

Ask HN: Clever ways of implementing "invite" mechanic in dating sites? - andyhin

What are some ways to get people to invite friends to dating sites? Generally, there is not much incentive to do so, and people often don't advertise with friends that they are on a dating site. Any clever ideas?
======
Travis
What about recommending a potential matchup to your friends? I don't use
dating sites, so this might be out there already.

In short, what if I'm looking at a profile and think, "hey, this would be a
good match for my friend XYZ." The mechanics of it could allow me to set my
friend up with someone, basically allowing me to act as an agent on behalf of
my friend (initially).

Alternatively, you could do a take on the double-date idea. Have people with
friends post a double date, where your user fills in the 3rd/4th person
depending on the calculated compatability of friends (for this, you would need
to answer a few questions about your friends... which would make their signup
seem slicker and faster).

~~~
minalecs
the matchmaking idea was tried by a company called thread.com
[http://techcrunch.com/2009/09/01/threadcom-
raises-12-million...](http://techcrunch.com/2009/09/01/threadcom-
raises-12-million-for-facebook-powered-matchmaking-service/) ... they could
never find traction, but again its about execution.

------
minalecs
whats your site ?

~~~
andyhin
it's a new site to meet people with similar interests.
<http://www.GetToLike,me> \- it's not explicitly a dating site, but I figure
the environment will be similar.

~~~
minalecs
i created a very similar site, it would statistically matchup people based on
all kinds of things likes, location, photos, sharing, frequency of updates..
etc. I wouldn't focus on the dating aspect but more of a viral aspect, similar
to other facebook viral apps like people for sale, the quiz ones you see a lot
on there. good luck.

