I know it looks like Evite is advertising in this piece, but they're not. I have created an evite to get a bunch of folks together for a cocktail party in Palo Alto next Friday (ping me if you want to be invited -- no trolls, please). While fiddling I noticed this new social slant in the ad: read reviews written by your friends.

This is another example of the ongoing trend where every online experience will be socialized by your network.

Of course the negative in this case is the incredibly bad user experience with importing contacts into Evite: no Outlook or instant messaging integration? Come on, get with it. The features related to keeping count of attendees, their comments, etc., are good, but I want to use my buddy list, thank you very much.

And shouldn't these guys be pioneering in the whole area of geolocation? The "ships passing in the night" service that I have wanted for years -- where friends can be informed when contacts happen to be in the same town or neighborhood (sort of like DodgeBall or Plazes) -- shouldn't Evite provide that as the context for having a get-together? Get real, guys.