MyPunchblog

Once in a while something happens to you that just makes you feel good about human-kind. This is one of those stories.

A few weeks ago, I blogged about our new office. In a follow-up post, I asked readers of our blog to send plants to help make our office green. A few days later, some plants began arriving– mostly from friends and family. We appreciated every plant that we got, and it’s really given the office a good vibe. (Shameless plug: It’s not too late to send us more plants!)

Just when we thought we had received all of the new plants we were going to get, a small box arrived. In the box was a beautiful (and very green) plant with a note from a person I’ve never met. With the plant was a simple note: “Congrats on your new digs! May it become even more green. From blogger/fan Proud Geek.”

As you can see from the picture, the plant is really nice. It seems to love water; we can’t seem to water it enough.

I’ve only gotten to know Proud Geek over email. From what I can tell from the Proud Geek blog, he’s lives in DC (or around there) and he’s part of the thriving deaf community in that area. He’s an active blogger and writes about all things technology. One of the pages on his site that I really like is the “Doing Everything Online.” I hope he’ll continue to grow this page with more resources for his readers.

Proud Geek has blogged about MyPunchbowl in the past — and while he ran into a few problems, I’m happy to say that we’ve now addressed all of his key issues. It looks like the last time he used MyPunchbowl was before we fixed issues with email deliverability. Proud Geek: I hope you’ll give MyPunchbowl a try for your next event or party.

Thanks to Proud Geek for sending us a plant. You’ll forever have a special place in the hearts and minds of the Punchbowlers!

This morning, the “Digital Goddess” Kim Komando covered MyPunchbowl as the “Cool Site of the Day.”

Being named a “Cool Site of the Day” by Kim is an honor. Kim Komando has had a nationally syndicated radio show and a popular website since the mid 1990’s. Her company, WestStar TalkRadio Network, now does a weekly show in more than 450 markets around the United States. In addition, she has a very popular newsletter: according to her site, more than 5 million newsletters are sent out every week! Her most popular newsletter is sent out every Saturday morning to coincide with her morning radio show. More than 550,000 newsletters were sent out with a link to MyPunchbowl this morning (and yes, thanks to some advanced warning we were prepared to handle the traffic– the site is still running very smoothly!)

I pitched Kim and her team a few times last year and again this week after our announcement of the new MyPunchbowl feature called “Buzz.” The folks at the Kim Komando show are friendly and personable. It was great dealing with them as they prepared to feature MyPunchbowl on the Kim Komando show. Special thanks to David S. and James M.

Here’s what Kim had to say about MyPunchbbowl this morning:

It’s Saturday morning and you have the entire weekend ahead of you. So what will you do with your time off? If you had thought about it, you could have arranged a nice dinner party. Or maybe you could have hit the town with friends. Dinner parties and other events are difficult to arrange. Maybe that’s why you didn’t plan one for this weekend. But MyPunchbowl takes the hassle out of party planning.

Once you register, you can pick a date for your event. Then, send out invitations and create a checklist. The site even lets you manage RSVPs. MyPunchbowl is certain you’ll arrange some great parties with its service. So it will also help you keep the memories alive. It integrates with Flickr and YouTube for photo and video sharing!

Thanks to Kim Komando and her team for covering MyPunchbowl. I look forward to a long and mutually beneficial relationship with Kim Komando and WestStar TalkRadio Network.

Kim Komando, the Kim Komando stylized logo and the Kim Komando Weblink logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of WestStar TalkRadio Network.

I received a great question yesterday from someone who reads MyPunchblog:

“Hey Matt! I love your blog. One question for you: when you develop a new version of MyPunchbowl how long is the site unavailable? Everytime I login there seems to be great new features!” - Bill T. 

Bill, thanks for writing in– and thanks for reading our blog. I’m glad you’re excited about how we’re continually improving the site.

When we’re ready to push a new version of MyPunchbowl “live” we try to pick the best time of the day. For our latest new version, we pushed it live on a Friday morning around 9am EST, before the West Coast woke up. As we grow, we’re going to have to choose very late nights or weekends to push new functionality live. As you can imagine, it’s not ideal to have to wake up at 3am to push a new version live, so we’ve avoided that to date.

Now, onto your specific question: usually when we push a new version live the site is unavailable anywhere between 5 minutes and 20 minutes. We really try to avoid downtime, but sometimes there is no way to avoid it. For example, our most recent version (where we launched ”MyPunchbowl Buzz”) had a significant number of underlying architectural changes. This means that there were lots of changes at the server level. We were down for about 20 minutes. It’s a pretty intense time around the office when the site is down. We try to support whoever is in charge of deployment by staying out of their way but being available to test. When we went live on Friday, there were a few particularly tense moments when our lead developer realized that our mail server hadn’t come back to life. A few minutes later, the situation was resolved — but it made for an interesting morning.

