Punchbowl Blog

This post written by Stephanie Fader, Marketing & PR Manager

Last week was a big week for the Punchbowl team. After many months of hard work, we unwrapped our new Digital Invitation Studio. To celebrate, I decided to make a fun treat for the team: delicious chocolate cupcakes!

To lighten things up and give the team a well-deserved laugh, I decided to top the cupcakes with edible faces that I ordered from our partner, Oriental Trading Company. The cupcakes ended up being a big hit, and they were really fun to make.

It’s great to work at a place where you can work hard, accomplish great things, and take a few minutes out of the day to stop and enjoy some cupcakes.

This post written by Stephanie Fader, Marketing & PR Manager

If you love to cook or bake and have imaginative, original Halloween recipes to share, we want to know! This month, Punchbowl launched a contest to find the scariest, creepiest, most creative Halloween recipes of all time. Our Halloween recipes contest is your chance to showcase your unique talent and abilities in the kitchen—and be recognized for it.

From spider cupcakes to Jell-O brains, we want to see it all! Anyone can enter the contest. Simply email us your best Halloween recipes before 11:59 p.m. EST on October 25, 2010. All recipes must include a list of ingredients and directions for making the dish. A link to a blog post about the recipe is also acceptable.

Once we’ve received the entries, we will chose the five most creative Halloween recipes to feature on Punchbowl. We will announce the winners and their recipes in a special email newsletter the week before Halloween. Winners will also receive a Punchbowl Platinum membership.

It’s easy to enter, just email us your Halloween recipes today!

Official Rules:

No purchase is necessary to enter or win. A purchase of payment will not increase your chance of winning. Contest open to persons 18 years of age or older. The winners will be notified via email on or before October 27, 2010. All recipes become the property of Punchbowl Software, Inc. and may be edited, modified, published, and otherwise used at Punchbowl’s discretion. Punchbowl Software reserves the right to cancel, terminate or modify the Contest if it cannot be operated, conducted or completed as planned, for any reason.

This post was written by Matt Douglas, Founder & CEO, @mattdouglas

After months of hard work by the entire Punchbowl team, I’m very excited to announce the launch of Digital Invitation Studio in time for Halloween party planning. Digital Invitation Studio is a beautiful collection of pre-packaged online stationery sets for events and celebrations, complete with invitations, envelopes, liners, rubber stamps, and postage. The best part: it’s completely free to use so you can eliminate the costs of paper and postage from your next party or event.

I look forward to hearing what you think about Digital Invitation Studio — please share your feedback on our Facebook page.

Here’s the official announcement:
Wouldn’t it be great if you could have the quality, experience, and personalization of printed invitations without the cost of paper and postage? Today, Punchbowl.com, the one-stop site for start to finish party planning, has reshaped the fine stationery market with the unwrapping of Digital Invitation Studio — a beautiful collection of free, pre-packaged online stationery sets for events and celebrations, complete with invitations, envelopes, liners, rubber stamps, and postage.

With hundreds of pre-packaged online stationery sets in stunning designs and color palettes, Digital Invitation Studio turns the page on paper as the sole option for hosts who want the elegance of printed invitations. In addition to beautiful stationery sets and custom accents, Digital Invitation Studio allows hosts to deliver a stamped envelope directly to a guest via email and replicates the act of opening a paper invitation.

“For the first time in online party planning, there exists an alternative to traditional paper invitations without any of the associated costs,” said Matt Douglas, CEO, Punchbowl. “With envelopes in different shapes and colors, themed postage stamps, and realistic postmarks, Digital Invitation Studio offers the quality and sophistication of paper invitations for free.”

Highlights of Digital Invitation Studio include:
•    Hundreds of pre-packaged stationery sets in stunning designs and color palettes
•    An assortment of standard envelope sizes in multiple color options
•    Custom accents such as envelope liners and rubber stamps
•    Free customizable postage stamps
•    Improved guest experience that replicates the act of opening a traditional paper invitation

“The distinction between digital and paper invitations has been eliminated with Digital Invitation Studio,” said Michael Waxman-Lenz, former GM of AmericanGreetings.com and Punchbowl Board Director. “Consumers can use Punchbowl for all aspects of planning a party online — from sending invitations, to managing the guest list, to finding local vendors.”

Over one million registered users have chosen Punchbowl for party planning. Punchbowl is ideal for planning birthday parties, baby showers, Halloween parties, Christmas parties, and even Thanksgiving dinner. In addition to the consumer site Punchbowl.com, the company licenses its technology to leading retailers such as Oriental Trading Company and 1-800-FLOWERS.

