmt":"2008-11-14T02:24:22","slug":"web-01-how-not-to-organize-an-event-on-meetupcom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/new.t-machine.org\/index.php\/2008\/11\/12\/web-01-how-not-to-organize-an-event-on-meetupcom\/","title":{"rendered":"Web 0.1: How NOT to organize an event on Meetup.com"},"content":{"rendered":"

(a FAIL<\/a> using web-based meeting tools)<\/p>\n

1) Make it look fun and interesting and seemingly inclusive:<\/p>\n

“MiniBar is a social evening in East London which offers people a chance to snaffle some free beer while discussing p2p, Creative Commons, web applications, social networking and general Web 2.0 (3.0) mayhem & fandango.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

2) …but require that signup has to be done in two separate places for two “halves” of the event:<\/p>\n

“You can come at 5pm … You need to register separately here for this part.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

3) …and make the location a Secret, known only to the special few:<\/p>\n

“Location
\n This location is shown only to members”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

4) If someone attempts to signup for the (free) event, deny them, and demand 250 letters explanation (no more! don’t you dare go over 250 chars!) for why they are important enough \/ l33t enough to be allowed to come:<\/p>\n

(the way meetup.com works, I can’t access this page from cache to copy\/paste the text, sorry – you’ll just have to take it from me that it’s pretty abrupt, demanding you justify yourself without offering anything in return, or any kind of explanation of WHAT you are supposed to write, or WHY)<\/p>\n

5) Finish your event description with not one but TWO content-less\/broken links, and describe them as “more info”. For bonus marks: forget to hyperlink one of them:<\/p>\n

“More Info at: OpenBusiness.cc and barcamp.org\/minibar”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(the first domain there is hotlinked to: http:\/\/www.openbusiness.cc\/minibar\/)<\/p>\n

NB: http:\/\/www.openbusiness.cc\/minibar\/ == a empty webserver directory on a webserver allegedly running Apache version 1.3.39 (!) – not impressive for a web\/internet event.<\/p>\n

NB2: http:\/\/barcamp.org\/minibar == a webpage with adverts for 50 odd totally unrelated items, e.g. <\/p>\n

“angled bob hair style
\nblack braided hair styles
\njc penny free shipping
\ntrendy hair style
\nvictoria secret free shipping”\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(yes, really – Victoria Secret and JC penny. For a supposed BarCamp about startups and internet companies. Um … OK.)<\/p>\n

I guess that’s another Web 0.1 example, then…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(a FAIL using web-based meeting tools) 1) Make it look fun and interesting and seemingly inclusive: “MiniBar is a social evening in East London which offers people a chance to snaffle some free beer while discussing p2p, Creative Commons, web applications, social networking and general Web 2.0 (3.0) mayhem & fandango.” 2) …but require that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,7,50,44,32],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/new.t-machine.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/new.t-machine.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/new.t-machine.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/new.t-machine.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/new.t-machine.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/new.t-machine.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/new.t-machine.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/new.t-machine.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/new.t-machine.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}