“In a season when bloggers, Internet polling, and online donations are reshaping presidential politics, the man who created one of the first Web services to emerge during the Democratic primaries has been named Technology Review’s Innovator of the Year for 2004.
Scott Heiferman, 32, is cofounder and CEO of Meetup.com, a site dedicated, he says, to “going online to go offline.” Meetup provides software and a database that allows people with common interests to organize themselves, bringing together people devoted to everything from flying kites (nine groups with 13 members as of September 29) to electing John Kerry president (834 groups, 136,619 members).
Heiferman’s quest is to use technology to bring back some of the human-to-human interactions that have fallen by the wayside with the slow disappearance of such social groups as Elks Clubs and bowling leagues. He says he was inspired by the events to September 11 to try and build community among alienated Americans.”
