This post is a response to Mark Smithivas’s comment on my earlier Hello Google Invites, Goodbye Evite:
I’ve been making similar arguments to the Planypus founders about this very issue. If Gvite truly clobbers the small, intimate group planning arena, then maybe the opportunity for startups is to address the needs of event organizers who plan [...]

Each day brings new entrants into the social planner space. Here’s a quick recap of the key new entrant market positions:
democratic planning for casual near term events — Planypus, Renkoo
casual planning via calendar and email extension and integration — Google events
workflow and vertical integration — MyPunchbowl
Now let’s add two more:

tying event invitations to charity [...]

With all the attention I’ve given to nascent Web 2.0 event planning services, I’ve overlooked the offerings of the big gorilla Google. I used Google’s evite-like invitation service a while back when I first came across it but the reception was tepid and my interest in the space was nil, so I promptly forgot [...]

Renkoo released a public beta last week. My first impressions were “this is a pretty crude effort.” But I had deeper misgivings about it, Skobee, and Planyp.us and other new entrants in group social planning that I couldn’t quite articulate. Today those misgivings crystalized when emails flew back and forth about a [...]