Instead, try ILCU, Renkoo, Planypus, MyPunchBowl. Some are more glitzy and attractive, others are so circa 1998 that it is laughable. Let's call this Web 1.0 Beta.

Evite

Evite is about an event dictator sending out an online invitation to a group of "friend's" email addresses. Sure, the "friends" are allowed a brief witty comment, and maybe the dictator will ask you some questions, but there really isn't much communication. It's about declaration rather than conversation. And we like to talk. But we keep getting interrupted with an ad being served between every step of sending and receiving an online invitation.

Score: D

ILCU

ILCU defiines itself as follows:

a gigantic network of hip-happenin' things to do and people to do them with in your free time.

It must be gigantic, because when we tried to see what was a "hip-happenin" in Atlanta, it never served any results. Besides, didn't Meet Up do this already, but better?

Score: F

Renkoo

Renkoo impressed us aesthetically. The tool allows you to plan an event, including the starting time and location. You can select a fixed time or open it up for discussion (this weekend, week, month and "someday"). As you do this, there are helpful little things like it looking up the location address based on the name you entered. Neat. From there friends can chat about the event, making suggestions or even voting on the time/date. Then, when you are ready, confirm the time and date, and you are set. Ah, sweet collaboration!

What's more, for the youngin's Renkoo provides the novel feature of allowing you to communicate using email, text, IM, or all three to decide a time and place. You are not just limited to email.

What you lose is the tacky design templates. All events look the same. While we personally think this is fine, some people prefer to feel like a professional web designer and use evite. We understand the fascination -- we practice web design all day (just in a bit more complicated manner).

Score: B

Planypus

Planypus is described as "a Wiki for your Social Life". This means it was created by programmers or web 2.0 enthusiasts who seem to think everyone knows what a "Wiki" is, or that "social life" should be in capital letters. The site is basically the same thing as Renkoo just not as fun, pretty, or feature-rich. It is Renkoo without marketing or a designer.

Score: C

MyPunchbowl

MyPunchbowl is what happens with some great web designer and web developers try to improve evite. The result is a well structured interface that makes creating and managing an event easy and enjoyable. Quality.

It lacks the sleek appeal of Renko as well as the IM/SMS/Email option, but it makes up for it with it's clear step-by-step process. In also has a great collaboration section where friends can discuss and vote on the place and venue. What's more, for the inner web designer in all of us it allows you to pick templates. They are not as customizable as Evite, but they are attractive enough to look homegrown.

We like the Google maps mashup that allows you to select a location based on an actual visual -- a map. Imagine!

Score: A

Socializr

Sorry Socializr, the online event sharing and planning table is already full. And your site is horrid.

Score: F