Evite fails on the year’s biggest party night

December 31, 2008 | Anthony Ha | Comments |

Update: It’s past 9pm Pacific time, meaning that it’s now New Year’s Day on the East Coast … and Evite is still down. I think it’s safe to say that this isn’t planned maintenance, or if it is, it went horribly awry.

No one cool uses Evite anymore. You know this. I know this. Auren Hoffman, chief executive of search startup RapLeaf and an investor in competitor Socializr, wrote a column for us two years ago about why he hates Evite. But it’s still the biggest event website around.

Well, we can add another item to Hoffman’s litany of complaints — Evite is down on New Year’s Eve. That’s right, it’s down on the biggest party night of the year, meaning the event details stored on the site are now inaccessible to partygoers. And according to the site, the down time — which only includes “certain pages” (like, um, the main Evite site) — is due to scheduled maintenance. Now, I’m not really sure what’s going on; I’m guessing that Evite is having trouble dealing with traffic, and the “planned maintenance” message is just the default error page.

But maybe we should take Evite at its word, and assume it really did schedule down time. For 6pm Pacific time on New Year’s Eve. Friends, that was a bad idea.

Meanwhile, if you sent out an Evite invitation to a New Year’s party — say, an invitation to the author of this post — I’d suggest resending it via email. Or maybe it’s time to give in and use Facebook Events.

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Anthony is VentureBeat's assistant editor, as well as its reporter on enterprise technology, cloud computing, and tech policy. Before joining VentureBeat in 2008, Anthony worked at the Hollister Free Lance, where he won awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Association for breaking news coverage and writing. He attended Stanford University and now lives in San Francisco. Reach him at anthony@venturebeat.com. You can also follow Anthony on Twitter.

  • Next time anyone hosts something, try http://anyvite.com. We include all info in the emails so guests always have access to it!
  • test
    Sorry I'm testing.
  • George Grady
    Yes, this is absolutely crazy.
  • Matt
    This is really annoying. I actually need evite right now for some details I don't have. And I have no phone number. I'm going to have to start calling friends to see if they saved the number.
  • Yes, Gchat (and sending someone a link to this post) saved me.
  • Insane
    I can't access an invitation to a party right now. It's insane. Anyone ever hear of redundant server locations and network connections? A major site hasn't been down for maintenance since 1995.
  • Uh, I don't know if I'd go that far. How would you define "major site"?
  • tempovision
    Unbelievable! We're trying to access the site now as are two dozen others on their way to a friends nye party - this will definitely steer a few people away from the party and make everyone an evangelizing evite hater, as I can tell I'm already going to be.
  • I'm very curious to see if this has a long-term effect on the company's image. I'm guessing yes.
  • A website goes down during a busy time? Never heard of that before! Wow! This really is news!
  • barry
    Yes, it is big news when users learn they can't trust a website that has been around for years and has already been through at least 10 "busy times" just like this one. Seems like they'd have a pretty good idea by now of what to expect on the average New Year's Eve.
  • Yep, that's pretty much what I would have said.
  • Ashley
    I have a lot of sandwiches, hummus, pastries, booze, champagne, and a huge fruit tray if anyone wants to come over to eat. About 2/3 of my guests didn't come because they are fairly new acquaintances (some via work) and I stupidly invited them via evite. I live in Texas, so evite was down until around 10:45 PM central time (according to guest who arrived at 11:15).

    Never again.
  • makes
    send barry diller the food bill and cc: the new york times.
  • Andrew Watson
    This is a new meaning of the words "30 mins"
  • altho i don't expect sites like eVite that have been around for awhile to FAIL under these conditions, it will be interesting to see how many sites in 2009 who have cut back due to recessions are able to handle peak traffic days.

    a lot of sites are generally overstaffed, and can be run with a much smaller crew most of the time... until they hit a spike in traffic, or some other unusual condition occurs. then it's harder to manage with a small group.

    given that many businesses may cut back to skeleton crew levels in 2009 to survive, we might see a lot more FAIL happening. or not, but this is an interesting data point.
  • That's an interesting point, Dave. I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for that.
  • ghunda
    I used evite last night to check some addresses. Didnt have any problems (on the west coast).
  • Yes, a few selected pages were up, but not the invitation for one of the parties I was invited to. Plus, y'know, the evite.com main page.
  • JonesCat
    I put my event up on Evite on Dec.30th (West Coast). From six p.m. New Year's Eve my invite was completely inaccessible. Thanks, Evite. I'll know not to use the site in the new year.
  • SteveJ
    I have been using evite since really long time now, except 1-2 occasions, I have been personally very happy with it.

    I do agree with dave mcclure, it would be interesting to see how 2009 budget cuts will effect various web sites in coming future..
  • chris
    [correction: *Your closest group of friends, who don't nEED a freakin' evite]
    [apologies]
  • chris
    Ya know,

    If you think about it from a "it could be worse" perspective,
    it could have been worse.

    To wit: if you're throwing a NYE party, and a segment of the group had to be cut out without notice.. who would you want it to be?

    The strangers who forwarded the evite to chuckles, who forwarded it to reverend Phelps, who forwarded it to Cousin Nutjob. the mother of the Numa-Numa guy?

    or..

    Your closest group of friends, who dont neat a freakin' evite to know where you live.

    * PUT YOUR HANDS UP AND STEP AWAY FROM THE KEYBOARD *

    "Boo hoo a service that I dont pay for didnt work when I wanted all of my not-friends to come to my house".

    >argh<.
  • edhardy622
    My girlfriend bought me a pair of Chestnut color UGG boots short for Christmas.
    http://www.uggboots365.co.uk