For my recent birthday, I wanted to invite my Norwegian friends, old and new, to a restaurant in Oslo. For many years, Facebook events were my go-to solution for this, especially in these times where nobody does email anymore. And let’s face it, I don’t even have the personal email for some of these people, only work emails from three jobs ago.

The problem with Facebook events is Facebook. Being invited to an event apparently doesn’t qualify as noteworthy enough for the algorithm that it would send you a notification. Many of the people I invited told me later that they didn’t see the invitation until after the event was over, and they were sorry they didn’t make it. Many of the invitees have given up on Facebook, and never check it. And another group isn’t on Facebook at all, and can’t be invited. I contacted some of them using other methods, but none of those people remembered to put the event in their calendar – we apparently need electronic reminders for everything now.

In the end, we were still a dozen attendees, and a good time was had, but I need a better solution for next year, and I honestly have no idea what it is.

I rate Facebook events 1 out of 5 stars.