Did You Know that Evite Sucks?

By now, pretty much everyone on the Internet has gotten or sent an Evite, those ubiquitous, slightly annoying online invitations to everything from weddings to barbacues.

I don't care much for Evite, but I don't hate it. It's an online system, it has some cool features that weren't available pre-Internet, and it does what it's supposed to do, which is invite people to an event and track who said yes and no.

But there are apparently many other, better online invitation sites out there, including Socializr. But until today, I had never heard about them, nor did I care. Online invitations are not a big part of my life.

I heard about the alternatives from an article I happened to be reading about Jonathan Abrams, the founder of Socializr and before that, Friendster. He, uh, feels very strongly about the evils of Evite and the superiority of his and other services.

But until today, I had never heard of them! No one invited me to an event using his service. There was little buzz in the wider world about these alternatives.

And this is the point: Abrams is spending a lot of time railing about Evite when he should be spending his time promoting the virtues of Socializr! That's real PR. Yes, I finally heard about Socializr today and will check it out. But I still don't know a lot about what makes it superior to Evite. That's where Abrams is really missing an opportunity.

PR lesson: you may draw attention by picking a fight, but you don't build a business that way. People want to know what you offer them to solve problems and make their lives better or easier, not just what you are NOT.

Bonus PR lesson: Great names rule! Evite is a great name. It tells you what it is, it's like an e-invitation, it's an Evite. What the hell is a "Socializr," and did I spell it right? Simplify, dude, and come up with a better name!