I am not sure if this is ok to post - I checked the guidelines but found nothing against this. If there is some kind of policy against for feedback like this, I will delete my post.
This is definitely not meant to be some kind of ad, just an honest wish for feedback on my conceptual idea. I hope that's ok?
I am new to HN, but Paul Graham had dating on his "ideas" list for startups he would like to fund, so I thought HN might be a good place to discuss it.
People do pay to get into a certain building to meet other single people (I'm thinking about nightclubs and bars that have cover charges here).
Also, your point about people mostly meeting partners through friends is valid but the REAL question is does it happen this way becasue that's the 'best' way to meet somebody or becasue it's currently one of the biggest ways humans meet new people? In other words, does it work this way becasue this way works best, or does it work this way because it just happens to provide the most chances?
That being said, your assessment of the problem is solid. It's an idea worth honing in on. The one thing you'd want to be able to hang onto from the "walled garden" sites is the fact that everyone there has expressed interest and availability for a dating relationship. This lowers the risk for those who do the asking since you are less likely to get rebuffed in the "EW, I'm dating already, thank you very much creepo!" sort of way.
The nightclub comparison isn't like dating sites - the traditional dating site is more closely related to matchmaking agencies. I mean sure, you pay to get into a building with other single people - but the purpose is not to find a date, or heck, even converse with them.
I think you accurately represent the male and female perspectives on singles bars, but there's a hitch: singles bars only work for sex. People at singles bars don't act remotely "themselves." The guys are puffy and douchey. The girls are silly and giddy (or drunk and slutty.) There's no point in picking someone up in a singles bar unless you don't give a crap what they're really like, because they're acting completely differently than they would in any other context. Basically, singles bars only work for the people who are in heat, hook up, and have sex. If you don't get laid, then all you get out of it is the name and phone number of someone who is essentially a total stranger whom you know nothing about.
That's why people give up on singles bars, except for guys who are hot or slick enough to get laid and the girls who are actually looking for sex and not a boyfriend (or who think that having one-night stands is a good way of looking for a boyfriend.) Most guys are disillusioned when they figure out they're not getting sex, just phone numbers from girls who look a lot less interesting in sunlight and sobriety. Most girls are disillusioned when they figure out that the only way to get any attention is to act like they're in the mood to put out if they meet the right guy. Both sexes are disillusioned when they realize they want their sexuality to be an integral part of who they are, not an entirely separate aspect of their personality, an inner douchebag/hoebag that comes out at night and does embarrassing, tasteless things.
Actually I'm not representing singles bars at all, I think the difference here is mostly cultural.
In Australia, we generally don't distinguish between singles bars and regular ones - in fact, I don't think I can actually name any place that would be qualified by anyone I know as a "singles bar"
Essentially, if you're single and your out in a club/pub here in the great land of Oz, your free game.
Whoops, that's a big difference. I was reading you in an American context. In the US, different bars have very different vibes. Singles bars are known as "meat markets" and are pretty much like resort bars -- people acting out bizarre, tasteless fantasies of themselves based on what they imagine other people want to see. Singles bars have a high profile in the culture but aren't actually popular except among a small, mostly college-aged part of the population. At regular bars, people who are at the bar are open to being approached, but the actual bar may be a relatively small part of the establishment. It's fine to approach lone women at tables and ask if you can join them, but if they're with friends at a table it's more complicated. A lot of people go to bars to meet up with their friends and their friends' friends, and they don't really want to be approached by strangers. Sometimes if you make eye contact with a cute girl you can get a clear nonverbal invite, but barring that you'll seem awkward or arrogant if you try to join them. (But if you're sitting with a group at a big table, and the person next to you is in a different group, it's often natural to strike up a conversation with them. Like I said, it's complicated.)
At the places I go to, most of the hooking up happens between people who had a prior connection, who met elsewhere or who met at the bar through common friends. Australian bars sound like more fun.
Me and most people I know are skeptical of actually finding a significant other in a bar. It's difficult to get to know someone in an environment like that - particularly when it's that noisy.
