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Towards Better Online Dating

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Re: Towards Better Online Dating

#41

Post by aantix »

donaldc wrote: post #37

From the article: Meeting friends-of-friends is the best way to find cool people, because liking is transitive AND because the low social distances force people to be on their best behavior. If I were looking to date friends-of-friends in particular, I think I'd just use facebook directly. Though more often then not, I've already met such friends-of-friends via common events.

Hmmmm, I wonder if there isn't a hybrid model just waiting to be utilized here?

Imagine this; by utilizing a particular dating service you would agree to A) make your Facebook profile open to the person you are mailing and B) If both parties are interested in each other (designated if both exchange message more than once) this fact is known on each other's Facebook walls and C) if you go out on a date with this person (both people making this known to the dating website) each person open up their profile to the other individual to let the other person write a review of the date on their public wall?

Re: Towards Better Online Dating

#42

Post by Alex3917 »

strlen wrote: post #19

There is a problem with attempts at making online dating work like "real world" dating. I'll state my reasons for this belief up front: I'm very happily in an almost two year relationship with somebody I've met online (OKCupid) whom I could have never met in person. Before, I've had a happy (even if not lasting) and amicably ending relationships with other women whom I could have never met in person. I'll use my anec…

"most men are intimidated by intelligent women"

While in theory a man's chances of finding a mate increase as his IQ increases, I'm not entirely convinced that women are attracted to raw intelligence either.

Re: Towards Better Online Dating

#43

Post by nomad2986 »

dgreensp wrote: post #30
strlen wrote: post #19

There is a problem with attempts at making online dating work like "real world" dating. I'll state my reasons for this belief up front: I'm very happily in an almost two year relationship with somebody I've met online (OKCupid) whom I could have never met in person. Before, I've had a happy (even if not lasting) and amicably ending relationships with other women whom I could have never met in person. I'll use my anec…

Agree completely. I met my girlfriend on Match.com (after using Match and OkCupid casually for a year or so). I sent tons of messages (in total) to girls I wasn't sure I had a chance with (heaven forbid I message someone "out of my league"), and now I'm dating someone awesome. I didn't have any problems with spam (maybe because I'm a guy or something about my profile), or false advertising; profiles are often all too…

I think it depends on what you mean by spamming. If you mean getting a bunch of bad messages from people, guys typically don't have that problem. A lot of girls on dating sites do though, which is one of the biggest ways they are broken. However, I've personally started to notice a lot of fake profiles on OkCupid. I know they're fake because I keep seeing the same pictures of girls with different written profiles or the same profile description (word for word) on profiles with different pictures. In my mind, this is a form of spam too, and it could get to be a problem that OkCupid needs to solve.

Re: Towards Better Online Dating

#45

Post by klipt »

kingkawn wrote: post #32

As soon as I deleted my OkCupid profile I started meeting more people in real life. At least for me, where I was putting my energy was a zero-sum choice.

I haven't deleted mine, but ignoring it in favor of real life activities whenever possible has served me well so far.

Re: Towards Better Online Dating

#46

Post by lhnz »

I actually think a dating site would do best if it connected people and then forced them to meet each other. One of the reasons that they aren't great is that girls get swamped with hundreds of messages and are afraid of meeting most of the guys in public without XY number of messages. By the time everybody has jumped through these hoops everybody is bored by the process.

And the thing is you can't really know what somebody is like without meeting them in person.

Why not organise 'fun' group events for people that are interested in each other online and want to meet?

Re: Towards Better Online Dating

#48

Post by strlen »

Alex3917 wrote: post #42
strlen wrote: post #19

There is a problem with attempts at making online dating work like "real world" dating. I'll state my reasons for this belief up front: I'm very happily in an almost two year relationship with somebody I've met online (OKCupid) whom I could have never met in person. Before, I've had a happy (even if not lasting) and amicably ending relationships with other women whom I could have never met in person. I'll use my anec…

"most men are intimidated by intelligent women" While in theory a man's chances of finding a mate increase as his IQ increases, I'm not entirely convinced that women are attracted to raw intelligence either.

To essentially paraphrase "the trouble with genius" from Malcolm Gladwell's outliers, IQ is correlated with success but only up to a point. When two individuals have an IQ above roughly 125, practical intelligence ("socia skills") is often more predictive of success (and I am sure, especially of social success) than raw intelligence.

Good news, however, is that practical intelligence can be learned (with few exceptions such as Asperger's syndrome, but even in that case, there are coping strategies).

Re: Towards Better Online Dating

#49

Post by falpal85 »

I strongly support the points this article makes about what the online dating space currently has to offer.

Ultimately, I believe that people are better matchmakers or judges of compatibility than a survey or a machine. Drawing from my own personal experience, I have played cupid and matched 4 of my friends that have ended up getting married. Seeing the lack of personal touch in online dating, I started SocialHack (socialhacks.me) as an attempt to bridge that gap between daily social interactions and the "social" interactions we have on the web.

Online dating has become a 1B/year business, and SocialHack compliments online dating by adding that personal touch. Individuals go to online dating sites to find a date, but don't know where to ask advice about what to wear, how to respond to a text, where to make reservations, etc. Ideally, I would like to build out this MVP into a peer-to-peer social advice platform, I believe that this sort of a platform would naturally disrupt online dating as it exists now because consultants will want to match their clients with friends from their own local network. Our female SocialHackers provide online and offline services ranging from fashion consulting/personal shopping, date planning/advising, in-field "wing-women" services, and providing feedback for online dating profiles.

I created SocialHack during the Lean Startup Machine weekend in SF, winning runner-up and making $100 (per our proof of concept on Skyara.com) via our MVP socialhacks.me all in less than 2 days. Our success in proving the concept convinced me that there is a true need for this sort of service. More interestingly, female enthusiasm for the concept suggests that a chicken and egg problem wouldn't exist here.

I'd love to hear feedback on the idea and would love to work with anyone interested in developing SocialHack further.

Re: Towards Better Online Dating

#50

Post by jay_kyburz »

Here is the Iron Helmet Games dating website. In development soon. (Angels needed!)

An online dating site where you put your money where your mouth is.

Guys and Girls review each others profiles and rather than making contact and trading a few messages, suitors buy "First Date Packages" and offer them to the people they are interested in (the target of their affections).

Dinner and a movie? Paddle boating on the lake? Perhaps a picnic in the park? Why not even go totally crazy and go skydiving!

Other suitors can see the offers made to people they too are interested in and can "bid" against them by offering a more impressive or more romantic package. (You want to attract the whales who have thousands to spend of really special weekend. Charter a yacht for example.)

As soon as "the target" accepts the offer, the suitor's credit card is billed for 75% of the date package, and the target is billed the remaining 25%. (The target must contribute to the date package price to ensure they participate and are serious.)

Site earns revenue by taking a slice of the price of each package. Once the site takes off, 3rd parties pay to have their romantic packages on offer.

Its a crazy idea but I think its cool for a number of reasons.

Geeks will like it because you get a lot of help making sure that first date is going to be interesting. You'll have the package all organized for you.

Girls will like it because when they go on a date they know where they will be going and it will be exciting. Chances are they choose from a list of interesting packages.

Go get em people will like it because both parties are jumping with both feet and instead of trading countless emails only to discover the other party is just not that interested.

Start your relationship off with a bang!

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