Final Thoughts - Blogging about Evite

I found this assignment a bit challenging to do, it could be because of the social software that I chose, but it was hard to think of new things that I had not already wrote about. This is why there were weeks where I just did not blog, because I just could not think of anything else to write that is related to the assignment or even to the course content. I found that I had to pick at details of the lecture notes since sometimes the big idea just doesn't fit. The reason I didn't want to change my social software was because I like using Evite and wanted to learn more about it, which I did by the end. This assignment made me think about this social software, and other social softwares in general, and how it is used as a way for us to socialize.

I think the process of blogging about a social software is a good idea, but perhaps about once per week is too much, especially since sometimes it's hard to find something to write about. There is also perhaps not enough feedback from Richard, the TA's and peers. Richard is doing a great job in recognizing people who blogged, which is a lot of work, but perhaps everyone should be required to comment on someone else's blog at least 5 times in the duration of blogs to give a bit of feedback and encouragement for our blogs.

Note: the first blog was something that I wrote before knowing that we had to write about a social software. I observed and reflected about my commute to Harbour Center and my view about the BC transit website.

Evite Blog Summary

Since I can only write 1-2 paragraphs, under 250 words about the process of blogging in my final blog, I have decided to make this 2nd to last blog a summary of what I have learned about Evite from doing this blogging exercise.

Evite is an online event planning and organizing tool. It allows organizers to easily collect and sort out comments from invitees, like whether he/she will go, what he/she will bring, and other responses that the organize asked. An invitee can see on one webpage who is invited, who is going, what other invitees will bring, and their responses to the organizer's question. I thought about the benefits and drawbacks of Evite as an event planning and organizing tool, but I realize that the benefit outweigh the drawback, that is why I continue to use Evite.

Evite is like emails, but it does not necessarily have the same effects on social relationships. I explained an example where Evite does not sustain relationships. I also described Evite as a community using a socio-technical perspective and technical perspective. Evite is not a good tool for activists trying to protest against something or someone. It can be used to initiate and organize a gathering, but it is not a good tool to sustain the relationship amongst the members.

Also from doing this assignment, I realized that in general, Evite is more efficient as an event planning and organizing tool when many participants are involved. Events were only a few people will be present and/or where a few people are invited is more efficient if other ways of communication is used (i.e. telephone, ICQ, MSN, etc.) since quicker replies can be received.

Lastly, I found out that there may be a flaw in Evite's privacy policy, or that it is a way for it to make money, but selling information to people or organizations outside of the business partnership (i.e. other companies who are not affiliated to Evite). This is something that users need to be aware of when signing up on Evite.

Evite, spam, and spyware

I only give away my SFU email address to people that I know and trust, and use another email account for things that I sign up for, or to subscribe newsletters to. When my friend wanted to send me an Evite, she could only find my SFU email address, and so she used it to send me the invitation to her party. Thinking that Evite would be ok as a site that I could trust, I didn't think much of it, until I started to receive spam.

I am quite paranoid about spam, thinking that they all contain viruses that want to attack my computer, so I don't open them and delete them right away. SFU's spam function in webmail does a good job of filtering it out of my Inbox. However, I'm noticing that I STILL receive a lot of spam and all I can do is spend time in my life to click and delete these unwanted emails! Ok fine, it's just a few seconds of your life, no biggie. But think, it takes about 3 secs to delete spam, and let's say i check email once a day. So, 3 seconds times 365 days in a year = 1095 seconds, which is about 18 minutes a year! I started using Evite during my first year, and my email account last for a year after I graduate. So 5 years at SFU plus an extra year is 6 years. 1095 seconds times 6 years is 6570 seconds, which is 109.5minutes or almost two hours! That's two hours in my university life wasted to deleting spam.

At first, I didn't realize it was Evite because it thought someone somehow got a hold of my SFU email address. But even now, in my 4th year of university, I still only give away my email to people I know and trust. It was not until a read in an article for my assignment 2 that I realized the cause of these spam could be because of Evite. The author in the article (available at http://ydr.com/story/technology/34708) points out that one of the biggest reason why she did not use Evite to invite guests to her wedding was becuase "it loads a lot of spyware on your PC and and then I'd get lots of pop-up ads".

I did a little researching about this disclourse of information and found this on their Privacy Policy section, "Evite does not sell, share or otherwise provide any "Personally Identifiable Information" you give to us with any Business Partner without your consent"
(http://www.evite.com/pages/custservice/privacy.jsp). By "Personally Identifiable Information" they mean name, email, address, etc. The problem with this statement is that it does not include individuals or organizations that not Evite's Business Partner. The rest of the Privacy Policy only talks about not disclosing info to other business partner, affiliations, and other users, but does not talk about people who do not use Evite, people who are not affliated, and people who are not Evite's business partner. Could this be a flaw in their policy? Or is this a way to balance the cost of their free service?