But you mentioned the pick-up artist community, and they are focused on sex, not relationships. It seemed to me you missed the parent post's innuendo.
Great point about the most efficient way to meet a partner! This is indeed a great question one should ask oneself. I see a problem with that approach though: I guess many people don't want to mix 'efficiency' with dating and human interactions and emotions too much. It's probably socially accepted to use dating sites, but are we already on our way to rethink our entire approach to dating?
The expression of interest is indeed a good concept to hang on to. Which is why social networks are especially suitable for adding dating - you can add a simple "are you open to dating approaches?"-setting.
Agreed. In fact, I think getting 6 pages of profile to look through to try to find somebody you may want to contact on a dating site is counterproductive and probably frustrates people a lot.
At first I thought that maybe your idea subverts the role of the intermediate players in our lives. (The people who go "Hey, I know this person you should me, let me introduce you.") But what if you actually allowed that to happen in the social 'net? Do you think it would be handy if you could anonymously suggest to friend A and Friend B that they connect if they don't know each other?
Good questions. What value do intermediate players provide?
Is it in them playing cupid or is it in them being a trustee? Why do people who are introduced to each other go along and talk to the other one - is it because they are interested in a stranger or because they trust the intermediate player?
I tend to think it's the latter which is why anonymous suggestions may not work. What do you think?
Like TrevorJ said, meeting people through a circle of friends may not be the best method for landing a date, but it could help to relieve the lingering stigmas of online dating.
I know many people that still frown upon and feel uneasy about digital hookups. It might be useful to investigate ways of reaching these people. Maybe like a dating site in disguise?
No, it's cool - good article in fact, although I'm not sure I see a clear path to monetization in there. After all, one could do a facebook addon called 'you'd be perfect (for each other)' and let people play matchmaker for fun.
On the dating-as-sales-generator, Mrs Browl keeps telling me to set up 'forgetfulguy.com' so you can put info about your significant other and it will remind you to buy flowers and so forth. Maybe she's trying to tell me something...
I personally think that a blog post as an extended Ask HN is a reasonable way to go. I've considered it myself. This is a fine line. I can see self-posting as the way to spam, especially for opinion pieces. People who regularly blog shouldn't self-post.
That said, I think yours falls within the spirit of Ask HN. Others considering doing so should contribute more before such a post to get a feel for what works an what doesn't.
Your idea is pretty good. I signed up for OK Cupid a while back and repurposed the photos and certain other information from my FB profile. It would have been nice to just auto-import.
I would take a look at OK Cupid, if you haven't. The other dating sites like Match or eHarmony seem very "find your future husband or wife" oriented. The other end of the scale, AdultFriendFinder or even the Onion / Nerve personals are very ghetto/spammy and seem to be best suited for ugly people into weird sex stuff, or actual prostitutes.
OK Cupid has worked out very well for me in finding people who just want to go out on a few dates and have fun without the pretense of sizing me up for marriage or whether or not I'll fit into a harness in the dungeon.
If there was an iPhone app for OkCupid it would be nearly perfect. (for actual "dating.")
You might also want to look into the UK site "Mysinglefriend" - my understanding of the site is that it is designed to help you find your friends dates.
I've been told (by a english female friend) that its quite successful in the UK, can anyone else confirm this?
My understanding is that it's the amateur matchmakers heaven. For friends who like to meddle in the affairs of others (eg, the female population) - which is how you also attract males to the site.
The tech-savvy ex-hipster geek-trash I know in Houston all love Ok Cupid. But they use it heavily for the sort of social networking that Facebook is suppoed to be for. (It's apparently better than Facebook for finding people with similar esoteric interests.)
On the flip side, Facebook & Friendster started out as surreptitious dating sites. People went on there to figure out who among their friend's friends were cute enough to date.
Your last point raises an interesting question - when the current business model of social networking sites is "keeping in touch with people you know", might a future business model be:
"Helping you find people you don't know but will find useful - for work, dating or sports"?
For the dating piece, wonder if a "bounty" model might make sense. i.e. I will pay a matchmaker $1 to introduce me to a potential match (if I agree it is a good match based on some preliminary info about the person).
