At least from .US perspective we already have Gapps and G+ capability. That gives us everything meetup gives us (and more) for free. I can't speak for .EU but I am fairly certain that .US wouldn't mind stepping up to the plate (more) for the .US user groups. Heck the majority are already affiliated with .US anyway.
I think with Meetup or the Google apps approach, it is up to the PUG organizer. Personally, I like Meetup for NYCPUG (http://www.nycpug.org) because it requires very few braincells to setup and manage. Google Apps may have more functionality but it requires more setup for a PUG organizer to tie all the tools together to create a meaningful experience / dashboard for users.
Both do provide mailing lists which of course are very useful for the local "spreading of the word" - with that said, to Stephen's point about syndication:
* Blog + RSS
We should feature the PUG events on the PostgreSQL website somewhere. The easiest way to do this would be to plug into Meetup / Google App calendar feeds, a la what Planet does for blogs. I have had to reject PUG events from the regular events feed based on current policy (https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/NewsEventsApproval#PostgreSQL_Conferences_.26_Events) but would love to feature them and have them in its own section on the homepage / site. This would greatly help with exposure and help create more awareness about local PUGs.
If organizers prefer using Meetup based on its tools available, there are ways to raise funds: we've found members are happy to donate to help support a group; as mentioned earlier in the thread, there are orgs that can help accept donations too and pay for the costs.
The main idea is we want to make it easy to manage a PUG and create community awareness but bring it back to PostgreSQL.org, so a combination of a) supporting organizers for having the appropriate tools and b) syndicating upcoming meetups via RSS feeds plugged into .org would help accomplish this goal.