To explore Digital Invitation Studio, visit: http://www.punchbowl.com/digital-invitations

This post written by Stephanie Fader, Marketing & PR Manager

Punchbowl is excited to announce that we’re participating in Boston Regional Entrepreneurship Week (BREW). BREW is a week dedicated to celebrating everything related to launching and nurturing companies in the Boston area. Punchbowl has been active in the Boston tech community since we launched in 2007 so we’re happy to be able to host this event in conjunction with BREW.

The Punchbowl event celebrating BREW Week will be held on Tuesday, October 12 at the British Beer Company in Framingham, MA. We’re calling the start-up community in the Metrowest area to come and join the Punchbowl team for a few beers and conversation. Together, we’ll demonstrate that there are lots of interesting and successful start-ups outside of Boston and Cambridge. We invite you to come meet the Punchbowl team and hear stories of our start-up journey. This event will bring together entrepreneurs, developers, mentors, and marketers in Metrowest and beyond. Register for the event now.

We look forward to seeing you there!

This post written by Stephanie Fader, Marketing & PR Manager

Wednesday, September 29 is a big day for caffeine addicts everywhere—it’s National Coffee Day! This annual holiday is one of the most popular Reasons to Celebrate of the year. Is anyone surprised? You can enjoy coffee in a number of ways, whether it’s hot, iced, flavored, decaf, espresso, cappuccino, or latte!

Here are three ways you can celebrate National Coffee Day:

1) Send a free National Coffee Day eCard to remind your friends, family, and coworkers to take a coffee break in honor of National Coffee Day.

2) Enjoy a free cup of joe from participating coffee shops. Find out where you can get free coffee.

3) Spread the word about National Coffee Day with your social networks, like Facebook and Twitter. We have easy “Share” options right on the National Coffee Day page  (below the National Coffee Day description) that you can use to spread the word!

Don’t forget to take time out of your day for a coffee break of your own. Enjoy National Coffee Day!

This post was written by Matt Douglas, Founder & CEO, @mattdouglas

I’m excited to tell you about a new partnership for Punchbowl. As you might know, in addition to running Punchbowl.com, we also work with leading retailers and media companies. Our newest partner is 1-800-FLOWERS.COM who we’ve partnered with to launch the Celebrations Party Planner.

Here’s the full announcement from Celebrations.com, a subsidiary of 1-800-FLOWERS.COM:

CELEBRATIONS® Teams up with Punchbowl.com to Offer Party Planning Service

CARLE PLACE, N.Y., Sept. 20 /PRNewswire/ — Just in time for the upcoming holiday season, Celebrations the premier online destination for fabulous party ideas and planning tips located at celebrations.com, has joined forces with Punchbowl.com to launch the Celebrations Party Planner. With this additional Party Planner capability, Celebrations, a subsidiary of 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, Inc. (FLWS), is a one stop resource for all of your party planning needs.

The Celebrations Party Planner, powered by Punchbowl, is a free service that includes the core party planning features of Punchbowl.com. The Celebrations Party Planner complements the planning content already found on Celebrations.com, including expert advice, exclusive tips, and recipe, theme and decor ideas.

“Punchbowl provides a high-quality innovative party planning platform from start to finish,” said Jim McCann, Founder of Celebrations. “We are excited to offer our customers a convenient way to plan their parties and events on Celebrations.com.”

The innovative features of the Celebrations Party Planner makes it ideal for planning Halloween parties, Christmas parties, New Year’s parties, and even Thanksgiving dinner. The Date Decider helps hosts get a group consensus on the ideal party date—one of the biggest challenges during the busy holiday season. Design Studio offers hundreds of stylish and modern invitations and save the dates, each with companion envelopes in a variety of shapes, sizes, and stunning color palettes. The Potluck allows guests to easily sign up to bring items and hosts are able to effortlessly manage potluck details In addition, hosts are able to keep track of their RSVP list with ease and share party elements with their social networks.

“We are delighted to work with Celebrations to bring our party planning platform to their customers,” said Matt Douglas, CEO, Punchbowl Software. “Punchbowl shares the Celebrations commitment to help customers connect and build lasting memories with the important people in their lives.”

To learn more and create a free account, visit the Celebrations Party Planner: http://celebrations.punchbowl.com.

This post written by Stephanie Fader, Marketing & PR Manager

After last week’s excitement, it’s nice to have some fun Reasons to Celebrate coming up this week, like National Checkers Day on Thursday, September 23 or Love Note Day on Sunday, September 26.

One thing that’s great about our Reasons to Celebrate is that they’re really perfect for parents and teachers. With the number of food holidays on the calendar, our Reasons to Celebrate sometimes help with menu planning. How about making Pecan Cookies for dessert on Tuesday, September 21 or planning a seafood spectacular for Crab Meat Newburg Day on September 25.

