JeffreyMarx.com

These days everyone is concerned about the internet and how it’s popularity is threatening to isolate people. It keeps them to close to their computers and haves them constantly checking their mobile devices and ignoring their friends and the outside world. One web site has been a leader in getting people off their couches and meeting other people in person. Meetup.com launched in 2001 founded by Scott Heiferman, Matt Meeker and Peter Kamali. I first joined a meetup group back in 2002, I was living in Poughkeepsie and looking for some professionals to network with in the new media industry. I really enjoyed it and got some great technical tips that I use for my job. I found a meetup group that met once a week in New York City. Back then, meetup.com was used mostly for networking and professional purposes.

When I moved to Westchester I didn’t know anybody, so I joined a local social group called the Westchester 20-somethings. We had a weekly dinner and drinks meeting at local White Plains restaurants and bars, with a group of people I had never met before. That same group of people are now some of the closest friends that I have and we see each other on a regular basis. Now you can find meetup groups for anything from local singles look for love, to people who like to watch movies, and those who want to share witchcraft techniques. There literally is something for everybody.

Meetup’s footprint now extends all over the country and beyond and has all kinds of groups for people of all ages and backgrounds. So if you are looking to network, make friends or just meet people with the same interests, I’d encourage you to surf on over the meetup.com and give it a try.

The Westchester WordPress meetup group held its first meetup on Tuesday, January 26th at my newspaper’s (The Journal News) offices in White Plains, New York. The audience was comprised of about 10 people looking to learn more about the software. The group was started by Anthony Zeoli , who runs a local web development firm called Digital Strategy Works. We’re joining a cluster of groups that have been popping up to discuss WordPress, an open source blogging system which is becoming more popular by the day. Meetup.com is one of my favorite sites on the internet as it’s main intent is to use the internet to organize the groups that meet off the internet. I’ll talk more about Meetup.com in a future blog post.

Zeoli did a fantastic job walking through the WordPress installation process. He explained the basics of themes, Search Engine Optimization and plugins. The audience was very active in asking a lot of questions. I’m an assistant organizer of the group and would like to think that my experience overseeing a cluster of WordPress Powered blogs is a big help to people who want to understand WordPress better. I chimed in and relayed a lot of good information that the audience seemed to appreciate

Our second Meetup will be held on Tuesday February 16th, also at the Journal News office in White Plains. The agenda is not set in stone yet. Members have said they want to learn more about SEO, Theming, Permalinks and Hierarchy, and just a general discussion around blogging with WordPress and the various opportunities blogging presents. So our plan is to take one of those general topics, and delve much deeper into it for our February meetup. In March, I’m planning on making a presentation on how bloggers can build traffic through link building, and engaging the audience.

if you are interested in attending, please join our meetup group. It is a great opportunity to learn about blogging and WordPress from professionals who are in the field.

Here is a link to Tony’s powerpoint slides from the meeting.