For Internet Invitations, a New Generation of Web Sites It's nigh on New Year's Eve, and you've decided to invite some friends over for Champagne, frivolity and Ryan Seacrest. So you draft an Evite and wait for responses. Mr. Seacrest seems poised to be the Dick Clark of this century, enjoying a long and ageless tenure over Times Square. Evite, however, does not display similar staying power. It was once both innovative and indispensable, but since being bought by IAC/InterActiveCorp in 2001, Evite has more or less been left to languish. And that seems to suit a lot of people just fine. While anything with such a significant market share will inevitably attract critics, drawing detractors might be the capacity in which Evite is most competent. It is on Time Magazine's list of "5 Worst Web Sites"; Valleywag's compendium of "Companies We All Hate" (holding down the No. 1 position); Radar's "Public Service Announcement," urging readers to "Stop Using Evite!"; VentureBeat's anti-paean, "Why I Hate Evite" and others with titles unfit for publication. This is a lot of hate for a service-oriented Web site. While the criticism can get very specific - Evite runs slow, Evite runs too many ads, Evite offers too little information on its invitations, Evite's navigation is geared toward page views, not usability - for a long while none of it mattered because Evite was the only game in town. But you're throwing a New Year's party for 2010, not 2005. While Evite is still the dominant force in the market, it has been unequivocally surpassed in both style and substance by rivals. So get cracking. The ball drops at midnight; Ryan is already suiting up. PAPERLESSPOST.COM This site is geared less toward creating a Web-page invitation than a virtual image of an actual invitation, complete with envelope. Paperless Post has the cleanest, classiest presentation in the field, offering dozens of interchangeable templates, images, colors and fonts, and even has more than 200 preworded options for events ranging from bar mitzvahs to launch parties. Happy New Year: Ad-free, this is by far the most elegant e-invitation site around. The Hangover: This level of sophistication costs. Five hundred "stamps" (one is needed for each invitation) can be bought for $25, with smaller batches available at higher per-stamp rates. The first 40 are free upon signup. Extras include adding photos and virtual envelope liners ($5 a mailing). SMILEBOX.COM Smilebox is far from the only option if you want to add photos or videos to your invitation, but nobody integrates them as spectacularly. Basic music selections are available with every template; upgrade to scour the site's music library or upload your own songs. Invitations can be posted to Facebook accounts and personal blogs. Happy New Year: Basic invitations, which include a significant amount of functionality, are free. The site also has a huge selection of e-cards, scrapbooks and photo albums. The Hangover: Free invitations are served with ads; ad-free invitations cost $3.99 a format (which can be reused), $6 a month or $40 a year. MYPUNCHBOWL.COM Offering more than just invitations, MyPunchbowl aims to help you plan your party, soup to nuts. This includes potluck signup forms, tools for building group consensus on potential dates, options to buy party supplies and even a gift registry. Happy New Year: Even if you decide against ordering hibiscus parasol straws or pirate eye patches, your options are solid. MyPunchbowl lets you crop, size and place your image anywhere on the card, as well customize template colors. You can post invitations on Facebook, Twitter or your blog. The Hangover: Going ad-free costs $30 a year, which includes additional design options. The "find a party venue near you" feature, while ambitious, is limited. Because MyPunchbowl has commerce partners, the site is rife with shopping links for party supplies. PINGG.COM Pingg lets you browse a huge array of options, by theme or designer (including Martha Stewart). For New Year's alone there are 41 free templates; Pingg also has a bank of four million images from which one can shop at $9 an image, with unlimited use after purchase. Custom invitations can be made with uploaded photos at no charge. There are link options for gift registries, charitable donations and PayPal expense-sharing. Happy New Year: You can purchase printed versions of your invitation for $1.50 each, and Pingg will mail them directly to recipients; Web-specific R.S.V.P. instructions allow you to keep track of attendees. For online invitations, custom Pingg URLs (www.pingg.com/yourevent) are available. The Hangover: Additional images and YouTube videos are relegated to the bottom of the page in an unattractive, blocky format. Ads are served with invitations; going ad-free costs $5 a batch. SOCIALIZR.COM Started by the Friendster founder Jonathan Abrams, Socializr brings a social-media mentality to the arena. Users" profile information from sites like Facebook, MySpace and Flickr can be aggregated, as can the information in one's address book. Users can see the events their friends are attending, and can promote events virally through friends of guests. In 2006, the Socializr investor Auren Hoffman drew some conflict-of-interest criticism when he wrote "Why I Hate Evite," the above-mentioned screed, for VentureBeat. Happy New Year: Custom layouts include a wide variety of fonts and unique images in each template; text can be integrated atop certain images (like the title of a book across its jacket) for additional customization. A comprehensive song library offers abundant options for automatic play when the invitation opens (think U2"s "New Year's Day" for a New Year's party). The Hangover: The company laid off a significant portion of its staff in September, so Socializr's future is not clear. FACEBOOK.COM If Socializr's social media strategy eventually fails, it might be because actual social media can be used to organize and manage events. With Facebook, users can create open, closed or secret invitations, upload photos and video, and invite people both through Facebook and standard e-mail. Happy New Year: Keeping invitations within the Facebook family makes it easy for Facebook users to receive and respond to invitations. The Hangover: All function and little form, this is strictly a get-the-job-done invitation creation. Although anybody can receive invitations, they must be Facebook members to respond. Check out PurpleTrail, Invitastic and Enclude for even more takes on the genre. No matter which way you decide to go, your options are plentiful. It might even be worth inviting your friends over to celebrate.