So what happens when the site is down? Well, we try and inform our users. The image below is what you’ll see while we’re pushing a new version live.

Thanks for a great question– and check our site this coming Friday morning…. you might just see that we’re mixing up a new batch of punch!

We’ve been pretty heads down here over the last week or so. It always gets that way around here right before a major new release. Today, we’re excited to tell you about the latest version of MyPunchbowl.

MyPunchbowl now includes a sophisticated party planning notification system, named “Buzz”, which tracks host and guests interactions as they happen. MyPunchbowl Buzz offers the host personalized alerts during every phase of party planning. Guests can enable their own alerts on the site by signing up for a MyPunchbowl account.

The MyPunchbowl Buzz notification system is a significant step forward for our app. We’ve built a robust notification system that’s capable of handing any kind of messaging– we’ll be rolling out RSS by the end of the week, with SMS and instant messaging to follow. MyPunchbowl is no longer a static party planning site –it’s now a constantly-updating system for every stage of party planning. Based on the platform we’ve built, you can expect some pretty interesting things from MyPunchbowl in the future– we’re building a Buzz API to allow developers to build custom apps around this data (think Facebook app, embeddable widget, Twitter etc). We’re really excited about how this opens up our app.

I’ll write more about MyPunchbowl Buzz in a future post. In the meantime, here’s a screenshot of a MyPunchbowl account with the new Buzz notification system:

PC Magazine did a very nice roundup of some of the party planning sites recently, and I thought I would share.

Michael Muchmore wrote “Perhaps the most Web 2.0–feeling of the bunch, MyPunchbowl may also be the easiest to use, with its step-by-step invitation-creation process. It also brings a couple of tricks all its own to the party.”

I like how Michael pointed out our unique “Pick a Date” feature which allows the host to privately designate some guests as VIP’s as you use MyPunchbowl to help you pick a date. If you haven’t tried Pick a Date yet, try using it for your next event or meeting. It will help you coordinate a large group of people and pick the date that works for your most important guests.

Thanks to Michael for the article. I hope he gets a chance to do a more full review of MyPunchbowl in the future. As our users know, we have the most sophisticated event and party planning site on the web. And we’re building and improving the site everyday.

Party Planning and Online Invitations with MyPunchbowl

The last few days have been a whirlwind for the Punchbowl team. We’ve moved!

We’ve opened our new office in Framingham, MA just a few minutes away from the I-90 highway (for those of you not from this area, we’re about 30 minutes from Boston, without traffic). It’s a great location for our employees, and provides room for us to grow in the future.

The new office is pretty spacious and has a couple of great rooms: one we’ve nicknamed “The Bowl” and the other “The Cave.” I work in the Cave– despite it’s nickname, it has a nice window and lots of natural light. The Bowl is the main room where the real work takes place. We’re really happy with the setup and vibe of that room in particular.

We have plenty of space in the office, with room for brainstorming on the whiteboard and meetings. There’s also a “lounge” area which is great for lunch and impromptu discussions. We also have a conference room which we can use for more formal meetings with investors or partners.

There are a few other tenants in the building, and it’s a dog-friendly office. Don’t tell his owner, but we’ve adopted one of the other residents of the building… meet the newest Punchbowler (his name is “Mozart”):

If you’re a friend of Punchbowl (canine or otherwise), we hope you’ll get a chance to come by and see our new digs at some point. But make sure you come with a plant or other foliage in hand– we could use some!

The new Punchbowl office is located at 873 Concord Street, Framingham, MA 01701.

Party Planning and Online Invitations with MyPunchbowl

There’s an saying in startup companies: “you don’t really know your product until you’ve eaten your own dog-food.” Over the past few weeks, I’ve been using MyPunchbowl on a daily basis as I planned our 12th annual Groundhog Day party. I’d like to think that I know my own product very well, but these last few weeks have helped crystallize my impressions of the product that I’ve helped build. Here’s a quick list of what I’ve learned:

Co-hosts: By far, one of the best features of MyPunchbowl is the ability to have co-hosts. I wish every MyPunchbowl user knew about this feature. As far as I know, we’re the only party planning website to offer true co-hosting. I made my wife a co-host and she’s been able to keep track of the guest list and party checklist by logging into her own account. Awesome.

