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TechCrunch talks about event and activities-driven social networking. The Craigslist comparisons are tired and off-base but this post is yet another indicator that people/singles are looking to connect on things other than favorite football team and the ability to “look good in a little black dress or jeans” which is the kind of statement which should be stricken from all personal ads from this point forward.
I am totally biased towards HeyLetsgo. I feel about them as I did about YouTube last year. I have a strong feeling it’s going to be the winner in the event-driven space. Call it a gut reaction, but after checking the other services my feelings were redoubled.
MatchActivity is interesting and looks good but there is not local flavor or personality, which will most likely be what hinders growth of the site.
Who’s Going is almost too much like a web service, not much to do but search for events. Paying for access at a dollar a pop will never fly. Reminds me of tourb.us. Not very useful on its own, but when in-lined with other sites, the value is much stronger. Plus I need another profile on another social site like I need a hole in the head.
Microsoft’s Cardspace should make this less of an issue next year when it rolls out with Vista. If you run a dating site and don’t have a lock on the opportunities Cardspace bring to the table, let’s talk. At least peruse the pundits and experts such as talk. At least peruse the pundits and experts such as Kim Cameron, who evangelizes Cardspace for Microsoft. I met Kim and many others in the online identity space this summer at the Harvard Identity Mashup. The people who spoke there outlined many different methods, technologies and use cases that mesh perfectly with many of the problems we see concerning identity, privacy, safety and effectiveness of online dating and social networking.
Big idea for the day: a Cardspace-enabled dating site which uses a person’s profile information on their card as their personal profile. You heard it here first.
Technorati Tags: cardspace, event+based+dating
Category:Social Networking Tags: social-networkingBlog reactions
3 responses so far ↓
1
relaxedguy (Check me out!)
// Oct 24, 2006 at 3:40 pm
John at Who’s Going asked me why I prefer Heyletsgo over the other sites.
My thoughts are as follows:
I prefer HLG due to the features and functionality and that gut feeling that makes me want to check HLG several times a day, the way I used to check in on Myspace. Who’s Going is positioned more as a web service than a destination, whereas HLG is a destination.
The whole idea of being picked to participate in an event offends me. Talk about starting out on the wrong foot. I don’t care about the details, you lost me and everyone else there.
I don’t like how events and people are displayed. Seems like little thought went into site usability.
No tags.
Kludgy search.
You ask what my birthday is.
No OpenID support.
Flash submit button!
Difficult to search in other cities.
The window for gaining traction in the events-based activities market is wide open at the moment, although in it’s current incarnation, Who’s Going has a long way to go to be able to capitalize on the opportunity lying at it’s feet.
2
John Wehr (Check me out!)
// Oct 24, 2006 at 4:50 pm
David-
Thanks for the update! We’re certainly listening.
Who’s Going is targeted at small, private events, like dates or activities like jogging. We decided to formalize the “choosing” process to give users additional tools. In this respect, Who’s Going is not at all like HeyLetsGo, which lists upcoming events open to the public.
A considerable amount of thought went into site usability, including substantial testing. For example, tags were left out by design. One of my previous ventures was very tag oriented, Tagalag, but our consensus was that they would not enhance the user experience.
Similarly, the buttons are large and colorful to indicate the most important function on each page. If a user does not have Flash, they degrade gracefully to normal HTML form elements.
I’m concerned about your notes on search. Any more information you or your readers might provide to let us know what you had trouble with would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks again for taking the time to give Who’s Going a closer look. I hope you’ll keep an eye on us as we add features and refine our model.
3
Yoni (Check me out!)
// Oct 25, 2006 at 5:18 pm
Great point Dave. We are adding really cool new localized features very soon… After all, there are only 24 hours a day:) So, singles who are attending specific events can find each other after the event is over. We are thinking of changing our tagline to: “MatchActivity - where people hook-up after the party!” What do you think?
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