[Discuss] BLU's SEO

[randyokc at gmail.com (Randy Cole)]

On Mon, Oct 21, 2013 at 4:12 PM, Will Rico <willrico at gmail.com> wrote:


> Meetup.com has been a fantastic way to find new people.  I cross-post
> mainline BLU meetings when they fall into one of the categories listed
> above, and I always list all BLU meetings in our "More Events and
> Announcements" section.
>
> If I'm looking for a user group these days, the first place I look is
meetup.com.  I love how meetup.com integrates with whatever calendar you
are using (google in my case).  (Unless you change your meetup password,
then the integration breaks.)


> If the goal is to bring in more users, the lowest hanging fruit is to
> integrate our SIG (meetup) community more with the main BLU community via
> this mailing list as well as encouraging more cross-attendance of events.
>
> I want to do a better job of getting people who join via Meetup.com, to
> subscribe to this list and become integrated into the broader community.
> Meetup.com is a proprietary system and I think it's fine to meet people
> there, but it would be good for the users to bring them into an open/free
> system, which this list better represents.
>
Amen.  BLU doesn't want to be subject to the whims (or fees) of a
proprietary system.

Meetup allows mail address hiding, which is a semi-good thing.  Their email
system works fine, but their "message board" sucks.  They have a built in
registration system that helps with food ordering, room size and building
security (none of which BLU needs).  Keeping a meetup group and a website
in sync by cross-posting events is a pain in the neck, confusing, and
probably not worth it.