For teachers, Reasons to Celebrate make great topics for the classroom. Take Checkers Day, for example. It’s not exactly what you might think. While most people hear Checkers Day and assume it’s meant to celebrate this classic game, this holiday’s origins stem from politics!

Here’s the entire list of this week’s Reasons to Celebrate:

• September 20: National Punch Day
• September 21: National Pecan Cookie Day
• September 22: National White Chocolate Day
• September 23: National Checkers Day
• September 24: National Cherries Jubilee Day
• September 25: Crab Meat Newburg Day
• September 26: Love Note Day

Also, did you know that Halloween is just six weeks away? If you’re trying to come up with costume ideas, consider hosting a Halloween costume exchange party to recycle costumes with friends. You’ll clear out your closet AND come away with a new costume. Get some tips for how to host a Halloween costume exchange party or start planning your own Halloween party!

This post written by Stephanie Fader, Marketing & PR Manager

As you probably know by now, it’s been an exciting week for Punchbowl. We announced that we reached 1 million registered users, we acquired the domain Punchbowl.com and will now be known as Punchbowl, and we added Michael Waxman-Lenz, the former GM of AmericanGreetings.com to our Board of Directors. You can read about our news on TechCrunch.

But that’s not all the excitement we’ve had this week at Punchbowl. As if things couldn’t get any better…earlier this week we had a visit from two representatives from Cadbury who walked into our office with a mysterious box. They explained to us that they were giving us an entire box of Swedish fish as some kind of promotion. They set the box down and walked out the door, without much more explanation as to what was going on. With excitement and curiosity, we opened the box and to our delight found hundreds of Swedish fish and a simple note that read: “These are Swedish fish. Please eat them.”

Naturally we are all wondering WHY? Is this part of some bigger marketing campaign? Will there be something else to follow? Regardless, thanks to Cadbury from the entire Punchbowl team. We love our Swedish fish!

This post was written by Matt Douglas, Founder & CEO, @mattdouglas

It’s an exciting time for Punchbowl. This week we made several announcements that I’d like to share with you:

1. MyPunchbowl is now Punchbowl.com
We recently acquired the domain Punchbowl.com — this means that MyPunchbowl is now known as Punchbowl.com. Is this a big deal? We think so. Did you know that a small social network once changed its name from TheFacebook to Facebook? Our vision is that Punchbowl will be synonymous with online party planning. We’ve got a whole new look, including new colors and a new logo. We hope you love our logo as much as we do. What do you think of our new domain and brand? Let us know by posting a message to our Facebook page.

You’re probably wondering what this change means for you. We’ve automatically transitioned your existing account so that it works on Punchbowl.com. You can sign in to your Punchbowl account to view your existing events, invites, and eCards.

Punchbowl will continue to offer one-stop party planning features, including customizable digital invitations, potluck organization, gift registries, local vendor search and much more. And we have the new Digital Invitation Studio coming just in time for Halloween and the upcoming holiday season.

2) Punchbowl surpasses one million members

We’re also excited to announce that more than one million members have joined the site. Thank you to each and every person who has chosen to become a member of Punchbowl.

3) Punchbowl strengthens Board with former GM of American Greetings
I’m excited to announce that Michael Waxman-Lenz, former GM of AmericanGreetings.com, has joined the Punchbowl Board of Directors. The appointment of Michael Waxman-Lenz to the Punchbowl Board comes on the heels of the addition of Harry Lin, former GM of Evite.com, to the Punchbowl Board of Advisors. The pair is an expert in consumer-internet sites and the social expressions industry.

Want to learn more about these announcements? Read the official 1 Million users announcement and the official Punchbowl Board announcement.

This post written by Stephanie Fader, Marketing & PR Manager

Since Monday, September 6 is Labor Day and a lot of people take off early to enjoy the long weekend, I thought I’d share next week’s Reasons to Celebrate a few days early…

One important holiday to note is Grandparents Day on Sunday, September 12. Plan ahead to spend time with your grandparents if you’re lucky enough to still have them with you. Sunday is also National Chocolate Milkshake Day so a trip to your local ice cream shop or an old school ice cream parlor could be in order.

Another holiday next week is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, which will be celebrated on Thursday, September 9. We wish everyone a very happy and sweet new year!

Now that we’re into September, it’s also a good time to start thinking about Halloween. Yeah, that’s right, Halloween is just around the corner. Thinking about having a costume party or pumpkin carving night? Send a Halloween Save the Date to get your event on guests’ calendars!

Here are all of the week’s Reasons to Celebrate:

• September 6: Labor Day
• September 7: Salami Day
• September 8: International Literacy Day
• September 9: Teddy Bear Day & Rosh Hashanah
• September 10: TV Dinner Day
• September 11: National Hot Cross Buns Day
• September 12: National Grandparents Day

Have a nice long Labor Day weekend!