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Master Skype mashup king Hans Blaauw has built a when2date, a dating site that integrates Skype and Rapleaf, a reputation management system I’m familiar with due to their partner status with Opinity, an identity management service provider I’m advising.
Rapleaf has also announced Rapleaf for Skype, a plug-in that embeds your reputation score into Skype. Useful if you want to know more about the person you are speaking with.
The focus on rate-a-date sites has been heating up in 06. The reason I know this is because investors have been contacting me to find out more about various sites.
Even though Rapleaf is not focused on dating, I have a feeling they are going to run away with the reputation market, flip the company for a princely sum and leave everyone else standing around trying to figure out what just happened.
It’s easier to add reputation features for a specific market like dating while building up a head of steam with high-traffic partners than the other way around.
Of course a lot can happen between market-building and pricing out yachts. My gut tells me that first-mover advantage, great team and proximity to Silicon Valley is going to work in Rapleaf’s favor.
Technorati Tags: identity, online dating, reputation, skype
Category:Dating Sites Tags: Dating-SiteBlog reactions
2 responses so far ↓
1
relaxedguy (Check me out!)
// Sep 5, 2006 at 5:49 pm
Looks like when2date integrates with other well-known innovative and popular services like Skype, Flickr, Rapleaf, Nabaztag, Edgeio, Lastfm and Mappedup:
It struck me that not many of the current dating sites have integrations with other popular services like for example Flickr. You would expect that after finding a match on a dating service you could just view other information about this person available in other services. In our new world of blogs, photo services and music services there is a lot of information already out there. This is where when2date comes into the picture, we believe in people dating other people that have the same taste or have experienced the same things in life.
Finding a match on certain keywords or tags is just one part of finding someone that meets your requirements. Using other services to browse photos (Flickr), see a reputation (Rapleaf) or even listen to the same music (Lastfm) makes the experience complete. And of course this is all optional, a dater does not need to share all the info.
Besides finding a match the next phase is always about communication. You found what you want and now you want to get in touch. when2date really has powerful features for this. The service has its own Flash chat system, instant messenger and above all support for Skype calls and chat. “BlueNow has a very long background in developing tools for Skype and adding this to our dating service makes a lot of sense
Last but not least when2date added two unique features so members can extent their audience. By adding support for Edgeio (classified ads) and Mappedup the service enables members to share their profile on more platforms.
2
Vivek Sodera (Check me out!)
// Sep 18, 2006 at 5:05 pm
Hey Dave,
Just happen to come across your blog. I’m part of the “great team” at Rapleaf.
When2Date is a great company and we’re excited to be partnering with them.
We do hope to dominate the reputation market but we’re not looking to sell our company anytime in the near or distant future (just to clarify). We plan on building a stand-alone company that persists for a long, long time.
Other than that, thanks for your commentary/feedback. We really appreciate it.
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