Can I get set up with Dan the matchmaker? He got that Clark Kent thing going on.
Dan's awesome. If you're serious about this, shoot an e-mail to me -> jared at wednesdaynight.me and I'll introduce you to him.
Show HN: Too busy for online dating? Try Wednesday Night
21–30 of 51 posts
Re: Show HN: Too busy for online dating? Try Wednesday Night
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most dating services allow you to join using any e-mail address, but with that comes a lot of problems such as fake accounts, spam, data mining, creepy behavior because of anonymity, no real ability to ban someone, etc. Using Facebook solves many problems that we'd rather stick with it--I have no idea how many users we're missing out on. Probably a lot. I would say only use Facebook if it makes sense for your product…
Have you all considered other methods of dealing with those issues? Its incredibly easy to make fake FB accounts these days and just based on many Disqus comment sections I have seen across the internet, I don't know that a lack of anonymity really cures bad behavior. A more intrusive, but verifiable method may get fewer signups, but the higher intent shown by someone giving real info may mean you can avoid FB pitfal…
I think cell phones are fairly easy to replicate (prepaid), but they'd be a moderately decent proxy for identity.
It'd be very difficult to get a fake FB account through our matchmakers. You not only need to trick Facebook (the company) into believing you're real, but our matchmakers will look at your photos, interests, likes, etc. when putting together your profile for internal use. Not to say it can't be done, but it'd require a lot of work.
One friend suggested we verify some form of identification. That's not a bad alternative. There would still be a lot of manual work required from both sides on things like "what are your interests" or "send us some photos of yourself" which we then use for the matchmakers, who will throw out a majority of it that's not relevant or interesting in the context of dating.
Re: Show HN: Too busy for online dating? Try Wednesday Night
#23These dating/find-a-friend services that require Facebook show up often on HN, and like clockwork are berated because they are Facebook-only (and the privacy issues that go along with it). Yet people keep making them. Am I correct to deduce they are popular and there is market for them, and that it's only HN that hates them?
Not referring to dating sites in particular, but the requirement of a Facebook sign-up for start-ups I think is a good idea. For everybody who says "I don't want to give you my details", I suspect their are 50 who will just be thankful for not having to give you an e-mail password and remember login details, get spam, etc. etc. That's why I almost always look at a project as allowing Facebook sign-up first, then e-ma…
I'd respectfully disagree. User testing generally shows a pretty strong aversion to and misunderstanding of Facebook Connect. Here's one such study: http://www.guanotronic.com/~serge/papers/chi13a.pdf
More pragmatically:
1. Do you mind that your users may get locked out of your product for violating Facebook's real name or one-account-only policies?
2. Do you really want to phone home to a publicly-traded advertising company every time someone logs into your site?
3. Social auth asks users to make a significant trust decision before they can even begin to engage with your product. Are you OK with that friction?
Passwords are a pain in the ass, but there are alternatives without the downsides and centralization of social auth. I personally work on Mozilla Persona (https://persona.org), and I'm more than happy to personally help out anyone interested in exploring it for their project. My contact info is in my profile.
Re: Show HN: Too busy for online dating? Try Wednesday Night
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. You would have been correct to deduce that young 20-something people who are trying to scratch an itch keep thinking that a better dating site (as measured by one that can get them dates) is a real need, and the FB tie-in is an obvious way to do it. They keep failing for the reasons that are pointed out on HN. And since they fail, not long after someone else looking around for an itch to scratch says, "Why doesn'…
We never started with the thought "why don't we use FB to build a dating site." Facebook is simply a means to solve a lot of different problems that come up in dating, and it ends up providing a better experience. That's all we care about.
Your comment is perfectly in line with my second paragraph.
I got sloppy with wording in my third paragraph, but meant the same thing again. (We want a better dating site. We think that FB is a good tool to use for that. Etc.)
Re: Show HN: Too busy for online dating? Try Wednesday Night
#25We at Truffle are building something similar but with linkedIn authentication - catering to working professionals.
We tried doing work email verification but users revolted against that and we have to revert back to linkedIn. I guess people on HN are right when they say that facebook logging is instant turn off but for some people entering email address and password is even bigger.
Also yah I like your service, though you are my competitor but 75$ is a lot. Try out making it a coffee, first date at a bar is a big sell.
By the way, if anyone of you here on HN are from Seattle and looking to grab a coffee with someone interesting, try out www.jointruffle.com :)
Re: Show HN: Too busy for online dating? Try Wednesday Night
#26What happens when you can't set up a match?
What happens if someone is stood up?
What happens if you have a skewed ratio of men to women?
Re: Show HN: Too busy for online dating? Try Wednesday Night
#27What happens when you can't set up a match? What happens if someone is stood up? What happens if you have a skewed ratio of men to women?
Good questions.
- If we can't setup a match, you are either being unrealistic with your expectations (you consistently pass too often on people who we think are a good fit), or we just don't have enough people in the pool who are in your proximity. If it's the former, you'll need to adjust your expectations, if it's the latter, we'll focus more attention on that area. If we just can't make it work, we'll give you a refund. We usually can tell whether people are being unrealistic. If you can't tell, there's a simple experiment you can run: setup your own online dating profile to gauge the type of women who want to talk to you.
- If someone is stood up, we'll refund the money and the person who stood the other up won't be invited or allowed to go out with any of our members again. Standing people up isn't cool.
- Our current ratio is 1:2 girls to guys. We will find you a match one way or another. Our matchmakers border on obsessive with this stuff.
Re: Show HN: Too busy for online dating? Try Wednesday Night
#28Have you seen this website? http://www.jointruffle.com
Seems doing similar things but targeting different group of people.
Re: Show HN: Too busy for online dating? Try Wednesday Night
#29This might be a weird comment, but the service seems very alcohol oriented - meeting at a bar, covering drinks. What about people who don't drink?
We have people who don't drink using the service and they order non-alcoholic drinks at the venue--sometimes they're bars, sometimes lounges. Alcohol does act as a pretty good social lubricant though. The girls actually prefer that to extravagant dates when we've suggested them because there's less pressure--if the chemistry isn't there, it's more acceptable to leave after that first round rather than commit to spend…
I don't think this service is for me at all. I'd prefer flexibility in places to meet and not having to resort to getting inebriated to meet someone :/ Coffee shops? I'm a girl, btw.
Re: Show HN: Too busy for online dating? Try Wednesday Night
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
We have people who don't drink using the service and they order non-alcoholic drinks at the venue--sometimes they're bars, sometimes lounges. Alcohol does act as a pretty good social lubricant though. The girls actually prefer that to extravagant dates when we've suggested them because there's less pressure--if the chemistry isn't there, it's more acceptable to leave after that first round rather than commit to spend…
I don't think this service is for me at all. I'd prefer flexibility in places to meet and not having to resort to getting inebriated to meet someone :/ Coffee shops? I'm a girl, btw.
We're not saying you have to drink something alcoholic, we're just saying whatever beverage you choose to drink, we'll cover it. Think of the bar as a neutral place in public to meet up.
Our focus is on reducing all effort that goes into meeting someone, and the scheduling is part of that. Meeting during the day won't work because most our members are working on regular 9-5 schedules. Weekends are usually booked too.
What usually happens is if both people feel like it's going well, they'll exchange contact info at the venue and then plan something the following weekend and do something different.
You may want to check out Coffee Meets Bagel or How About We.