As most of you know, Meetup has started charging monthly fees for members. Meetup expected some groups to drop off with the announcement, but claim fees were necessary to start turning a profit on their service.

Here’s an excerpt from an email sent out by the President of TownHall.com this morning.

Regrettably, we were recently shocked, as many of you were, to learn about the implementation of Meetup group fees – $19 per month ($228 per year) to be paid by each of the group organizers. Moreover, I was notified of the change only one day prior to each of you. As a paying and longtime customer, I was not pleased about how this was handled. This is not how Townhall treats its readers and I certainly don’t want Townhall’s good name to be associated with such practices.

It goes on to say that the group has decided to “Build our own Townhall.com Meetup-type service and transition away from Meetup.com.”

The response we received was unanimous! Effective this Thursday, Townhall.com will officially end its relationship with Meetup.com. In place of Meetup, Townhall will begin developing a custom solution to better cater to the needs of our Townhall Meetup members and organizers [Option #2].

You can expect the following improvements:
Currently, we expect to offer a Beta version of our service sometime in September 2005. If you would like to be updated on site developments, please register here.
http://www.townhall.com/meetup/