During the dot-com boom, Evite was “it” when it came to online invitations. Everyone seemed to use it to the point where Evite was synonymous with organizing events on the Web. Then, Evite was acquired by IAC/Ticketmaster in early 2001, and subsequently disappeared into the bowels of Barry Diller’s online empire.
I hadn’t thought about Evite – or, for that matter, used it – until getting an e-mail today from MyPunchBowl.com, a relatively new online invitation service trying very hard to be establish a foothold.
By coincidence, the Wall St. Journal has a story looking at how and why Diller has decided to break up IAC. How comes? Diller believes IAC is “overly complex and unmanageable. What I’ve learned over the years is that focus and singular purpose is the best approach for businesses. How can you function across 12 different businesses from financial services to dating?”
I wonder what that means for Evite? I suspect it will find a new home. Hopefully, the new buyer will inject some mojo into Evite, which has been puttering along for the last few years. That said, Evite is still a popular service even if it doesn’t get much attention.
More: For anyone looking for a user-friendly invitation service, check out Pingg.com – run by two Canadian brothers.
Technorati Tags: evite, mypunchbowl
7 Comments
So the success you are showing for Evite must be an omen for Skype. Evite’s co-founder Josh Silverman recently took over as President of Skype (after serving in a couple of other capacities at eBay, including CEO of shopping.com. Having recently interviewed Josh, I would say his Evite experience is contributing to his current re-organization of Skype.
And Evite was a major forum for organizing my high school’s 50th anniversary last year.
Mark, as an FYI, you should also know a few Canadians (In New York) have started an Evite competitor at http://www.Pingg.com
Regards,
George
Mark – I think that we can all agree that Evite is now a mature product. With that idea in mind, they are simply not innovating like some of their up and coming competitors like Eventbrite, MyPunchBowl and Upcoming.org.
While each of these services provides their own unique offerings, they all do pretty much the same thing. But, in our industry and the era of “what is shiny and new gets the most attention,” Evite has dropped off the list of “cool.”
With that said, my wife and our neighborhood use Evite often – it still works exactly as intended and that counts for something.
Scott,
I guess that’s the downside of having a mature business – no one thinks you’re sexy anymore.
Mark
Facebook shares more photo’s than Flickr, and dwarfs invitation to events relative to Evites peak. Those 2 functions are just part of the social graph – and very tough to make it as standalone ventures today. You really have to go above and beyond.. re: Tungle.. will check out Pingg
I like evites from time to time, but for a closer smaller group we just use Google Invite (aka Google Calendar)
for company, it’s mostly Outlook
Hey Mark,
I also believed Evite faded into relative obscurity but almost directly after reading your post I saw an ad banner for Evite on dictionary.com.
Strange coincidence.