Manage Guests page: I’m surprised at just how many times I’ve interacted with the Manage Guests page. It’s very useful and has all of the key features that I need. One problem that I’ve spoken with the team about: in my opinion, the page loads too slow. I have about 65 guests on the page, and it takes about 4 seconds to load. Too slow. Look for performance enhancements on this page in the future.

Party Checklist: Very, very useful. It’s great to be able to make a list of everything that we need and have guests choose something off of the list. It really helps relieve the burden of having to handle everything. Example: We put “6 packs of beer” on the list (8 of these), and they have all been taken care of by the guests who are coming. Wishlist: I wish I could set up SMS reminders for checklist items so that the people who agreed to bring something would get a reminder on their phone. Look for SMS integration throughout MyPunchbowl in the future.

RSVP Responses: Another fantastic thing about MyPunchbowl. I love that those who are not coming can send me a private note easily. The people who aren’t coming took the time to write significant, personal notes to me. On other sites, a guest who responds ‘no’ has to try to come up with a witty response (because everyone is going to see it). On MyPunchbowl, the guest can send the host a private note, allowing for a more personal connection. Awesome.

Party Themes: I’m really happy with all of the great themes that MyPunchbowl provides. I was quickly able to find a Groundhog Day party theme that fit what I was looking for. I love how easy it was to sort through the hundreds of templates. My favorite feature on this page is how I can find templates using keywords. I simply went to “G” and chose Groundhog. Simple and easy to use.

All in all, I’m really happy with MyPunchbowl. It really helped us with our party planning, and my wife and I feel relaxed and ready to welcome around 30 guests into our home on Saturday.

Happy Groundhog Day!

Party Planning and Online Invitations with MyPunchbowl

Party Supplies for our eco-friendly theme: Check.

5 gallons of green punch: Check.

Online invitation sent: Check.

Amusements ordered from groundhog.org: Check.

To do:

- Check the party planning checklist on MyPunchbowl to see what people are bringing

- Buy a cooler for all of the beer

- Repair the inflatable bed for anyone who needs to crash at our house

- Proudly display my authentic “I was in Punxsutawney for Groundhog Day 1994″ certificate

Only 2 days until the 12th annual Groundhog Day party!

Well, it’s that time of year…again. Time to urge a little furry rodent from Punxsutawney, PA out of his burrow and hope that spring is right around the corner. If you live on the East Coast, you know that we could really use an early spring this year.

Those who know me, understand that some of the inspiration for MyPunchbowl.com came from my fascination with Groundhog Day. It’s a long story, and best told over a few beers: suffice to say that it involved a 12 hour car ride, an AP reporter, entrance into the “Inner Circle”, and a chicken factory. Yes, a chicken factory. The boneless skinless kind.

So it began in 1997. Fast forward to 2008, and my wife and I are planning our 12th annual Groundhog Day party. That’s right, 12th. This year will be particularly fun, as all of the Punchbowlers and friends will be gathering for an evening of raucous debauchery.

I sent out my Groundhog Save the Date a few weeks ago, the full online invitation to follow very soon. If you didn’t get an invite….well, I probably didn’t want you to see me drunk on tequila. Sorry about that.

If you’re looking for an excuse to get people together, I’d highly recommend Groundhog Day. This year it falls on a Saturday– even better. Why should you celebrate Groundhog Day? Well, can you think of a better way to worship a furry rodent who has been accurately predicting the weather for over 100 years? I didn’t think so. Oh, and I’d recommend using MyPunchbowl.com — they have some great Groundhog Party themes
If you’re having a Groundhog Day party, please make a comment on this blog post– I’d love to hear from you.

Phil! Phil! Phil! Isn’t he cute?

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Party Planning and Online Invitations with MyPunchbowl

Some of you may have noticed the new home page on MyPunchbowl.com. If you haven’t checked it out yet, I’d encourage you to do so before reading this post.

I have many thoughts about the new home page design, but there’s one that keeps creeping to the front of my brain. Design is hard. Really, really hard. If you’ve never done it before, you’ll probably look at the new home page and say “yeah, that makes sense, looks pretty easy.” If you have done design before, you’ll notice the 100 little things that make this design look so right.

I think back to the first home page design of MyPunchbowl.com and just how far we’ve come. I’m thrilled with what we’ve learned about good design, and really proud of our new home page. And that’s not all: since we launched our new home page, our signup traffic is up by more than 40%. Ultimately, this is the true measure of success.

So take a look and notice the 100 little things: and then email your friends and tell them to check it out. Thanks.

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Party Planning and Online Invitations with MyPunchbowl