If thefacebook.com wasn’t taking up enough of your time, a new Web site is here to take any unwasted minutes stalking through profiles. It’s called iventster.com, and it wants you to meet people in reality.
“It goes a step beyond just profiles by linking people through real events,” said Ali Moiz, a founder of iventster.com and junior at Williams College. “You can add friends on the site and check people to invite them to an event.”
Moiz and three of his classmates at the liberal arts college in Williamsburg, Mass., launced iventster.com two weeks ago. In about a week, it had more than 100,000 members from about 70 schools, including more than 1,000 Northwestern members. The site allows students to post events from performances to frat parties and invite whomever they want.
Moiz said the groups started planning the site in January.
“We were bored,” Moiz said. “There are lots of things happening on campus, and you only hear about them through friends.”
The founders wanted to put all events on campus in one convenient place.
“There were calendars scattered about and it was difficult to plan things,” Singh said. “It was hard going around and flyering for events.”
But the entrepreneurs did not expect such a big response to their solution.
“This crossed the limit of all our projections. We weren’t expecting this kind of growth,” said Singh, a freshman. “It’s great for us. We have a lot of stuff to do and we’re popular on campus.”
The ivenster.com team invited 150 of their friends to the site Monday and told them to e-mail their friends in mass numbers. And they did. About 10,000 students registered each day, Singh said.
“I feel like I’m making a difference,” he said. “It’s exciting to be able to do this independently and without the help of the college or parents. It’s an exciting project of entrepreneurship.”
The four started a similar site three months ago called Campus Parties that was not as successful, Singh said. The original site did not include a calendar or personal events, so the founders started over and came up with iventster.com.
The project has kept the team busy, Singh said. They handle support questions and make sure their server can handle the unexpected load of members.
Included in that unexpected load are about 1,140 NU students like Angelica Gonzalez, who got an invitation from a friend and thought, “Why not?”
“I thought it would be a good way to be up on what’s going down,” said Gonzalez, a Communication freshman. “(But) I don’t see myself using it that much.”
Meredith Applegate, a Weinberg freshman, said she will not use iventster.com “unless it catches on and becomes useful in the future.” Still she said it was a great idea.
Students who were not e-mailed an invitation to iventster.com said they would use the site.
“I’m actually not on thefacebook. I didn’t see the need,” said Omar Butti, a Communication junior. “I’m more likely to join (iventster.com) than thefacebook.”
Lauren Parnell, an Education sophomore, said she would use iventster.com if she was interested in the events.
“I like that it has a stated function,” Parnell said. “I mean, I like thefacebook as much as the next guy, but it doesn’t have a stated purpose.”
Reach Rebecca Huval at [email protected].