Want to invite all your Twitter friends to one event at the click of a button? Twitzu has simplified the process, allowing you to quickly create and publicize events. Fill in the details and it's sent off as a link in a Twitter update, along with a short optional message. Your followers can then RSVP on the Twitzu website.
Twitzu has great potential for organizing public events like blog meets or advertising small gigs, but you won't want to use it to organize a private gathering. One of Twitzu's main drawbacks is the fact that your event is not only broadcast to all your Twitter followers, it's also posted up on the main Twitzu page. With talk of Twitter groups in the making - it would be nice to see the two concepts integrated - allowing you to invite only certain people who follow you. The website is also sorely lacking a privacy option. Another huge drawback is the inability to edit your event once you've submitted it. Don't be fooled by the 'Edit Event' tab. It seems to be there only for show.
Twitzu is far from perfect - and we don't just mean the glaring spelling mistake on the front page - but if it gets enough attention it could turn out to be one of the easiest ways to ensure a large turn out at your next public event.
Bringing together a group of people can be a pain. Facebook events and groups, eVites, emails, text messages, smoke signals.
Mobaganda aims to make the gathering process that much easier.
Simplicity seems to be the new h0t on the web, and we like it.
As soon as you visit Mobaganda, you'll notice that you don't have to sign up for anything. Say what? Useless you say! I HAVE to put in my username/pass somewhere!!!! Nope.
All you have to do is name the event and set the date and you're off!
As soon as you create the event, a unique page is created like this one. After 60 days, the pages go away, so no worries about URL's being gone forever.
People can RSVP on the page, and an RSS feed is immediately available to track which cool kids are coming.
Simple, easy, that's it.
Manage the mob with Mobaganda and spend your time on more important things, like grabbing the keg.
Need to schedule a meeting with a group of people spread out across multiple offices in multiple time zones? When is Good offers a simple web-based interface for scheduling meetings or events.
The organizer just needs to select a group of times when they are free and enter their email address. When is Good will send you an email with a URL that you can share with other attendees. Each participant will see just the list of times you've already flagged as good, and they can highlight the times that work for them. Their responses will be sent back to the organizer, making the process of planning a meeting a lot simpler.
If participants are in different time zones, just click the "use time zones" option when setting up your schedule. And if you visit the page on a mobile device or web browser that doesn't support Flash, you'll get a simpler HTML-only page.
Microsoft is getting into the events business with their latest launch, Windows Live Events.
Windows Live Events is a part of the ever-growing Live suite of products that allows users of Windows Live Spaces to both share and plan events and send out invitations. The collaboration also continues through to the Windows Live Calendar where users can manage and plan events as well as set and receive alerts. Events can easily be personalized using custom templates that can include photos, videos and blog posts. When the event is complete, users can share photos and discussions based on the event.
Of course you need a Windows Live id to create an invite, but people that are viewing do not. Other Similar invitation tools include Evite, and MyPunchbowl.
Google has now made it possible to send updates to Calendars using SMS. The request to do so came in on the Google tip lines. People wanted a way in which to send text messages to add events, or a way to find out which events they had coming up.
The SMS updates work by sending a text message to 'GVENT' (48368) , with some details about the event, (ie. Starbucks meeting at 2pm). The GVENT will them be added to the users calendar immediately, and a text message confirming the details will get sent. If the word "day" is sent to 'GVENT', a text message will get sent back that contains all of the day's events. "nday" can also be used to get a list of all schedules for the next day.
Way to go Google, always innovating. Just let me pull out my cheat sheet so I can take a look at all the other shortcuts like this I can use.
Keeping track of calendars and appointments might say 'boring' to many users, but Google is aiming to change that stigma with their new Calendar gallery. With nary a 'Management Strategies' event in sight, this collection of subscribe-able calendars (which anyone can add to) is all about fun, travel, sports and the rest of life. Featured calendars include a Netflix DVD release schedule, Orbitz deals, presidential travel schedules and even specific TV show schedules.
Don't fret about the calendar subscribing process, as you won't have to deal with cleaning out schedules you never meant to follow. Clicking the name of any calendar offers a handy pop-up view of the entire month and all that particular calendar's events, allowing you to get a birds-eye view and decide before actually subscribing.
This is a great move for Google Calendar. Until now, users could only search public calendars, but not browse any kind of list, let alone see them organized into categories. Now that you can also view Google Calendar on your mobile phone, you never have to miss another appointment or actually interesting event again.
Event planning and management driving you crazy? Setdot could be for you.
Setdot is an easy way to manage and plan events online. Registration isn't yet open, but there is a list to join if you are interested in getting in on some hot Beta action.
