

Ask HN: help alpha test our new dating site (it's based on books) - mwsherman
http://alpha.alikewise.com/

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henrikschroder
Are you really going to market this as a dating site? Because you will be
steamrolled by actual dating sites that provide substantially more.. flesh..
Dating sites make money because people are willing to pay money to get laid.

Doing dating through book taste doesn't exactly signal hookups, so why even
label it as a dating site? Make it a social site around book taste and let
dating happen in the community by itself?

~~~
mwsherman
Good questions. Niche is the only way to go, I think, the big guys have the
big middle ground. And honestly, none of them are so great that people should
be loyal. (OkCupid does a nice job.)

There are other social book sites out there, and they seem to do well. In our
case, the difference is that user intentions are clearly about dating. I think
(hope) that matters.

~~~
henrikschroder
When it comes to big dating sites, people aren't loyal at all, but people go
where everyone else is, because that increases their chances of hooking up.
Having the best features or design or functionality won't help you one bit if
you don't have people on your site.

So yeah, niche dating it is, which is why I suggest that you tone down the
dating aspects of it.

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Mc_Big_G
hmmmmmmmm My wife is definitely not into the same genre of books as I am and
frankly I'm happy with that. Is there some real correlation between
compatibility and the books you read or are you just assuming that?

~~~
mwsherman
We don't think there's a correlation. We just think it's a good conversation
starter. And books encourage people to get reasonably specific about what they
are into.

~~~
pmjoyce
Anecdotally I observed a distinct gender gap in reading material preferences
between the sexes. So much so that I wanted to test that and see whether this
would be a reasonable way to segment reading material.

My recently launched site [1] is based on measuring and presenting the gender
split of readers of any book (and how each sex rate the book) on the
assumption that men and women often enjoy different reading material. The data
I've gathered so far seems to validate that assumption and points towards
substantial gender bias for a great many books.

I'm currently in the process of writing a blog post highlighting the most
frequently used words in book titles favoured by women vs. men based on the
data I've collected. This is my first dip into the "MI" of the data but,
despite the simplicity of the initial analysis, again the data shows there is
a pronounced difference.

What might be interesting is some sort of combination of the datasets. Such as
using an individuals reading history to categorise their "average gender
preference" for books [2] and how might relate to their choice of dating
partners and their book gender preference.

It's an interesting proposition and I like the clean look of the site and it's
simple workflow. I'll be following your progress with interest.

1\. <http://www.bookhu.com>

2\. If such a thing even exists - just a hypothesis that needs to be tested at
the moment

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iamwil
The first thing I wanted to do was SEE who else was on there. Dating sites
need to have people to attract others. You don't make it very apparent how to
see or search who else is on there.

I didn't even read the popup because it GOT IN MY WAY of seeing who else was
on there. And then the 'find people' form was off to the side, and I didn't
notice it because I looked at the featured profile...a dude...then up top Find
people should be first, not getting started.

If people find other people they like on there, they'll find their way to the
signup screen. First show them your goods, then they'll sign up when they see
what they like.

~~~
mwsherman
Agreed. It's a chicken-and-egg problem on any social site. Our first challenge
is getting that critical mass.

The popup is just a welcome for alpha testers. It will go away when we're in
production.

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jrmurad
I thought this was a good idea. One of my own particular favorite authors is
usually mentioned on social sites but in the form of "I hate people who like
<This Author>."

Alpha testing: I searched for "Thomas Paine" and got one result. The one
profile result didn't seem to match the query at all.

I tried searching with the quotation marks and got an error. Exact matching
doesn't seem to be supported in that manner?

~~~
mwsherman
Thanks! I fixed the error issue with the quotation marks.

We are not doing proper boolean searching just yet. Everything is treated as
"or" right now. Something to work on.

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axod
Seems like a really small niche. Wouldn't movies be a better thing to match
on, or music?

~~~
lsemel
Why not offer any type of media or product that you can grab from Amazon.com
or another source to match on?

Books, movies, songs, travel locations, favorite restaurants, etc.

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javery
How quickly will Moby Dick be the most read book on this site....

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mwsherman
Right now, we can only add profiles for US locations, sorry about that.
International is a top request and is coming soon!

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aw3c2
<http://alpha.alikewise.com/Profile/danalotus> was the featured profile for me
and it scared me. The eyes have eerie glowing spots in them from sharpening. I
would recommend either asking that girl for another photo or not featuring
her. :(

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philh
If I do a search and then click back, the button still says 'searching...' and
I can't do another search. If I then click refresh it goes back to 'find
people' but doesn't work. I need to click in the title bar and press enter to
do another search. Firefox 3.6 linux.

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mwsherman
One more caveat, there only a small number of profiles on there right now, so
search results will probably not be very interesting just yet.

We are most interested in feedback about usability, technical issues, and
whether we are generally on the right track.

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ambiate
"q=Nietzsche, q=Sartre, q=Camus Hmm, none yet. Try adjusting your search
criteria."

where are all the a1=18&a2=23 philosophy chicks?

edit: q=Paul+Graham, success. We can be hopeless and poor together.

~~~
larrykubin
Those girls are too busy going on dates with people in their philosophy
classes. No time or need to mess with an internet dating site.

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Slashed
_it's based on books_ means one lists book titles to describe his/her
character? Interesting to see how some people would abuse this to become
_popular_.

~~~
mwsherman
Yup, that's the idea. It's less about revealing character and more about
giving people something to talk about. Like flirting at the book store.

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lsemel
You need to put in some hooks to help spread the word about the site. How come
you're not encouraging people tweet or post to Facebook right when they sign
up?

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cabalamat
Quite a few of my friends are bi. Why can people on your site only be seeking
men or women, but not both?

~~~
mhartl
This is a ludicrous expectation for a site that's still in _alpha_.

~~~
chronomex
This is a _dating site_. The core functionality of it is _I am X seeking Y_.

~~~
mhartl
No, its core functionality is _I am XX seeking XY (or vice-versa)_. Most
people are heterosexual; it would be crazy for an alpha-stage dating site to
spend time catering to users who might be bi. (Unless that's their niche, in
which case, more power to 'em.)

~~~
cabalamat
The site already caters to people who are hetero- or homosexual. Catering to
people who are both should be a minimal effort to change, if it is coded
right.

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lsemel
I tried it out and thought it was a fun site. It will be even more so when
there are more people on it.

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snowbird122
This is an awesome idea. I wish I had thought of it. Best of luck to you.

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javery
[bug] - search for books with nothing in search field.

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jolie
Coming soon?