Evite needs to be used to stay alive

Perhaps like any other social software, Evite needs to be used to stay alive. I have noticed lately that I don't log onto the Evite anymore, probably because my friends are busy with exams and papers, or that it is just faster organize an outing without Evite. For example, my friend wanted us to go to whistler with her this weekend. Instead of organizing the trip through Evite, she first left messages to everyone on ICQ to let them know about the trip and if they were interested, and then called them one by one the next day and ask if they wanted to go if they had not replied, or confirm that they are for sure going. Since she could only bring 6 people with her, and 6 people had already replied, leaving ICQ messages was already sufficient and only needed to confirm that they are going.

Since this event is small, involving only 6 people, it was more efficient not using Evite. I find that people (i.e. my friends) usually check email once, maybe twice a day, whereas they are on ICQ or MSN all night. Evite uses email to first communicate an upcoming event, so if they did not see the email that night, then there will not be many replies until the next day, whereas with the ICQ messages, my friend got replies right away. Another reason how replies could be delayed is not a lot of people want to be the first to reply. They want to know who is going first, and so they wait until someone else replies. However, with ICQ messages, people do not know who else the message was sent to, so they would only ask the organizer who is going. Since only a few people were invited, the organizer could talk to each on individually and ask if he/she wants to go, therefore, getting a faster response.

Evite as a tool for activists?

After doing a search on Evite, I could not find any events that act an action alert to protest or rebel against something, but it certainly has the capability to do so. A person can organize a protest with the time, day, place, and other details all on one page. A downfall of this is that unless if the organizer knows the email address of everyone to be involved in the protest, it may be hard for the evite to be distributed.

Evite can be used to update and send reminders to an activist group's members; however, the event must not have already happened. If an event occurs in the past, it will not be displayed for the public to see, and the event will be labelled as past event (where invitees cannot reply).

Evite is not a good public information resource or a means of research circulation. As mentioned, an event organizer must know the email address of all participants before it can be widely distributed. A person may constantly search for events about a protest on the evite website, but if he/she who does not know about a possible protest, he/she will not search everyday for it.

As you can see, Evite is good to initiate an action, but it is not good for organizing and maintaining its current information.

After thinking about this, I went back to Evite and looked at the publicly posted events. They are all about parties or places to go socially/causally. They do not organize a group to rebel or protest against somebody or another group.

Evite as a community - using a technical description

Evite is a combination of bulletin board, and mailing lists. It acts as a bulletin board by allowing an organizer to post event details up for invitees to leave comments/replies. Evite acts as a mailing list by allowing organizers to import and create an address book where invitee's email address can be collected and organized. When an organizer wants to invite a group of people on the address book, he/she can send an evite all at once. It is because of these characteristics that may explain why I like using Evite. It's so hard to plan and keep track of the many different responses of invitees. I like how Evite allows me to send details of an event to all my friends at once and they can post their comments all on the same page. Invitees may wonder if a certain person is invited or going to the party. With responses all on the evite, invitees does not have to wonder and can find out the answer easily.

Evite as a community - using a socio-technical perspective

In week 10, Richard talked about communities, and I'm going to analyze Evite from a social-technical perspective. Let me classify Evite several characteristics as described in the lecture notes.

Voluntary, not mandatory
Creating an evite is voluntary; a person can choose to organize an event through evite or not. Creating an account and replying an evite is also voluntary. An invitee does not have to reply an evite.

Interest-based, not place-based
Everyone who uses Evite has the interest of either organizing an event and/or being invited to an event.

Public and open, but CAN also be private and closed
Event organizers can choose whether his/her event can be seen by the public or just to invitees. If he/she chooses to have the evite public, then anyone who searches for an event on the search engine on the evite website can see the event. If the evite is private, only invitees will have the link to it and only they can see the event details

Unmoderated, not moderated
Evite is unmoderated. There may be people who occasionally checks that events and details written about the event is appropriate and follows its terms and conditions, but there is no moderator who constantly look at every evite created and/or gives feedback to each one.

Asynchronous, not synchronous
Details that are written about an event from an organizer and/or an invitee is typed, and then submitted to the server which then updates the webpage. Other viewers can not see text as it is being typed.

Activity-oriented, but MAY be topic-oriented
People who use evite are either people who are organizing an event or have been invited to one. However, it is possible to search for a party with a topic of interest (i.e. American Idol party, Grey Cup party, etc.), and view the evite with details of the party.

Small group, but CAN be large group
An event organizer can choose to send the evite to a small group of people, but it can also be publish to the public, therefore, inviting a large group.

Real name, but CAN be anonymous
The email address that an event organizer uses to send an evite is visible to everyone. If the event organizer also inserts the real name of each invitee, other guests invited an also see the names. However, if an event organizer does not insert the real names, only the email address is shown. A person who does not know whose email address it is does not know who was invited.