Meeting People in Houston via meetup.com

Over the past 5 days, I have attended two meetups.

What is a meetup? It’s an online social networking portal that facilitates offline (gasp!)  group meetings in various localities around the world.

Meetup allows people to join groups based on a comment interest in something (really, there’s a group for everyone on the site!)

So what about Alana? Well, given my life scenario (moving every 6 months, oftentimes forgetting what state I live in, anyway) sometimes I’m looking for other techies/social media geeks in my current location.

I’ve had a few friends say to me – “Alana, would you recommend match.com? what about eharmony? How can I meet other single young professionals in my city?!”

To this I say – try meetup.com first before you go the online dating route. At least you’re making an in-person connection first, and you are meeting other like minded people who can immediately connect on a common interest/hobby.

For this, and many other things, Meetup is a great tool. Basically, you sign up, enter in your zip code and preferences (what you like) and it does the rest – email notifications, calendar layouts of events, profiles (both for you and the group)…PLUS… most of the time it’s free.

In Houston, I’ve signed up for the Houston Tweeps tweetup group as well as the Houston Photowalks club. It’s a great way to find your niche and learn something from people, locally.

Similar to other social networking sites (and successful films),  MeetUp was inspired by a Book. Bowling Alone, which is about the decline of community in America and how people don’t know their neighbors anymore. “We are providing a service that revitalizes the Internet for local communities,” says the founder of MeetUp.

(via Wikipedia).