Crusher (website)

Crusher, Inc.

Type	Private
Industry	RSVP, events publishing
Founded	August 2006
Headquarters	San Francisco, California, USA
Revenue	none (2008)
Website	http://crush3r.com/

Crusher is a free web-based invitation service, a competitor to Evite^[1], based in San Francisco, CA. Crusher is a utility in the creation of customizable invites for art, music, film events, or just a party.

Crusher Inc. began roughly in August 2006 and launched its beta service in May 2007. Crusher was conceived out of the frustrations of using Evite and a clear lack of alternatives. It was founded by Ericson deJesus (of Yahoo! and frog design) and Phillip Bensaid (of frog design) and its beta development was led by Doug McBride (of Ofoto) and Russell Richardson (of Microsoft and Siebel). By early 2008 the Crusher team has disbanded to take on other employment. In late 2009, Michael Dungan joined Ericsond deJesus in continuing the development of Crusher.

^{[2] [3] [4] [5]}

Usage

A person wishing to create an online event invitation is able to use the service - even without having signed up for a membership. The event organizer customizes the features and design of the event page, then sends out email invites. A guest is able to RSVP using a unique slider widget with an array of nine responses (impossible, raincheck, not likely, play it by ear, undecided, will try to, yes I plan to, count me in, will be early) which are customizable by the user as well.

Features

• Invite emails contain all core event information and does not require guests to visit the website.

• Invitees are automatically added to a contacts list and tagged with the event title.

• Organizer can limit the maximum number of guest RSVP's.

• Organizer can control how guests appear on the guest list by uploading photos of guests.

• Organizer can send announcements scoped to a particular invitee set.

• Organizer can create a list which guests can claim items from to bring.

• Layout and visual customization, full CSS editing.

• Integration with Google Maps, Google Calendar, Flickr photos, and PayPal.

• Guests can see which other guests have crossed their path via "familiar faces".

• Organizer can customize RSVP slider responses by entering their own text.

• Organizer can track the status of their sent invitations via a guest list spreadsheet.

References

1. ^ "Webware - Crusher takes a fresh look at online invitations" July 11, 2007
2. ^ "VCs Tell Startups: Don't Show Me the Money (Yet)" December 4th, 2007, WIRED
3. ^ "Daily Candy - The Weekend Guide" Thursday July 26th, 2007, DailyCandy.com
4. ^ "Website Of The Day: Crusher" Thursday, July 26th, 2007, geeksugar.com
5. ^ "Crusher!" Friday July 20th, 2007, joshspear.com