OKC is definitely one of the best sites out there in this field. I made a very good friend on OKC and met my wife through her. OKC doesn't feel like a typical dating site and there is no actual dating required. Most of the people who go there are mostly in it for the quizzes.
So I don't mean to spam this thread (I already posted as a response to another comment), but I do want to encourage people to check out our disruptive online dating startup: http://flowmingle.com
No profiles, no matchmaking tests. We built the site to be inherently social and group oriented. We make no claims about 'finding love' or 'finding a soulmate', our site is optimized to make introductions between like people, help them set up a meeting, and then get out of the way.
Basically, we create small local groups of similar people an d then lead them through a guided introduction process that lasts a week. At the end of the week we help people connect and plan a meeting. Check us out.
... The big thing the article seems to skip over is the fact that people on an online dating site are actually LOOKING to date someone. While people on your friends of friends social network may or may not be. And approaching someone online without that context established is considered creepy, and especially so considering you're putting your 1st degree friend in the middle of it.
Someone may argue that the search should be restricted to facebook ppl with "looking for guys/girls" checked in their profile, but in my experience almost noone checks those for fear of looking desperate to their other friends.
Very good point - dating has so much to do with social perceptions. For a stand-alone dating site, there is a serious problem here: people might not want to contact suggested 'matches' out of fear of appearing creepy (this may be subject to local customs though, at least to a certain extent?).
Tthis is why social networks are especially suitable for adding dating - you can add a simple "are you open to dating approaches?"-setting, which is hidden from view; a private setting used only for the dating functionality of the social network. Do you think that would help?
Could be wrong here, but I doubt most people would enable that setting even if they might actually be open to such a thing. In the same way people don't check the "Can we contact you for feedback on our site" checkboxes etc.
Dating is a really really touchy subject when there are friends in the mix as well. That's the great thing about dating sites, they are completely removed from the rest of your social life.
I work for <insert really large internet company here>, and our dating site's user namespace is completely removed from the rest of the social sphere we've developed over our other properties, because in almost all cases, users don't want anything they do regarding online dating to be mixed with what they do elsewhere (This also applies to our online job site).
True, people won't check that, but there's another indicator: the relationship status. Nearly everyone keeps those up to date, especially if they actually use the site.
I always thought a good online dating site should have you _do_ stuff with somebody else. Like playing a game and chatting at the same time, or talking on a certain topic - stuff that would make initial interaction easier. I think this is more important then selecting your best partner, and then just giving you his/hers email address.
We lead a group of local singles through a guided introduction process where we pose a question each day. Everyone answers and can then rate and comment on all the other group members answers.
And we also allow you to signup with Facebook Connect.
What's your rationale behind your proposal to force users to do stuff? Is it to make initial conversation easier? Well, could be an icebreaker, that's true. Do you think it comes across as sincere intermediation or as some kind of forced thing both parties will rebel against?
think about a cocktail party. the host comes in, introduces everybody around. you meet new people, talk about stuff. generally a good host will tell you a little about the other people you haven't met, and say something like 'they'd be a good person to talk to about X', where x is some topic you know you have in common. most dating sites don't do this -- there are no introductions, no incentive to converse. you get to know/be comfortable/uncomfortable with people through interaction. a guided interaction is exactly what most online dating applications are missing.
It's a way to find out what kind of person your 'opponent' is and to get to know them, as well as to have fun, thus creating an emotional bond with them - a reason to 'see' them again. A short, goofy game, akin to a Mario Party or Wario Ware video game, would be perfect for this, I think.
I don't think "online dating" will ever work. Sexual attraction isn't about the kind of rational things you can communicate over our current, low-bandwidth digital connections. It is well and good to describe your personality with words and pictures, but in most cases it isn't enough. It might even be counterproductive for people who are unable to look good in a photograph.
The things described in the linked post (commonalities) are important parts of dating and attraction, but initial attraction is much more about the subtle things: Body language, subtle personality cues like clothing and hair style, all sorts of instant non-verbal communication, social proof etc. So either you have to remove these factors from the equation entirely (I can't really see how to do this) or you have to make an arena where they can be properly expressed.
