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The Super Bowl Party is an American institution that outpaces all other parties, even New Year's Eve. Americans spent 5.6 billion dollars on Super Bowl party planning, supplies and cleanup last year. Chances are, even if you're only in it for Janet Jackson's nipple, you'll still find yourself in front of someone's television come February 4th.
Hallmark estimates that the attendance for Super Bowl shindigs hovers around 17 arcana-wielding, thirsty, snack-craving football fans who are libel to riot if your beer supply runs dry in the third quarter.
But fear not party planners, the web is here to help. Whether it's sending out invitations, coordinating chips and dip, or cleaning up after the masses, Wired's got you covered.
For planning and invitations many will turn to the old standby, [Evite][1], but there's some new web 2.0 sites on the block that are trying to move beyond simple invitations. [Renkoo][2], [Skobee][3], and [MyPunchBowl][4] set themselves apart from the pack by incorporating pre-evite event planning tools and in the later case, post-party memory sharing.
MyPunchbowl, which launched just in time for the Super Bowl, offers a suite of party planning tools that aim to make your life easier. Using MyPunchBowl is simple, just create an account, create a party and add your friends to the list. MyPunchBowl will import your address book from most popular online e-mail providers.
Once you have everything set up you can send out your announcement (for events farther in the future you can send out a "save the date" message to announce a party you haven't fully planned yet). Before you send the announcement MyPunchBowl makes it possible to put a personalized message for each recipient at the top of your general email.
When your friends receive the message they can RSVP and there's no need for them to sign up to respond. There's also a forum-like tool included with each party page so people can ask questions and you can answer them. Unlike some services, MyPunchBowl offers you the option to show or hide your guest list from other invitees.
Wired party planning tip: Go with the public option and be sure to set up something like scarlett_johansson@gmail.com and include it on your invite list.
Any time you want to nag your friends who haven't committed to bringing the beer or chips you can use MyPunchBowl to send out personalized, taunting messages to the slackers.
Once you have the party planning basics covered it's time to get to the finer points of competitive sports -- online betting. Having your team win is nice, but having your team earn you a bunch of your friends' money is even better. Is it legal? Not in the U.S. and most betting sites are offshore so proceed at your own risk.
Gottabet is a British site rises above the crowd and allows you to bet on nearly anything using real money or, more legally, a site currency dubbed "peanuts." Gottabet functions like a typical social networking site, create an account and profile and you can invite your friends to join. Once you create a bet you can restrict it to private or by invitation only.
Settlement of bets involving real money is done by credit and debit cards and Gottabet takes a 5% fee off the top of your pot. It's also possible send a portion of the proceeds to charity.
So what happens after the party is over, everyone has gone home and you find yourself alone faced with cleaning up? For the lazy there's always the Roomba, the robotic vacuum cleaner, but depending on how closely your friends mirror the eating habits of barnyard animals, you may want something stronger.
Gadget Lab recently [reviewed][5] the Dyson Root 6 handheld vacuum and found it devoured everything from rocks to bobby pins. It doesn't have much battery life but the suction power is unmatched and by most accounts it's loud enough to wake up any passed out stragglers languishing in the dark corners of your domicile. Plus it looks like something from a Terry Gilliam film.
But there's more to the after party than clean up, it's time to share memories. So far as I know, Hallmark doesn't have any good sarcastic sorry-my-team-whooped-your-team's-butt cards to send out on monday morning while gloating to your friends, but you could always create your own with [MyCardMaker][6].
If you used MyPunchBowl to plan your party, you can upload your photos to Flickr and display the sets for others to browse through on your MyPunchBowl party page. Once your photos are on Flickr, just enter your Flickr username in MyPunchBowl and you'll see all your photos. Send out your photo announcement and your party guests can see your pictures and add their own as well.
With these web tools at your disposal you should able to tame the Super Bowl Party beast. Have fun and may the best team win. Go Patriots! Wait, what? Oh.
[1]: http://www.evite.com/ "evite"
[2]: http://renkoo.com/ "Renkoo.com"
[3]: http://www.skobee.com/ "Skobee.com"
[4]: http://www.mypunchbowl.com/ "MyPunchBowl"
[5]: http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/01/review_dyson_ro.html "Gadget Lab: Dyson Root 6 handheld vacuum"
[6]: http://www.mycardmaker.com/ "MyCardMaker"
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