about 700 people have signed up for Dean MeetUps since 10 am TODAY

[pruner]

the 125,000 mark was broken at around 10 am and the total now stands at 125,709.

http://dean2004.meetup.com/

Clark MeetUp registrations passed 40,000 Sunday night and the total now stands at 40,229.

http://clark2004.meetup.com/

edited because I was off by 100 additional Dean sign-ups.

[CMT]

1. Dean is doing well

and Clark is coming on strong.

[pruner]

2. Clark is actually looking pretty weak compared to Dean

Clark MeetUp regs have increased by approx 200 in 40 hours.

Dean MeetUp regs have increased by approx 700 in 4 hours.

[LuminousX]

3. I don't think meetup signups are a valid metric to use

It makes for an interesting qualitative element to highlight overall support, but in and of itself, it just means Dean has more supporters who use meetup.

[pruner]

5. it's not scientific, but there are certainly trends that can be spotted

http://jimbrayton.com/stats/meetup/

[RevolutionStartsNow]

4. Must be those cool new graphics on the blog...

LOL

Here in Calif, we only have a few more meetups before the Primary. We are focusing more on the Working Group meetings and other activities. But Meetup remains totally fun.

[madfloridian]

6. Ha Ha, I love the way they went with that.

They did not back down or back off from the incident. That is just so funny.

:D

[RevolutionStartsNow]

8. The best part

is that the graphics were done very quickly by volunteers and posted on the Blog, then grabbed by the Blog staff to go front-and-center. How cool is that?

[Lady President]

7. Not a big deal

I'm really not impressed with Meetup statistics because there are no safeguards. Here are a few problems I see:

1. No way to prevent multiple accounts by the same person
2. Sabotage of smaller groups
3. Having people RSVP even if they can't attend to keep number looking good.

[RevolutionStartsNow]

9. There may be some tampering

but this is probably done in a limited way on all sides (padding #s with multiple accounts, sabotage, etc.). Which is why it's most meaningful to look at the overall trend of Meetup statistics posted above.

[Lady President]

12. Nope

The trends aren't even useful for most candidates. It could be because in Ohio there have been some major problems, but sabotage is discouraging people from participating. Several major cities have had Meetups cancelled because of sabotage and people don't want to be associated with the Meetup system.

[RevolutionStartsNow]

13. That's too bad

Meetup has been incredibly effective for the Dean campaign. I suppose we could just schedule a monthly meeting on our own (we do schedule plenty of other meetings outside of Meetup), but Meetup has consistently brought more people each month into our local efforts.
Also I think the emphasis that the campaign has put on growing the number has encouraged people to sign others up -- a number of those people probably don't come to Meetup, but if only a few do, it's worth it.

[pruner]

10. RSVPs don't affect the count

it's the number of people who register as members of the group, not the # of people who RSVP that they're gonna be attending the next MeetUp

[Lady President]

11. RSVP numbers do matter

There have been newspaper articles in our local paper stating how many people "attended" various Meetups. The "attended" number is not the same as the registered number, but it is the same as the RSVP number (yes votes). Hypothetically, if 20 people registered a total of 100 accounts and RSVP'd to all of them, then the attendance number they would bring to the media is 100, rather than the 20 who actually were present.

I wish I could link to the article in the Columbus Dispatch, but you have to pay to read and, trust me, no one outside of Columbus should pay for our Republican biased rag.