Can Partiful keep the party going?

Partiful 能否让派对持续狂欢？

Its founders insist the event platform offers a simple service for free. But in a time when users are aware of privacy and surveillance, Partiful has to prove it’s not too good to be true. 其创始人坚称，这个活动平台提供的是免费的简单服务。但在用户对隐私和监控日益敏感的时代，Partiful 必须证明它并非“好得令人难以置信”。

One hundred dollars will buy you 8 pounds of glitter; 10 Domino’s pizzas; 406 miniature disco balls from Temu; or 100 cans of Coors Light. For a friend’s birthday party one year, Ayla D’Silva spent $100 on sour candy and made a “sour candy salad.” Even sweeter was that she didn’t have to foot the bill — the money came from Partiful. 一百美元可以买到 8 磅闪粉、10 个达美乐披萨、406 个来自 Temu 的迷你迪斯科球，或者 100 罐库尔斯淡啤。有一年，为了朋友的生日派对，Ayla D’Silva 花了 100 美元买了酸味糖果，做了一份“酸糖沙拉”。更棒的是，她根本不用自己掏腰包——这笔钱来自 Partiful。

As a college ambassador for the startup, D’Silva got a small stipend every month to throw a party on her college campus. There were very few rules and no metrics to hit on RSVPs or ticket sales, she says — it just had to be hosted on the Partiful app. Facebook events were dead; party planning and RSVPing were fragmented across platforms. You could invite someone to a party and not know who would show up. Partiful arrived at just the right time. By the time D’Silva graduated, word of mouth had made it more than just a new app you had to download. “I don’t even know what we did before Partiful,” D’Silva says. (Partiful is pronounced like “beautiful.”) 作为该初创公司的校园大使，D’Silva 每月都能获得一笔小额津贴，用于在校园里举办派对。她说，几乎没有什么规则，也不需要达到什么回复率或门票销售指标——唯一的要求就是必须在 Partiful 应用上举办。Facebook 活动功能已经没落；派对策划和回复确认分散在各个平台。你邀请了别人参加派对，却不知道谁会来。Partiful 的出现恰逢其时。到 D’Silva 毕业时，口碑传播已让它不仅仅是一个需要下载的新应用。“我甚至不知道在 Partiful 出现之前我们是怎么过日子的，”D’Silva 说。（Partiful 的发音类似于“beautiful”。）

The startup, founded in 2019, has not created something new or even exciting, at least functionally speaking — it is an invitation and events platform. The most striking thing is perhaps the app’s visual identity, which is playful but also nostalgic for an era many of its users never experienced: lots of neon text, Y2K-era flyers, remixed memes. A premade birthday party invite is designed in the style of the Now That’s What I Call Music! series, except it reads, “Now That’s What I Call Old.” When the aesthetics are stripped away, Partiful offers something so simple it’s almost quaint: You can make an event, invite your friends, and the platform will text them to remind them to come. 这家成立于 2019 年的初创公司并没有创造出什么新奇甚至令人兴奋的东西，至少从功能上讲是这样——它就是一个邀请和活动平台。最引人注目的或许是该应用的视觉形象，它既俏皮又带有一种许多用户从未经历过的时代怀旧感：大量的霓虹文字、Y2K 时代的传单、混剪的模因。一份预设的生日派对邀请函采用了《Now That’s What I Call Music!》系列的风格，只是文字改成了“Now That’s What I Call Old”（现在我称之为老了）。剥去这些美学外壳，Partiful 提供的东西简单到近乎古朴：你可以创建一个活动，邀请朋友，平台会通过短信提醒他们参加。

Compared to the loud, quirky look and feel of Partiful the app, the office in downtown Brooklyn of Partiful the company are restrained: a typical open-concept tech startup space with huge windows that sun comes pouring in through. Several employees plug away at computers arranged on rows of long, shared desks. It is a nondescript office that could pass for any B2B SaaS office — except for the copious amounts of Partiful merch peppering the space. There are multiple neon lights in the windows bent into the shape of the Partiful logo. There are stickers and bracelets. In a corner is a thong in a frame — a gag gift, an employee tells me, themed around the launch of a feature that allows users to anonymously name a crush. 与 Partiful 应用那种张扬、古怪的外观和感觉相比，Partiful 公司位于布鲁克林市中心的办公室则显得克制：这是一个典型的开放式科技初创公司空间，巨大的窗户让阳光倾泻而入。几名员工在成排的长条共享办公桌上埋头工作。这是一个平平无奇的办公室，看起来和任何 B2B SaaS 公司的办公室没什么两样——除了空间里随处可见的大量 Partiful 周边商品。窗户上有多个弯曲成 Partiful 标志形状的霓虹灯。还有贴纸和手环。角落里有一个装在相框里的丁字裤——一位员工告诉我，这是一个恶搞礼物，主题是围绕一个允许用户匿名写下暗恋对象的功能发布而设计的。

