Hi I've been watching this discussion and thought I'd jump in. I manage O'Reilly's UG program (for over 10 years) and can tell you there are still vibrant user groups and new groups forming all the time.
If you take a look at Meetup <http://www.meetup.com/>, you'll see quite a bit of activity there with topics ranging from broad to niche. I know a couple of Perl groups have moved to that format which helps them find new members. I know for O'Reilly, when I'm interested in finding new groups (Data, Makers, Web Performance, etc) that's my first stop. Marsee O'Reilly UG Program On Dec 2, 2012, at 9:11 PM, Dave Smith <[email protected]> wrote: > On Dec 2, 2012, at 1:29 PM, Jima wrote: > >> Most of the links I've checked appear to follow the same marked >> downward trend. A little sad, but nice to know it's not just us. > > As proposed in an earlier thread, I suspect this is just the same life cycle > we've seen for all new technologies. Made me think of the bay area PC users > group to which Steve Jobs and Wozniak brought the first Apple computer. > > You don't see many vibrant PC users groups anymore. And I think we all know > why. > > The question remains for me: Is there still a desire for like-minded > computer-using people to get together in person on a regular basis to discuss > and learn? I am having a hard time slicing the Venn diagram of people and > interests in such a way that creates something with wide enough appeal to be > well attended and valuable. > > --Dave > > /* > PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net > Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug > Don't fear the penguin. > */ Marsee Henon O'Reilly Media, Inc. 1005 Gravenstein Hwy North Sebastopol, CA 95472 [email protected] 707-827-7103 ug.oreilly.com https://twitter.com/oreillyug http://about.me/marsee /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
