It’s been a few days since we last posted but we’ve been hard at work and just pushed out a great feature that we’re really excited to share. For anyone who used Evite in the past and has realized there’s a better way, you can now import your Evite address book directly into Anyvite making it even easier to switch!

To try it out, first create a new invitation for your next get together (now is as good a time as any to get everyone together!). After filling out the invitation name and any other details, scroll down to the Add Friends box and click on the green Import Evite Contacts button!

Next, enter the email address and password that you use to login to Evite. We won’t save it, we just need it once so we can retrieve your Address Book. Clicking Get Evite Contacts will take you to the next step of picking the contacts you would like to add to Anyvite. Getting your contacts can take anywhere from a few seconds to a whole minute so be patient!

In the last step, we’ll list all of your contacts and you can choose which ones you would like us to save. Use the handy Select All link to easily choose everyone or just check the boxes next to the contacts you want and click the Next button. That will close this window and add all of the addresses to the Email Address box on the invitation page. To finish, just click on the Preview Your Event button and we’ll take care of the rest!

Evite unfortunately doesn’t make it easy for anyone, including you and I, to get contacts off of their site. This means that there may be a few bumps along the way as Evite changes their site, but we’ll do everything we can to keep this great feature up and running. We feel that it’s your information and you should be able to access it however and wherever you want!

We’ve also added a few other things to the site in the past week. You can now copy invitations and use them as a base for creating new invitations! This reduces the work of filling out all of the fields, inviting the right guests, and adding pictures and other media. We’ve also fixed some bugs and updates all over the site so explore and see what you can find!

We’ve also been working on a feature that we haven’t publicly released yet. We’re testing with a limited number of beta testers to refine some of the features and while it’s still early, we’re excited about this one also!

If you have any questions about any of the things we discussed or if you just have some feedback on how we can improve Anyvite, just use the feedback tab on the site to let us know. Or, you can always leave a comment here or email us if you’d prefer!

Thanks as always for using Anyvite!

We pushed out an update tonight which allows event creators who are canceling an event to add a custom message to the email notification before it’s sent to all recipients.  This is just a little update, but it saves users from having to send multiple messages to explain the reason for the cancellation.

Let us know what you think!

Have you still not uploaded a profile picture for your Anyvite account?  Is your picture still a grey silhouette?

Well no more.   Anyvite now provides a collection of avatars for you to choose from for your profile picture, ranging from human beings to animals and dinosaurs. Simply go to “settings” and “profile picture” to view all of the possible avatars.

Finally say goodbye to boring profile pictures!

At Anyvite, we constantly strive to create a better experience for the event creator and invited guests.  One way we’re doing this is by automatically populating new user and invited guest profiles with information from sites like Flickr and Twitter.  The end result is an invitation with a guest list where you can actually tell who’s coming, and enjoy looking through the pictures.

We hope to add additional social sites in the near future for even more guest profile info, so definitely keep checking back!

Since we launched, Anyvite has supported the ability to “try before you buy”, where you can use the service to create an event and customize to your liking, before registering and sending out the invitations.  As we added in additional features throughout the month of July, the “try it” portion of the service was often neglected, due mainly to some complications which arose in replicating the internal functionality for non-registered users.  We’ve spent the past few days completely reworking the code so that the “try it” portion uses the same code base as the “create event” functionality, which registered users are privy to.

What does this mean for you?  Basically, the invitations that you can create while not being registered or logged in to the service are significantly better than they were yesterday.  You can add in a main picture to your invite, either by uploading one of your own or searching Flickr through our site, as well as upload additional supporting pictures or link to YouTube videos.  You’re also able to add in a profile picture and display name before sending out invitations to your invited guests.

There are a ton of tweaks and new features spread throughout the “try it” process now, so explore it and let us know what you think!

We’re happy to announce a significant release from Anyvite today. Up until now, you’ve only been able to create invitations and invite people you know. With today’s release, you can mark an invitation as “open”. This will then provide you with a public URL, which you can post wherever you please. Anyone who follows that URL will see the invitation, and be able to RSVP with a form that is embedded on the invitation page.

Here is an example of an open invitation:
http://anyvite.com/events/home/qvdrpgu4z3/wine-tasting-in-sonoma-county

In addition to being able to toggle an event as “open”, you can also remove individuals who’ve been invited to an event, as long as they haven’t viewed the invitation yet.  This will enable event creators to clean up invitations where they’ve added incorrect email addresses.

We’re busy working on some more cool things, so check back regularly for updates!

One feature request we’ve been hearing a lot lately, and which has been a controversial topic with us for some time, is the ability to allow users to respond with “maybe”. Since we began working on Coordinatr, and then Anyvite, we’ve held firm to that fact that the site should support an all or nothing attitude, either you’re attending or you’re not. But, after many many conversations with users, specifically ones creating and organizing events, we came to the consensus that there are certain types of events which warrant the “maybe” option, and really, who are we to say that event creators shouldn’t have the final say with their guests?

So tonight we’d like to announce that Anyvite now supports the ability for event creators to choose whether they would like to allow their guests to respond with “maybe” or not. The only thing that needs to be done is to check a box during the event creation process, and the “maybe” option shows up in the drop-down box for users to RSVP with. A “maybe” button is then also included in all emails that invited guests receive, so they can easily respond from their email to the event.

We’re excited to see what event creators, and ultimately guests, think of this new option. Let us know your thoughts when you have a chance!

We just pushed out another update to Anyvite tonight which allows invited guests to update their name and picture right from the event that they’ve been invited to. There’s no need to register for an account or even leave the page to do this, all you have to do is click the link at the bottom of the Attending box. Once you’ve updated your name and picture, you never have to do it again (unless you want to) and they will be displayed every time you’re invited to an Anyvite event.

Try it out the next time you’re invited to an event!

When we started working on Coordinatr (the precursor to Anyvite) almost a year ago, the objective was to create a site which allowed you to rapidly create events without any of the frills (like pictures and colors). We launched Coordinatr and started receiving feedback from users, and the consensus was that the quick, intuitive approach to event creation was great, but people also want to be able to add in their own creative touch to the invitation.

Well, Coordinatr turned into Anyvite, and with it came the ability to change your background wallpaper, as well as add in pictures and video to support the invitation. People were happy with that…we started having more events created with wallpapers than without. But something was missing…

..and we think we’ve figured out what that is. The old saying is that “A picture is worth a thousand words” and we’ve taken that to heart. As of today, Anyvite now provides the ability to upload your own custom main image to the event, or search flickr right from Anyvite for the perfect picture to complement your invitation! The results from initial testing are awesome, and we’re looking forward to hearing your thoughts and feedback on how the new images improve your invitations!

We’ve also made a number of other updates across the site as well. In the past, users have had some problems adding in email addresses to their registered account . We’ve automated this process to be able to merge in all of your email addresses to your Anyvite account, while still retaining all of your past event info. This means that if you had multiple email addresses invited to multiple events, all of those events should show up in your one Anyvite account now. This was a substantial undertaking to ensure that no data was lost during the merging process, so we’re pretty excited about it. It also should make the Anyvite user experience much better, since it gives the end user total control of how they receive invitations across all of their email addresses, mobile devices and IM names.

There are a lot of smaller updates which are far too numerous to call out individually, so feel free to explore the site and discover what changes we’ve made! And this is not the end…we’re currently working on some really cool things that we’ll be periodically releasing throughout the month of August. Stay tuned for those!