Partiful, Partiful, Partiful: If you are a young-ish person in a major city or in a college town the word has become inescapable. Shreya Murthy, cofounder and CEO of the company, told Marketing Brew in March that Partiful aspires to be on the level of “calling an Uber” or “using a Kleenex” — the default for inviting someone to do something. The app caters to Gen Z, but from a business perspective it feels distinctly millennial: a throwback to an era of tech when interest rates were low and startups could promise to revolutionize groceries or taxis or digital invitations without turning a profit. In those days, these “disruptor” services were motivated by growth — capturing a massive user base and figuring out the business model later. Partiful，Partiful，Partiful：如果你是一个生活在大城市或大学城的年轻人，这个词已经无处不在。公司联合创始人兼首席执行官 Shreya Murthy 在三月份告诉 Marketing Brew，Partiful 的目标是达到“叫 Uber”或“用舒洁纸巾”那种程度——成为邀请他人参加活动时的默认选择。该应用迎合了 Z 世代，但从商业角度来看，它有着明显的千禧一代色彩：让人回想起那个利率较低、初创公司可以承诺彻底改变杂货、出租车或数字邀请行业而无需盈利的科技时代。在那个年代，这些“颠覆性”服务是由增长驱动的——先获取庞大的用户群，以后再考虑商业模式。

For offering such a straightforward product, Partiful has attracted significant industry attention and more than a few thinkpieces: It’s been called a “vibey nightmare,” with invitation etiquette that’s “out of control.” “Stop sending me Partiful invitations,” GQ pleaded, saying the platform was essentially “yassified Evite.” But Partiful has another perennial PR problem: Murthy and fellow cofounder Joy Tao previously worked at Palantir, the data-mining company whose clients include Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Israeli government, among other public and private entities. That, combined with the fact that until recently Partiful had no significant stream of revenue, has created a web of outrage and misinformation, but also defensive posturing and glib marketing. In the climate of tech backlash where many users do not trust the industry to be good stewards of their data, the Partiful-Palantir connection has become a thorny topic. “Can we trust the Palantir alumni party app?” people wonder. And what to make of the fact that this free event platform is really quite useful? 尽管产品如此简单，Partiful 还是吸引了业界的极大关注和不少评论文章：它被称为“氛围噩梦”，其邀请礼仪“失控”。《GQ》恳求道：“别再给我发 Partiful 邀请了”，称该平台本质上就是“美颜版的 Evite”。但 Partiful 还有一个长期存在的公关问题：Murthy 和另一位联合创始人 Joy Tao 此前曾在 Palantir 工作，这是一家数据挖掘公司，其客户包括美国移民和海关执法局、以色列政府以及其他公共和私营实体。这一点，再加上 Partiful 直到最近都没有显著收入来源的事实，引发了一系列愤怒和误传，但也导致了防御性的姿态和油嘴滑舌的营销。在科技行业遭到抵制的氛围下，许多用户不信任该行业能妥善管理他们的数据，Partiful 与 Palantir 的联系成了一个棘手的话题。人们不禁怀疑：“我们能信任这个由 Palantir 校友开发的派对应用吗？”而对于这个免费活动平台确实非常实用这一点，又该如何看待呢？

As we sit in her office, Murthy tells me, “Partiful is a fundamentally social experience, and we’ve designed a Partiful page to be a living, breathing social artifact that represents the party and supercharges the party and serves as a memory box for the party.” She is wearing a Partiful-branded hat, and a Partiful-branded mug sits on the table. 当我们坐在她的办公室里时，Murthy 告诉我：“Partiful 从根本上说是一种社交体验，我们设计的 Partiful 页面是一个鲜活的社交产物，它代表了派对，为派对注入活力，并作为派对的记忆盒。”她戴着一顶印有 Partiful 标志的帽子，桌上放着一个印有 Partiful 标志的马克杯。

Unlike a site where a user simply purchases a ticket to an event, Partiful attendees can see who else is going; hosts and guests can share photos, comment, and interact with each other on the event page. This, Murthy reasons, is a key part of what sets Partiful apart. Another thing that distinguishes her startup, Murthy is quick to let me know: Partiful employees really actually do party. 与用户仅仅购买活动门票的网站不同，Partiful 的参与者可以看到还有谁会去；主办方和客人可以在活动页面上分享照片、评论并进行互动。Murthy 认为，这是 Partiful 脱颖而出的关键所在。Murthy 很快又补充了另一件让她的初创公司与众不同的事情：Partiful 的员工确实真的会去参加派对。

“We’re thinking about the Partiful page as a social experience, because partying runs deep in our blood,” she says. “我们将 Partiful 页面视为一种社交体验，因为派对精神深植于我们的血液中，”她说。