It's been a good run. We've have laughed, we've cried, we've... ok, mostly just cried. What's up with evite? I swear, the only thing that the evite does is make the service worse.
The last Seattle Anti-Freeze event was the last straw. A few days before the event, messages we tried to send would silently fail. When your best selling days are within a few days, this is a big deal. The tipping point, however, was after the event: we could no longer export our guest list. We depending on exporting in order to drop people as they wish and to add new guests. So, that was it for evite.
After playing around with far too many services, I decided to use pingg.com. The designs are clean and simple - a big step up up from evite's cluttered interface. RSVPing is simple, and at no point does pingg try to force guests to register to do basic tasks like inviting their friends. It's missing a few features, like the ability for guests to remove themselves from the invitation (they do, however, support the ability to block someone which is sort of the same thing). I have a few little complaints, here and there, but all around pingg is a much better service than evite.
There's just one issue: people don't get it. RSVPs on all sides (yes, no, and maybe) have dropped significantly since leaving evite. I'm not sure if people are mistaking pingg invitations for, say, an invitation to join another annoying web 2.0's service, or if it's just getting lost in their email box. Either way, RSVPing is way down.
I heard so many people state that evite has no switching costs. Not true. The switching costs are huge and possess a scary unknown factor: Will people RSVP or not?
Every three minutes, a woman in the United States is diagnosed with breast cancer. One out of every eight American women will be diagnosed with breast cancer at some point in their lives. Seattle Anti-Freeze invites you to make a difference.
On Oct 1st, please join Seattle Anti-Freeze members for a silent auction to benefit Susan G. Komen foundation. Mix & mingle - drink & bid.
There is no cost for this event, but donations at the event for the Susan G. Komen foundation are, of course, appreciated.
DONATING ITEMS Got something cool, funky, unique or useful that you'd be willing to part with? It doesn't have to be anything fancy - all donations are appreciated! In return, you receive good karma, and two free tickets to a Seattle Anti-Freeze event of your choosing.
I'm always impressed by the number of tech / networking / startup opportunities in Seattle. Well, impressed / overwhelmed. Here's another one that came my way: Seattle Girl Geek Dinners.
The second dinner is coming up on Thursday, September 11 and will be hosted by Amazon.
Our 2nd dinner is right around the corner! Amazon.com is hosting, and will be presenting on some of the key technologies they are developing.
Thank you Amazon!
The date is Thursday, Sept 11 at 5:30pm.
To register: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/158982521
We also need help with finding sponsors, and are looking for your ideas on making this a great opportunity for local technical women to meet.
The authorities will be able to track San Antonio students with a history of skipping school using ankle bracelets with Global Positioning System monitoring. Linda Penn, a justice of the peace, said she expected that some 50 students would wear the devices in a six-month pilot program. The American Civil Liberties Union criticized the plan, but Ms. Penn linked truancy with later criminal activity. “We can teach them now or run the risk of possible incarceration later on life,” she said. “I don’t want to see the latter.”
You're going to give kids ankle bracelets? To do what, exactly? It's not like you don't know if they skip school - the morning roll call already does that. It will, however, ensure that they're treated like criminals.
(1) Listing of Alumni in the 2008 Who's Who in America (25%)
Ironically, Forbes' itself wrote an article ("The Hall of Lame") criticizing that it "appears to contain a lot of relatively unaccomplished people who simply nominated themselves..." Apparently, the majority of those who apply are selected. Anyone want to be in Who's Who? Think of how you'll help your college!
(2) Student Evaluations of Professors from RateMyProfessors.com (25%)
Students' input about professors to RateMyProfessors is limited to four criteria: Clarity, Easiness, Helpfulness and Hotness. Nowhere in there do the students provide information about how much they learned. And this accounts for a whopping 25% of Forbes' rankings? At least Forbes decided not to include "hotness" as a criteria.
(3) Four- Year Graduation Rates (16 2/3%)
This criteria appears a tad more fair. But still, what about a school which has a large number of students pursuing double majors, simultaneous masters degrees, etc? Some school encourage these sorts of academic challenges which would drop their four year graduation rate, while other schools effectively prohibit it.
(4) Enrollment-adjusted numbers of students and faculty receiving nationally competitive awards (16 2/3%)
For once, I have no complaint about this criteria. Ok, ok, maybe just one: is the sample statistically size fair?
(5) Average four year accumulated student debt of those borrowing money (16 2/3%)
For the 64% of students who do borrow money for school, leave it to them to decide if going into debt is worth it.
This is like ranking cars based on the average debt of its owners.
Forbes should be embarrassed by their list. 50% of the rankings are derived from extremely unreliable sources, and another 16.6% is a financial consideration that is best left up to each individual student. If you took their list seriously, you would be led to believe that a small, liberal college is the only place to get a solid education in this country.
What's really shocking about this list is that no one at Forbes took a glance at this list and said, "Hey, guys, did we really mean to put Hampden-Sydney College over 250 spots above NYU?"
Shame on Forbes. I'd expect better statistics from such a source.
Gayle Laakmann is a Wharton MBA student and owns two businesses, CareerCup and Seattle Anti-Freeze. She has previously worked for Microsoft, Apple, Google and, most recently, EmptySpaceAds.
e worse.
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