Meetup Communicates About Outage

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Meetup's website was down for a while, frustrating users. CEO Scott Heiferman communicated well during the outage with two emails. In both, he emphasizes that user information was not compromised-a likely question that users might have.

 
Meetup    
 
 

Meetup Organizers around the world,

You may have had trouble accessing Meetup's site or apps over the past few days, and you may have heard that Meetup has suffered a massive attack on our servers - a DDoS attack, which is a barrage of traffic intended to make services unavailable. Organizer and member data is secure, including credit card information. No data has been accessed or stolen. (See our blog for all the details on the attack and our response.)

This has been a tough few days for Meetup, and I know it's been a real struggle for many of you to manage your Meetups while our site and apps were down. You should know that we're listening to your questions and concerns and that you can count on meetup to be stable and reliable soon, to bring back all features, and to minimize the effects of the service outages.

Thanks for everything you do to create community,

Scott Heiferman,
Co-Founder
and CEO, Meetup

 
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Meetup Inc., POB 4668 #37895
New York, NY, USA 10163

 

Hello Meetup Members,

You may have had trouble accessing Meetup in the past week, and you may have heard that we were hit by a massive attack on our servers - a DDoS attack, which is a barrage of traffic intended to make services unavailable.

I'm happy to report that Meetup is up and running! And no personal data was accessed or stolen. (For more info, here are details on the attack and answers to your FAQs.)

It was amazing to see how many people were rooting for Meetup. We're excited to see you discover what's going on, find your people, and create community like never before.

Here's what you may have missed:

Upcoming Meetups

Recommended Meetup Groups

You can also download our iOS app or Android app for a super easy way to see local Meetups!

Scott Heiferman,
Co-Founder and CEO, Meetup

Discussion Starters:

  • Analyze Heiferman's two emails: the organization, content, writing style, and mechanics. What works well, and what would you suggest he change?
  • Why might users worry about their personal information? Did Heiferman overstate the concern or address it well?
  • In both emails, Heiferman includes the difficulty this has caused Meetup as an organization. What do you think of his including the organization's perspective in this way? Does it enhance his