Fascinating back and forth over at Kos about Zack Exley’s role in the failure of the Kerry campaign to use the Net as a p2p tool. Here’s Zack’s response to Kos.

At the Harvard event Kos mentions, I asked Zack (whom I like and respect a lot) why he shut down the Kerry MeetUps. He said they were introducing their own version of MeetUp since there were problems with the official ones (no leaders, only once a month, etc.). Zack said that boosted the number of people who were attending by 10x. But it turns out that he was counting hosted houseparties as MeetUps. They may look the same on paper, but there’s a difference. Monthly MeetUps felt like a new and continuing social network — like the beginnings of a movement — while attending a local houseparty is a more isolated event.

I find it hard to put my finger on the difference, and each had its strengths, but there was something special about MeetUps. Maybe hosting them in a neutral, third-party spot (typically a bar or restaurant) made them feel more like ours. Maybe the lack of an agenda or explicit purpose for coming together did it. Maybe.