This would mean, essentially, arranging real-life encounters where everybody has a decent chance at relaxing and being themselves. The thing is, nightclubs do a pretty good job at this already. The biggest solvable problem of nightclubs is differentiation; if you go to a nightclub you invariably meet the outgoing, confident, secure club crowd. It's always a high-pressure arena. But actually, relaxing and being yourself around strangers is pretty damn difficult as it is.
This is just the basic human part of the problem. But there are much deeper issues to think about. Sexuality and relationships are a very sore and difficult part of human nature, and it is never rational. There are chaotic, unmapped social issues here as well; for example a lot of women are interested in sex just for the physical thrill but have a huge social barrier against casual relationships. On the casual dating scene, this manifests itself as a series of games of playing hard-to-get, blaming alcohol for a successful one-night-stand, etc. I don't think anyone has the vaguest idea of all the other similar, irrational cultural norms that will bite you in the ass if you try to tame this problem.
Online dating is difficult because
+It is hard to convey your personality over an internet connection
+No one is able to tell you what you're doing wrong, since the rational and quantifiable part of dating is so small
+There are a lot of unmapped social and human behaviors that will fuck things up
Basically, I'd just try to tackle some difficult technical field instead. Human sexuality is too chaotic and hard to quantify.
However, I do like your idea of using an existing social network to bootstrap the thing. It is the best solution of the chicken/egg-problem I have heard.
arranging real-life encounters where everybody has a decent chance at relaxing and being themselves. The thing is, nightclubs do a pretty good job at this already
I don't know where you live but I've never been to a relaxing nightclub where everyone was encouraged to be themselves. In fact, it's almost the opposite: a loud stressful environment where everyone is dressed up and trying to be someone they aren't.
To meet women at a nightclub you are pretty much taking a shotgun approach. You need to have no shame and be the guy with the most cocaine. Online, you just need a decent photograph and a funny profile and the women will come to you.
You are absolutely right: you cannot ever completely take the whole matchmaking and dating and getting to know each other part of real life dating online.
But that is not the point I see in online dating. Online dating shall in my view replace the chance encounters, the host of the parties, the finding out about commonalities by going to the same sports event etc. Having a picture and some basic data will enable you to find some stuff to talk about -
afterwards people will probably tend to 'take it offline' anyway for all the reasons you gave.
Well, there are plenty of social dating apps on Facebook at the moment. :) so I guess the model works.
Making one cross network might not work so well: I wouldnt really see it working for, say, linkedin (too business oriented), Twitter (lack of info), Myspace (too young a crowd). Facebook would probably tend to be the target for this model.
"How it certainly doesn’t work is by going into a predefined building - sometimes even with an access fee - and only finding potential partners in there."
Actually, certain kinds of dating work exactly like this, and translate well to the online model. It's just that most people don't want to live that way.
Yeah, funny, I was thinking of a similar principle. However, mine is slightly different. You match people using collaborative filtering techniques based on your social network profile (bayesian filtering, for example. . .). Then you via gps on your cell phone. IE, if two likely matches happen to be geographically close to each other, the cell phone tells both of you "hey, you guys would be a good match . . . would you like to hook up at a nearby coffee place?". If both say yes, the cell phone will allow you to meet at a local coffee place (or whatever).
The point is is to have a weird excuse to interact briefly. Just by a brief encounter one can know if that person is his/her type.
Take a look at Zoosk for an example of your idea in action. It may not be a one for one to what you envisioned but they are using social networking applications to add users to a central dating site and seems to work fairly well.
"How it[real life] certainly doesn’t work is by going into a predefined building - sometimes even with an access fee - and only finding potential partners in there."
Sounds like the writer has never gone clubbing before ...
In other news, the writer has never used MySpace either (before it got hijacked by spammers)
Might very well be. But there might as well be a business model in simplyfying the process for them and making it a lot more efficient. What do you think?
I am new to HN, but Paul Graham had dating on his "ideas" list for startups he would like to fund, so I thought HN might be a good place to discuss it.