Evite has firmly entrenched itself as the party planning platform. Throwing a party in two weeks or holding a BBQ next weekend? Make an evite and invite a bunch of guests. Let them RSVP. One person makes a plan and announces it to everyone else to accept or not. This system works for a big number of social functions. But what about the even greater number of informal social functions like dinner between friends on a Friday night?

Planypus aims to serve that category. The Evite plan announcement model flops here. Friends plan together as equals, negotiating any or all of who, what, when, where. They negotiate over phone, email or SMS in an imperfect and time consuming process. How do you put everyone onto the same page with Evite efficiency? Skobee made the first prominent attempt, but came up short on follow through, making only made a rough sketch of great ideas. Planypus took that sketch and refined it into an elegant, useful system.

The co-founders Yan and Alex were nice enough to allow me a preview of Planypus. (The beta launches early November.) The key page that distinguishes Planypus is the plan page. Rather than presenting a plan as a finalized event to be merely RSVPed, Planypus makes it a democratic process. With everything in a single view, and a liberal application of AJAX, participants can comment, vote on all major aspects of the plan, suggest alternatives, and invite others. (Links also allow you to make restaurant reservations and buy tickets.) The plan page is an interactive dashboard that's easy to use and natural.

One person crafts a plan and invites a bunch of friends. The planypus emails out a link to the plan. Each recipient can then participate and elect how to receive notifications about actions in the plan. Aside from email and SMS, RSS and iCal subscription or integration with web portal home pages or the likes of Google calendar are also options. Right now the communication is one way; interaction via SMS is in the works. Once someone finalizes the plan, the details are broadcast to everyone.

Plan initiators can draw on restaurant lists and event feeds for ideas. One click on the plan icon next to a listing brings up the plan page. Skobee was isolated in this regard.

I haven't had the opportunity to put the planypus in practice with a gathering of my friends yet, although last week presented a perfect case for the system. One of my friends planned a dinner, sending out an invitation to two dozen people. Through successive emails he had to poll interest on three different dates, announce the results, then poll interest again before making reservations. It was a lot of work for him and a lot of being in the dark for the rest of us, and we're not even done yet. Planypus would have added a lot of value here. I'll plan a dinner soon with it and let you all know how it goes.

Planypus' plan making ideas are no doubt solid. The question is how willing people are to change their old ways of doing things and who wins the pie. No one remembers the second or third competitors in Evite's space. Likely that will be the case in plan making too. Renkoo better hussle, the Planypus guys are agile with Ruby!

As a bonus for reading this post, I'm including a graphic I made for understanding the evite user base and its growth dynamics.

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