Evite rival Socializr launches events aggregator

NEW YORK - Socializr, the online invitations startup from Friendster founder Jonathan Abrams, now helps users manage their events from sites like Facebook, MySpace, Evite and Meetup.

Event Connect lets users organize their social lives all in one place, without having to log in separately to their various accounts to check their calendars there. They simply attach those accounts to their Socializr one.

"Our new stuff is useful to anyone who ever goes to any events or receives event invitations," said Abrams, who pioneered social networking with the launch of Friendster in 2002. "It allows you to see all of your invitations from Evite, Meetup, Facebook, etc., in one place, and it helps you see what your friends are doing, too."

The new feature from San Francisco-based Socializr Inc. launched Wednesday.

To use it, people have to let Socializr access their accounts for the other sites.

They can invite people to events using e-mail, News Corp.'s MySpace and Facebook all at the same time. This sidesteps the problem that can spring up when you want to invite that lone friend who isn't on Facebook when you create a Facebook event.

Besides events, people can add photos of the gatherings they attend using picture-sharing sites like Yahoo Inc.'s Flickr, Google Inc.'s Picasa and Shutterfly. There is no need to attach photo accounts to Socializr; users can simply uploading photos or enter the Web addresses for those sites.

Abrams said Event Connect is just the start, "the beginning of a platform we are building to help them manage their online events and social calendar easily and quickly."

To ensure privacy, Socializr lets users add "friends" the same way many other social sites do, and users can control which friends they share what events with _ important for anyone looking to keep those bachelorette party photos out of their boss's sight.

Users can see what events their friends are attending or listing if those events are public, or if both parties are invited.

A service of the Associated Press(AP)