Through Setdot, users can create stylish and professional looking events using different themes. Setdot can be used for a variety of events including anything from corporate functions, to house parties. You can check out a sample of Setdot in action here. There is support for location maps and a guest collaboration feature.
There is no word yet as to whether this will be a free service, or if there will be a fee for use, but from the sample shown, it is sure to help in the organization of events.
Don't always have time to check out what's going on in your city? Want to be notified about what's going on in your hot spot without always searching it out? You can now easily search for what's going on in your city by receiving SMS alerts. The down2night.com d2n application allows users to subscribe and receive SMS alerts on mobile devices from their favorite venues.
Users can browse venues in their areas, check out "what's down", with dates, times and a social voting mechanism. By voting on events that are being held at venues, users can judge how the turnout might be, and push it up on the list to become the most popular event. Users subscribe to the venues that they wish to receive information on through their city list, and then choose the day that they want to receive notification on. SMS notifications will list the most popular event for each location that is specified.
Current cities include Seattle and Tri-Cities Washington, with San Francisco launching next. There are also plans to include New York City, Las Vegas, Boston, Austin, Miami, Chicago, and Atlanta in upcoming releases.
I'm sure a lot of you had holiday parties over the last few weeks. How did your planning go? You could surely have used the new MyPunchbowl service. MyPunchbowl is set to launch its online party planning service on January 15th. Built by Punchbowl Software, it allows users to create an online community for celebrations. Members can use the service before, during and after parties to coordinate events, research ideas from the community, and share party memories after the event.
Unfortunately I was not in on the beta testing for the service, and it is now closed awaiting the January 15th launch. So we will have to stay tuned to check out the how well this service helps us party plan. Similar services in this sector include Evite.com, Eventful, and Upcoming.org.
Flash player Previously listening to Last.fm radio required downloading and installing a desktop app, which was less than optimal. While the desktop player remains, Last.fm now also has a version in Flash that plays inside your browser. It's compact and works pretty much as advertised, though I experienced a few minor connection issues. The buttons from left to right are Recommend this track to your friends, Tag this track, Express your love for this track, and Don't ever play me this track again. The player's only failing, in my opinion, is the absence of a Pause button.
Events system Last.fm now has a built-in event calendar that shows upcoming concerts near you. It shows gigs for the bands you listen to as well as (optionally) your friends' favorite acts and recommended artists. Users can add events that the system doesn't already know about, but I'm not sure if it also draws data from a more authoritative source, e.g. Pollstar or Ticketmaster.
Free MP3s The site now offers some free MP3 downloads. The download links appear both on your dashboard (based on Last.fm's recommendations) as well as artist pages. You can preview the each track before downloading.
Taste-o-meter Lastly, the Taste-o-meter, which appears on other users' profiles, tells you how closely your musical tastes are aligned with theirs, and what artists you have in common.
Overall, I'm pretty impressed with these new features, in particular the Flash player and the event calendar. I had almost given up on Last.fm in favor of Pandora (OpenPandora in particular). I've always been a fan of Last.fm's social features, and I'm glad to see them expand.
Rejoice, fellow Backpack users, for 37Signals today added a much-requested new feature for paid users: a calendar. As you may come to expect from the traditional KISS approach of 37Signals, the calendar is incredibly easy to use and enter appointments into. It's also 'smart', as it can figure out what events like "January 7 Catherine's birthday" and "6:30pm Dinner" mean, and it will place them where they need to go. Users can also create multiple calendars and assign unique colors to each, and events are pleasantly drag-and-drop-able between days. Unlike Google Calendar, this Backpack Calendar can remind you of events no matter which calendar they are entered into, however the reminders (at least for now) are set at a static 30 minutes before the event. Calendars are also shareable and subscribe-able via the iCal format, and just as with Backpack pages, calendar addresses are able to be reset, should you find a need to stop sharing one down the road. The one thing I haven't tested yet is whether this calendar has any kind of accessibility via Backpack mobile. If you try this out, sound off.
As a paid Backpack user (just the Basic $5 plan), I have to say: I am pleased. I retreated from using Google Calendar a little while ago, in part because of the silly limit of only being able to receive reminders for events in the Personal calendar, and no others. Plus, this is another great reason to start using my Backpack account even more, especially since I've found a killer offline Backpack client by the name of Packrat, which I've blogged on TUAW. One downer that I can see from this new calendar being a paid-only feature, however, is that (as far as I know) free account users don't have any way of testing it out. I guess freeloaders (just kidding) could spend the $5 to 'temporarily' upgrade and test it out, then simply downgrade if they aren't happy. Ultimately, I think this calendar feature is almost worth the $5 alone for any Backpack user looking for a little more organization in their lives.
Bringing together a group of people can be a pain. Facebook events and groups, eVites, emails, text messages, smoke signals.
Flash player
Events system
Taste-o-meter
