The Death of the R.S.V.P

This falls on both sides, imo. With it being so easy to send out hundreds of "e-vites", as opposed to the effort/expense involved in sending nicely printed or handwritten invitations by mail, I can't be sure that the invitation was actually intended specifically for me, with any modicum of thought involved, as opposed to just being an email blasted out to someone's entire address book. So I tend to only respond to the ones where either I actually am going, or I have some reason to believe the sender wanted me in particular to come or give regrets if I can't (e.g., if it's a close friend, or I know I'm part of a smallish group of invitees).

I do agree that not RSVPing and still showing up is a breach of etiquette; a non-response ought to be treated as an implicit no, imo. But to help that along, it does pay to make sure to explicitly request an RSVP fairly prominently. Among the flurry of emails I get, an invitation that requires an RSVP, versus an open invitation that I can just show up to or not, aren't always that easy to distinguish (for example, I don't have to RSVP to show up to visiting speakers that my university sends me email "invites" to).

I'd love to see a simple RSVP web app done.

1. Needs universal login features that are amazingly simple.

2. Needs a Google Mapping system with automatic directions from your Geo or IP address general location.

3. Needs to exist on a single page in a very simple non-tabbed view.

4. Needs to be extremely sharable.

EDIT

5. Use Disqus for commenting.

6. Take a leaf from Vark and make it integrate with Instant Messenger, SMS, and E-Mail.

EDIT

Revenue? Perhaps charge for repeating events or more events than 4 per month. Something like $1.00 per repeating event, or 3 events.

"We prefer to remain flexy, solidifying our plans incrementally as the date approaches."

As a young person, I read this as: I'll come to your party if nothing better comes up.

Maybe a little education is in order - meet everyone at the door and tell the people that didn't RSVP to leave as you don't have enough food. I'm sure they will RSVP to the next party.

Too bad it ended up with a grammar error. :-) It should have said "Répondez Vite — ou Mourrez!" (instead of "mourir").

Had similar problems when I got married a few years ago, as did a friend. No tech issues - these were physical invites, with an RSVP card and stamped and addressed return envelope included. IIRC response rate was about 60% of attendance. The only thing I think I could have done to improve that rate was to ask guests for a meal choice - no response implies you won't eat. :)

I thinks it's combination of technological and social aspects.

Some non-tech people said to me that they couldn't figure out how to RSVP to Google Calendar invitation (link is provided in email).

Social aspect plays when other people see who and how many people have responded. Some people don't want to RSVP first because they don't what to seem like desperate people sitting at computer all the time. Some people don't want to RSVP because everybody else includes some witty comment and they can't invent anything witty enough. Some people don't want to RSVP 'No' and think that no answering at all is less antagonistic.

For me, I never respond to e-vites. Instead, I RSVP via an email to the actual person.

The Automated Invitation sites are very unattractive to me not for ease-of-use, reasons. I don't use those channels because to do so is not only sending an RSVP to the host, it's also telling the website that you'll be attending, as well as their advertisers, their business partners, and other downstream marketers, etc.

Let's not confuse social conventions and etiquette with usage of the Ad Revenue oriented vehicles through which were asked to attend.

I would be curious if the author would have followed the frequently cited studies in business and self-help books about increasing urgency by significantly reducing the amount of time allotted to perform a task--in this case to respond--would have helped.