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!

A few people have asked whether it’s possible to import contacts from their Mac Address Book. The answer is yes, but it’s not immediately straightforward, so we figured we’d post the steps on how to successfully accomplish this.

To Export from Mac Address Book:

1. Open Address Book version X.0 or greater.
2. Highlight the Group labeled “All” to view all of your entries, and tap the right arrow key to select an entry.
3. Select all of your entries by going to the Edit menu and selecting “Select All”.
4. From the File menu, select “Export vCard”
5. Enter a name for the file and a location where it will be saved.

Next, Import into Anyvite:

1. Click the “Import Contacts” button on the Address Book page.
2. Click the area that has the Plaxo and America Online logos. You may need to disable your popup blocker for this step.
3. When the Plaxo pop-up window appears, select the “Other” option.
4. Next, from the drop-down menu, select “vCard (.vcf)”, and select the file you created during the export process.
5. Click Next, and you should see a list of all of your contacts that you imported. Simply choose the ones you want to import into Anyvite, and click the next button.
6. The pop-up window should disappear, and the text box on the main Anyvite page should now be populated with your contacts. Click the “Invite Contacts” button and you’re done!

Hope that helps everyone who’s been trying to import from the Mac Address Book!

One of the top pieces of feedback we’ve been receiving is that we don’t display full names in the invitations, but rather the first part of the email address (unless a person has registered and updated their name). That primarily had to do with the way that we import contacts and utilize the concept of shared friends, which unfortunately restricted event creators from editing names on the guest list for an event.

In order to remedy this situation, we’ve introduced the concept of a personal address book (revolutionary huh? where you can import contacts with display names, and then edit or update any entries in your address book which may contain just an email address or an incorrect name. Then, the next time that you create an invitation and invite guests, the names will all show up correctly, and your guests won’t be struggling with who else has been invited.

We’re pretty excited about this updated feature as it allows much greater control over your invitation, and makes the experience significantly better for your guests. Even if you’re already a member, you can take advantage of the new importation feature for updating display names. All you have to do is go into the “address book” section and “add contacts”. Then re-add your contacts using your email account address book, or manually copy and paste addresses in. Just make sure they have the following format so the display names get pulled into Anyvite:

“Display Name” <abc@domain.com>

The site will automatically detect if you’re already friends with the person and just update the display name. You can then browse through your address book, and update any other entries which don’t have the proper display name.

We also now allow you to see the email addresses of the contacts you’ve imported. This should significantly help when determining who you want to invite to an event, and what the correct email address should be (usually personal or work). You can also view the primary email address of people who you are mutually friends with (they’ve accepted you as a friend). Now, we know that some people are very protective of their email address, and for good reason, so we have also implemented the ability to hide your email address from everyone who you are friends with. Just go to “Settings” and “Privacy” to update your settings.

Please let us know what you think of the new improvements to the site using either the feedback tab or emailing support@anyvite.com.