MyPunchbowl: The Algorithm Schedules Your Event
eVite has been a target of several startups over the past year. Sites like Skobee or Renkoo have differentiated themselves by helping plan the casual outings for drinks or dinner. Socializr is taking a social networking approach.
Context & Ripple Effects
eVite's hold on online invitations has been under attack all year, and each challenger is picking a different seam. Socializr's March 2007 launch went after it with a social networking angle, while Skobee and Renkoo target the casual drinks-and-dinner outing.
MyPunchbowl's entry completes a third flank: rather than competing on who attends or how social the tool feels, it competes on labor — its algorithm proposes the schedule for the host instead of leaving every detail to manual planning.
First-order effects
- Hosts choosing an event-planning tool in 2007 now face three distinct value propositions against eVite's default: social graph (Socializr), casual outings (Skobee, Renkoo), or automated scheduling (MyPunchbowl).
- MyPunchbowl's differentiation rests entirely on whether its scheduling algorithm actually saves planning time — if it does not, it collapses back into another me-too invitation site.
Second-order effects
- eVite is forced to defend on multiple feature fronts at once, since no single challenger matches its scale but together they fragment the reasons users stay with it.
- Differentiation pressure pushes the whole category toward bundling more of the event workflow — scheduling, invites, coordination — raising the bar for any new entrant that only replicates invitations.
Third-order effects
- The pattern here — a comfortable incumbent picked apart by startups each owning one workflow improvement — suggests online event planning consolidates eventually around whoever integrates the pieces first, with the niche challengers absorbed or faded out.
- Automation as the wedge (algorithm-scheduled events) points toward event tools competing on reduced host effort rather than guest-facing features, a framing that outlasts any single player in this cohort.
The trend: Online event planning in 2007 is being unbundled around the incumbent eVite by startups differentiating on workflow — social features, casual outings, automated scheduling — setting up eventual reconsolidation.