Evite sucks. Their interface sucks, their total advertisement overload sucks, their emails suck, not to mention it's pretty ugly and a pain to reply to Evites. So let's try to figure out a replacement.
Are Eventful and Upcoming.org already out?
My Punchbowl
Pros:
- You can try it out without creating an account (click "Try it out")
- Clean, uncluttered UI with lots of fast Ajax
- Tools for every step of party planning, from Save the Date to the After Party
- Nice integration with Flickr, Youtube
- Great RSVP management and ability to show/hide the guest list at any time
- Offers the ability to include a google map with a link to driving directions for guests
- Message boards to chat with your guests before and after the party
Cons:
- Doesn't have lots of built-in templates
- You can't indicate if you are bringing a guest (no feature for that yet)
Privacy policy: Great. Will not share data about your guests. "Even though we retain contact information about your guests, Punchbowl Software will not use these email addresses to send promotional communications, newsletters, or service announcements without your explicit permission. If a guest chooses to register with MyPunchbowl, that individual will be considered a MyPunchbowl member and may receive promotional communications, newsletters, and service announcements from Punchbowl Software according to the terms and conditions of this privacy policy."
Planyp.us
Pros:
- Awesome AJAX!!!1
- Not many ads (they claim zero, but there are plenty of ad-like widgets)
- Can import contact lists from Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc.
- "share on facebook == JAG approved!" -- mra
- Emails have actual information in them
- SMS alerts, available as "day of" alerts only
- Location and time voting
- sub-24hr response time from developers
Cons:
- Total lack of any security or acls whatsoever
- "Oh man, this HTML e-mail is way too fancy for mutt." -- brett
- re: fancy html emails, we are working on getting text emails going very shortly -- yan
- Location and time voting aren't as fine-grained as Evite
Can't delete locations or times you've added There's apparently a trashcan icon (?)
- Recurring events? - Developers are aware that people want this feature and are working on it
- Uninviting people?
Privacy Policy: "Your email address will be used to communicate with you and to help you communicate with your friends. It will never be shared with third parties and we make an effort to encrypt all email links, preventing spam bots from harvesting your email for their own purposes. ... We will never send unsolicited email ("spam") to you or your friends. We may send you email on behalf of your friends when they post new activity plans so that you can participate in planning with them. We may occasionally send update newsletters about the service, no more than once a month."
Skobee
Pros:
- Who knows?
Cons:
- Terrible privacy policy
Privacy policy: Crappy. Essentially they might share your data with anyone. For instance, "We work closely with other businesses, and we may share user information with those businesses." The words "spam" and "unsolicited" don't appear at all. The only time they use the word "never" is to say they won't change the policy downward without user consent.
Renkoo
Pros:
- Immediate opt-out of "news" mailing list
- Holy crap, it automagically applied my Flickr buddy icon
- SMS alerts and text emails
- Can import contact lists
- AJAXy and gradient-rich! Web 2.0 compliant to the max!
- The location search is really fast, and found Joe Sent Me, Tonic, and the Living Room.
Cons:
- No location/time voting
- You have to select a "category", and their categories are lame
Privacy policy: "Renkoo may share user profile information, aggregate usage, and demographic information in a non-personally identifiable manner to advertisers and other third parties in order to present users with more targeted advertising, products, and services. In such situations, we will not disclose information that can be used to personally identify a user. ... Renkoo will only contact users based on specified user preferences for notification. By default, notification preference is by email address. Users can send non-users invitations by email through the Renkoo service if they already know the non-users' email address. Email addresses will not be sold by Renkoo, and they will not be used for spam or any other purpose outside of Renkoo's services."
Socializr
Pros:
Cons:
- Despite the missing e, doesn't seem to be very Web2.0y at all